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E x p l a i n i ng C e n t e r - R i gh t D e f e at s
fragmented nature of the right. He rightly suggests that none of these can exhaustively
explain the phenomenon, and that a combination of these reasons would probably ac-
count best.
This is a typical treatment of the topic throughout this book and altogether, the most
quoted reasons for reverses of the center-right parties cited here can be grouped into the
following clusters:
• The first one relates to
governing
. It incorporates
painful reforms
, their social impact
and the resulting negative influence on the mood of electorates, as well as the reac-
tion of those in government when reforms backfire on their popularity. It also includes
questions of political and
moral conduct
of those in power, namely problems of ar-
rogance, alienation from the people and corruption.
Political organization for those in
government,
including
coalition government,
is also a part of this cluster.
• The second cluster of reasons is linked to
parties themselves
. It takes account of their
problems with internal
party organization
,
ideological exhaustion
and crisis and phe-
nomena such as highly personalized conflicts and
infighting
.
• A separate group of reasons related to both governments and parties, which may well
be a result or a composite effect of the previous two groups, is their
failure, or even un-
willingness, to communicate with society
, their poor
public relations
and misguided
electoral campaigns
.
In reality this division may seem to be a bit artificial, as governing, party, and communica-
tion-related reasons for the right’s decline in office more often than not act in a complex
interplay. It is therefore difficult to give an account of, let us say, political incoherence
without taking into account impaired party organization and ideological crises. We, how-
ever, believe this breakdown is convenient for the sake of explanation.
Mistakes in Governing
In the group of the governing-related factors,
painful reforms
have a dual impact on the
fates of the governments that undertake them. They determine the moods of an electorate
that often feels pauperized and less secure in cases when governments did act responsi-
bly, taking unpopular measures such as cutting subsidies and services and implementing
privatization. They also affect the ruling reformers. As they realize there is hardly any
chance that positive consequences of reforms will manifest themselves before the forth-
coming elections, they tend to hesitate to engage in selling reforms to public and defend-
ing them from critics.
The impact of reform policies hit the popularity of the ruling right in practically all the
countries under study, especially in Bulgaria, Lithuania and Poland, as the latter went
through a series of the four major structural reforms. Popularity setbacks were followed
by communication paralysis, which resulted in a vicious circle.
The Slovak example, however, shows that there is no inevitability in this respect. The Slo-
vak government after 1998 certainly did introduce economic reforms that met with the
resistance of the population. However, they never became sufficient reasons to vote the
government out of power. One of the reasons is that the economic reforms undertaken
were not that radical. Their reach and depth was checked by the leftist element in the coali-
