ABSTRACT
After a decade and more of post-communist politics in eastern Europe reasonably strong and politically vibrant parties have developed in some countries, although such growth has by no means been uniform throughout the region. Party development has been particularly weak in some countries (Ukraine is an obvious example), and parties have faced major obstacles to growth as autonomous forces, where authoritarian tendencies have remained strong in states such as Belarus and Serbia. Even in east-central Europe, where party development has been more robust and party government has put down stronger roots, parties show several major weaknesses. They generally have fewer members and a lower level of regular support among the electorate than those in established western democracies, formal structures are quite weakly developed and the parties have little in the way of an organizational presence in local areas, while political identities are often diffuse and factional tendencies still strong in recently established parties.
