ABSTRACT
The party systems in East-Central Europe (ECE) have emerged under a series of dual pressures from inside and outside. This chapter explores how Europeanisation, as both promotion of democracy and requirement of multilevel governance, has influenced in this specific regional framework the process of party-building in ECE. It analyses the three stages, namely anticipative, adaptive and post-accession, and characterises both ECE parties and party systems in this historical sequence. The ECE countries have turned their economic deficits into social deficits by imposing drastic reductions in public services such as health care, education and social security, and they have turned these into political deficit by social exclusion and marginalisation. European Union membership unleashes party competition for elaborating the national strategy, based around the contrasting social preferences and value systems of the different ECE parties. Party competition seems to be sharpening in the EP and this could lead to an increase in polarisation of the parties inside the ECE countries as well.
