Thirty years have passed since the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). This brought on the

unprecedented challenge of simultaneously establishing democratic institutions, building market economies and often creating new nation-states. Researchers have made great strides in understanding processes of institution-building, policy-making and the tensions between historical legacies and the challenges of post-communism in CEE. Countless scholars have comparatively analyzed the evolution of formal political and electoral institutions as well as the impact of Europeanization on institutio ns and policy-making.

Observers have been equally captivated by how civil society makes its voice heard vis-à-vis the state and policy-makers. There has been a longstanding consensus that civil society is weak in the region due to lasting legacy of civic oppression . Under communism, civic movements were essentially fomented by the party state, while communism parties turned organized interests into their own appendages. Although communist regimes indeed promoted a variety of civic organizations – from sports associations to youth movements – participation was generally state-regulated and mandatory. Other independent alternatives were either marginalized or outlawed. The same holds for political parties: communist systems provided little to no leeway for partisan organizations to operate outside the umbrella of communist monopoly parties. As a result, CEE transition countries initially suffered from constrained “civic infrastructures”. Hence, the defining features of post-communist civil society were low membership levels in political parties, low participation in associational life, low trust and weak consultative procedures.

The proposed project contributes to the small body of literature on the relationships between interest groups and political parties, while advancing knowledge on post-communist civil society and governance. We tackle three overarching research questions centered around population ecology, ideological spaces of representation and strategic interactions between interest groups and political parties.
First, we explore how populations of organized interestshave evolved in CEE, in particular, in the context of democratic backsliding. After having mapped out the interest group landscape in terms of numbers, size, type and foundation dates of organizations, we address the ideological spacesthat organized interests occupy. Do they overlap with those of political parties? Do they seek to fill in gaps abandoned by political parties? Has there been an alignment or de-alignment of organized interests and political parties in the phase of “democratic backsliding”? Third, we are interested in the strategic interactionsbetween interest groups and parties. How frequent and institutionalized are their interactions? What factors motivate cooperation between organized interests and political parties?

Hypothesis 1: Interest groups and political parties will experience closer cooperation in political systems characterized by weaker lobbying and electoral finance laws
Hypothesis 2: In more corporatist countries, interest groups will lobby governments more frequently than political parties, whereas in more pluralist constellations the ties between parties and interest groups will be more intense.
Hypothesis 3: Interest groups with greater resources (i.e., financial, expertise-related and network-related via umbrella organizations) will experience closer cooperation with political parties.
Hypothesis 4a: Interest groups dependent on national government and government administered EU funds will collaborate more frequently with governing political parties.
Hypothesis 4b: In countries experiencing democratic backsliding, governments will use funds to nurture interest groups aligned with their agenda.
Hypothesis 5a: Interest groups with greater longevity will experience closer cooperation with political parties.
Hypothesis 5b: However, following Gallai et al. (2015) we expect variations in interest groups‟ strategies towards political parties based on the period of founding, with communist era organizations concentrating directly on regulatory agencies and the government, and informal connections, whereas post-communist organizations pursue more formal and neutral advocacy strategies towards political parties.
Hypothesis 6: Mainstream governing parties will be consulted by interest groups more intensively than other parties due to their political power.
Hypothesis 7: Interest groups will engage more frequently with parties with greater representation in parliament.
Hypothesis 8: Interest groups collaborate more intensively with parties with which they are ideologically aligned.

The countries we selected for analysis are the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. They share numerous broader features (e.g., high value-added manufacturing export sectors, relatively high social expenditure, EU members since 2004, etc.), but differ starkly on four decisive variables when it comes to interest group politics – electoral campaign finance, lobbying regulations economic coordination and strength of civil society. The Czech Republic is a highly open market economy with privately funded elections and weaker lobbying regulations (Šimral, 2015). Poland also is a relatively weakly coordinated, liberal market economy, but – unlike the Czech Republic – elections are publicly funded, and lobbying regulations are more extensive (McGrath, 2008). Slovakia is the most market-liberal country in the sample having undergone a thorough neoliberal restructuring of its welfare state, tax system, industrial policy and collective bargaining system (Duman & Kureková, 2012; O‟Dwyer & Kovalčík, 2007). Parties are publicly funded and donations from private companies are forbidden (Bértoa et al., 2014). Lobbying is not regulated by law as in the past decade all attempts at regulation failed (Kwiatkowski et al., 2016). Slovenia exhibits the highest level of market coordination and corporatism in CEE (Avdagic, 2005; Jahn, 2016). Yet market coordination generally takes place outside the state‟s orbit. Regulatory controls over lobbying, party funding and electoral campaigns are comparatively weak, hence making it a polar opposite case to Poland.