Central European University Press Poles Together?: The Emergence and Development of Political Parties in Postcommunist Poland

By shedding light on an important aspect of the process of democratic transition in the region, the book offers broader conclusions about the process of East European party development and contributes towards the conception of a post-Communist political party model Review Szczerbiak's critical assessment of the usefulness of mainstream party literature in the Polish context places his work above and beyond the many books and articles whose authors labour bending the post-communist political reality to fit more or less elaborate foreign constructs... He managed to get to quite extraordinary sources.--Europe-Asia Studies Although Aleks Szczerbiak's book is a single country study, its breadth and depth of coverage and scholarly sophistication make it of a wider interest for anyone concerned with the subject not only in Central and Eastern Europe, but also in other (emerging) democratic political systems.--Party Politics A distinctive and original publication that makes an important contribution to the understanding of contemporary Central and East European politics.--Paul G. Lewis Poles Together? analyses the post-communist development of political parties in Poland by making use of general models of party development that have been primarily based on the experience of Western Europe. In approaching the subject this way it moves refreshingly beyond the approach taken by usual country studies.--Gordon Smith About the Author Aleks Szczerbiak is Professor of Politics and Contemporary European Studies at the University of Sussex. He is currently Director of Doctoral Studies for Law, Politics and Sociology and was Co-Director of the Sussex European Institute (SEI) from 2006-14.