ABSTRACT
Most comparative frameworks explaining the emergence of centre-right parties in post-communist Europe, and national variations among them, stress broad structural and historical factors. Lack of social support for communism in such semi-modern societies, Kitschelt argues, created weak 'national-accommodalionist' ruling parties, whose successors initiated and embraced economic reform after 1989, blurring the socio-economic dimension of left-right competition. The actions and decisions of political actors at moments of uncertainty and indeterminacy can be seen as shaping patterns of party development for many years to come. In post-communist politics, such critical junctures have often been identified as occurring in and after the period of transition in 1989-90. At the time of writing, centre-right formations are in a period of electoral retreat in many Central and Eastern European states.
