Kształtowanie się kategorii rodzin partyjnych w Czechach, Polsce, Słowacji i na Węgrzech w perspektywie 25 lat demokratyzacji

Abstract

The article presents the process of development of political parties in selected countriesof Central Europe and their relation to the category of party families. The analysis includesthe groupings, which gained the status of relevant parliamentary parties after 1989. It isdivided into three time periods: the year 1989; first and second parliamentary elections;finally, the year 2004 and the last decade. In the first period, parties were only starting toshape their structures, and their family adherence was often only conventional. The secondperiod sees a greater level of party institutionalization, as well as the increase of the leveland scope of their affiliation with basic party families. During the last decade, we canobserve a full representation of basic party families on domestic political scenes of CzechRepublic, Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary, varying only by the level of public support