Career
In respect to Eastern Europe, Kitschelt argues that patterns of party competition in post-communist states - and the extent to which they are structured in programmatic (as opposed to clientelistic) termsare produced by legacies of different forms of communist rule, which in turn reflect pre-communist social and state structures. Kitschelt and his co-authors accept, however, that institutional arrangements will start to gain importance over time and may be crucial in strengthening the process of party system development. His more recent writing focuses on issues of party-society links, patronage and clientelism.