The ‘Europeanization’ of Eastern Central European Party Systems

The study of the interactions between European integration and national party systems is a fast developing research field. 1 This is so in spite of the fact that national political institutions tend to be resilient to the transformational effects of integration2 and many scholars accept Peter Mair’s dictum that party systems are ‘most impervious to change’. 3 There is a growing body of dissenters who claim that the range of EU effects on parties has been larger and deeper than is normally described.