Research
My dissertation examines the process of legislative party institutionalization in new democracies. Legislative parties are largely absent from discussions of party institutionalization within the existent literature on parties and party systems; however, the ability of legislative political parties to become institutionalized directly affects the success of newly established democracies by fostering governmental performance and stability and ensuring greater representation and accountability. By drawing upon the literature on organizational culture, I develop a theory that argues legislative parties institutionalize when party leaders create, and legislators subsequently adopt, party culture, or the rules and norms guiding a party’s behavior within the legislature. I employ a multi-method approach to test the theory, combining both an in-depth examination of legislative parties in Poland with a more broadly comparative study of new democracies in East/Central Europe. First, drawing upon in-depth interviews I conducted with parliamentary deputies and other top party officials, I find that leaders of Poland’s legislative parties have taken steps to establish party culture. Second, based on data from two surveys of parliamentarians (one of which I was involved in designing and administering) and an original dataset of roll call votes, I conclude that legislators themselves have by and large adopted the culture established by party leaders, although variation exists across parties, issues, and time. Lastly, I will rely on existing studies of legislative parties in the Czech Republic and Hungary to examine the process of legislative party institutionalization in comparative context.