ABSTRACT
Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is characterised by strong parliamentary government, fairly high levels of intra-executive conflict in those countries that adopted semi-presidential systems, fragmented party systems, and high government turnover. This chapter focuses on institutional design and discusses the early literature on constitutional design and succeeding work on development of related institutions including party systems, the dual executive, and cabinets. It also discusses literature on legislative institutionalisation, especially as it concerns professionalisation of members of parliament, development of internal structures such as party councils and committees, and the impact of European Union conditionality. The chapter presents a puzzle – given the relative similarity in institutional design of countries in CEE, that why there is significant variation in legislative performance. Although most studies of intra-executive conflict examine the causes of conflict, Thomas Sedelius and J. Ekman find that such conflict is itself a significant predictor of cabinet instability.
