The Status of Research on Representative Institutions in Eastern Europe

A substantial increase in attention in recent years to socialist representative institutions in Eastern Europe reflects their changing and cautiously expanding political roles, resulting partly from their use by the communist party as a means of social control over what is seen as an increasingly unruly state bureaucracy. Representative institutions are involved in what has become a more complex process of governance, and in what some Western writers see as increasingly strident interinstitutional struggles for claims to political legitimacy. The future keys to the roles of socialist representative institutions include the extent to which: (1) the party maintains close control over personnel selection for representative bodies; (2) institutional identity and interests may develop among members of representative institutions; (3) group interests coalesce and seek institutional expression; (4) the state apparatus continues to demonstrate tendencies toward contrived insulation from the party apparatus; and (5) failures of economic ministries necessitate legislative oversight. This essay also briefly characterizes the methodology of recent studies, and suggests how future research on socialist representative institutions might profitably be reoriented

Geography · Political science · Regional science · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · European Union Policy and Governance · Social Policy and Reform Studies

• The parliamentary infrastructure and political reforms in Hungary

  Barnabas Racz•Soviet Studies•1989

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• Legislative Careers

  Open Access•John R Hibbing•Legislative Studies Quarterly•1999

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• Party and Factional Organization in Legislatures

  Open Access•D Brady, David W Brady et al.•Legislative Studies Quarterly•1983

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• Survey Research and Public Attitudes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union

  John P Robinson, William A Welsh•Contemporary Sociology A Journal…•1984

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