On the theory and practice of party formation and adaptation in new democracies

. In addressing issues of party development in contemporary democracies, many of the recent discussions confuse notions of party formation with those of party adaptation. The contention of this article is that the conceptual confusion of these two distinct processes undermines our understanding of party development, which is of particular importance in the context of the more recently established democracies. Moreover, in order to contribute to theory building on political parties more generally, it is necessary to differentiate between the two. This article offers some theoretical contours for the study of party formation and development, and empirically evaluates the patterns of organizational development in some of the newer democracies in Southern and East‐Central Europe. The analysis shows that the external context of party formation has encouraged these parties to adopt an organizational style largely resembling their contemporary counterparts in the older democracies. However, despite the resemblance between party organizations in the older liberal democracies and the newly established ones, the paths of party development are best understood as processes sui generis. The historical uniqueness of parties emerging as strong movements of society, as opposed to agents of the state, is a path that is unlikely to be repeated in contemporary polities which democratize in a different institutional context.