Allan Sikk is an Associate Professor in Comparative Politics at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London. His research focuses on European electoral and party politics, research methods, and political and social transformation in Central and Eastern Europe. His work has been published in journals including the European Journal of Political Research and Party Politics, and in edited volumes from Oxford University Press and Routledge. Philipp Köker is a Lecturer and Research Fellow in the Department of Political Science, Leibniz University Hannover. His research focuses on presidential politics, political parties and elections, and comparative constitutional law. He is the author of Presidential Activism and Veto Power in Central and Eastern Europe (Palgrave, 2017) and of contributions to Democratization, East European Politics, Party Politics, the Review of Central and East European Law, and The Oxford Handbook of Polish Politics, among others.
Featuring a new database, an innovative theoretical framework, and fascinating findings that may well change the way we think about parties, old and new, this is a great book-and one that will repay reading by scholars of Western and Eastern Europe alike. * Tim Bale, Professor of Politics and International Relations, Queen Mary University of London * Party People: Candidates and Party Evolution is a remarkable book in so many ways. Through the study of 200,000 party candidates in nine countries in Central and Eastern Europe, Sikk and Köker are able to trace the dynamics and manifestations of party change as a perpetual and multidimensional process, and its consequences for party system evolution. With an exciting new dataset on candidates, the book traces a wide range of aspects of party evolution: party entries and exits, fissions and fusions, and the connections with existing parties of new challenger parties. The result is a major piece of Comparative Politics research that contributes to both theoretical reflection and empirical knowledge and that is a must-read for anyone and everyone interested in understanding party politics. * Laura Morales,, Professor of Comparative Politics, Sciences Po *