Benjamin von dem Berge is a researcher at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES) at the University of Mannheim in Germany. The main focus of his research is on political parties and party systems with an emphasis on European integration and transition processes. Thomas Poguntke is Professor of Comparative Politics at the Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf and Director of ... Read morethe Düsseldorf Party Research Institute (PRuF) in Germany. He has previously held chairs at the universities of Keele, Birmingham and Bochum. He was series editor of numerous publications. Peter Obert is a research assistant at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES) at the University of Mannheim in Germany. His main research focus is on political parties and political participation in particular with regard to Central and Eastern Europe. Diana Tipei was a research assistant at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES) at the University of Mannheim in Germany. Her research focus was on theory-led content analysis and Eastern European political parties. Show Less