Internal Organisation of Post-Communist Parliaments over Two Decades: Leadership, Parties, and Committees

ISSN： 1357-2334

Source： Journal of Legislative Studies, Vol.17, Iss.2, 2011-06, pp. : 193-214

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Abstract

This article presents an analysis of parliamentary leadership, party, and committee structures in seven post-communist parliaments: Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Russia, Slovenia, and Ukraine. The study examines the similarities and differences between these parliaments in the distribution of power in and among these organisational structures. Legislatures in parliamentary systems seem less prone to conflicts than legislatures in presidential systems. Legislatures in which new political elites exhibit continuity of old Soviet elites experience higher levels of conflict than those without such a connection. At the end of the second post-communist decade, key factors which may explain these institutional developments lie in the constitutional system, parliamentary rules and procedures, and continuity of political elites.