Social Democratic Parties in the Visegrad Countries

This book provides an in-depth analysis of the social democratic parties in the four member states of the so-called "e;Visegrad Group"e;- Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. The timeline spans the last two decades, which saw the parties in question come to power, govern and collapse. The case studies of all four countries are structured in the same way, offering: explanation of the historical background (including electoral results), analyses of the context, structures, membership and voters; evaluation of the programmes and hypotheses for potential future trajectories. Given the European relevance of the topic, the fifth chapter provides a comparative analysis, with a handful of explanations as to why Visegrad Group countries have proved to be tough partners in European integration processes.