How much opposition? Political fragmentation and changes in democracy.

To what extent is political fragmentation associated with changes in democracy? The article uses the European integration process of ten Central and East European democracies to argue that political fragmentation is distinctly related to changes in democracy, depending on whether it is the government or opposition that is fragmented. Moreover, this association is mitigated by EU conditionality in the integration process. The paper tests the argument through the use of time-series cross-sectional data. The findings illustrate the importance of opposition fragmentation as an essential factor in explaining changes in democracy. In conclusion, the article draws attention to the understudied literature on opposition fragmentation by highlighting the theoretical implications of the findings for comparative politics and European integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]