The clever use of passion: military methods in changing the style of government

Abstract

This communication focuses on the relations between the national party leaderships and the party parliamentary groups and/or governments in the relatively new democracies in Southern and Eastern Europe. The author's analysis reveals that, although the executive positions within the party are very much in the hand of public office holders, contrary to all expectations it is not the parliamentary group and/or the government but the national leadership of the governing party that plays the dominant role. It would seem that the party organisations in these young democracies are to a large extent controlled from a small power centre located somewhere in the extraparliamentary circles of the party in parliament or and/or in government. This phenomenon can probably be better explained as a mechanism for increasing party cohesion and diminishing the potentially destabilising effects resulting from a general context of underdeveloped party loyalties and a general lack of party institutionalisation.