"This is a major contribution to the new literature on party formation and political competition in post-communist Europe. Maria Spirova combines sophisticated institutional analysis with grounded empirical research in a broad-ranging study of party organization and party strategies in open and often highly competitive electoral markets. Building from a close analysis of the Bulgarian and Hungarian cases, and distinguishing between ... Read morefactors that shape parties and those that shape party systems, she offers new evidence and new insights into the question of why parties form, and why they choose particular electoral strategies." - Peter Mair, European University Institute, Florence"This book represents a significant new contribution to the burgeoning literature on political parties in post-communist countries. The book will be essential reading to comparative politics scholars interested in the formation of political parties and their electoral strategies." - Petr Kopecký, Leiden University"The book is theoretically and methodologically sophisticated, well designed and well written." - Grigorii Golosov, European University at St. Petersburg Show Less