MPs in Post-Communist and Post-Soviet Nations: A Parliamentary Elite in the Making

This article examines the formation of a new representative elite in nine post-communist parliaments through data on the composition of the parliaments and processes of professionalisation. Both inter- and intra-parliamentary differences in Central and Eastern Europe are identified. There is partial parliamentary elite convergence between the new and the more established European democracies. Developments among the members of parliament provide strong indicators of the stability of the new parliaments and the new institutional order.