Introduction

Competitive political parties have been one of a key determinant of political change and in the institutionalization of democracy in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe (Lewis 2000). An understanding of this process requires analysis of the party systems as well as individual political parties, including their organization (Kopecký 2006; Rybář 2006), stability (Haughton 2014a; Bakke and Sitter 2013), causes of emergence and dissolution (Haughton and Deegan-Krause 2015), relationships with the state (Haughton 2008), and how they have been impacted by EU accession (Vachudova 2008; Henderson 2009; Haughton 2014b).

In the case of post-communist democracies, many political leaders usually do not consider party organization as important pre-condition for the success of parties in elections. For party competition and success in elections media campaigns, strong and visible leaders, and patronage are more relevant. However, party organization appears to be important to the successful establishment and long-term survival of parties (Tavits 2013; Haughton and Deegan-Krause 2015). Previous studies examining the organization of political parties in Slovakia (Rybář 2004, 2006, 2011a; Lášticová and Malová 2013) reveal their elite-created and centralized organizations. This scholarship as well emphasizes parties’ financial dependency on the state, minimal number of members, weak linkages with society and organized interests, including underdeveloped territorial organizations. New trends in development of parties, in particular the emergence of anti-establishment protest parties (Hanley and Sikk 2016; Haughton and Deegan-Krause 2015) have just confirmed these tendencies. Thus political parties in Slovakia are organizationally much weaker than their western counterparts.

This chapter aims to characterize the state of party organization in Slovakia by providing a more detailed description of the structure and functioning of parties represented in the national Parliament during the 2010–2016 legislative term.

Political Position, Legal Framework, and Basic Features of Political Parties in Slovakia

Given the PR electoral system with a closed party list, political parties are the dominant political actors in Slovakia. Slovakia has applied proportional representation since the first parliamentary elections after the fall of the communist regime. Key parameters of the electoral system were stabilized in the 1990s. There have since been few – but important – changes.