Maria Spirova, "Political Parties in Bulgaria: Organizational Trends in Comparative Perspective," Party Politics, 11 (September, 2005), 601-622.

First Paragraph:
Exploring trends in organizational development has a long tradition in the study of political parties. In addition to classifying parties based on their organizational characteristics, scholars have sought to explain the genesis of organizational types and speculated on the impact of emerging organizational trends on the role of parties in a democratic political system. There appears to be a consensus that in recent decades the mass party has been in decline and has been superseded by alternative models of party organization (Katz and Mair, 1995; Kirchheimer, 1966; Panebianco, 1988).

Figures and Tables:
Table 1. Bulgarian parliamentary election results, 1990&endash;2001
Table 2. Bulgarian party membership as of 2002&endash;03
Table 3. Membership/electorate ratios in Bulgaria and selected other countries
Table 4. Membership/voters ratios in Bulgaria, 2002&endash;03
Table 5. Party system indicators for Bulgaria and selected other East European countries

First Paragraph of Conclusion:
Overall, the Bulgarian political parties exhibit a higher level of organizational development than parties in the more commonly studied systems of Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic. Bulgarian parties have higher membership figures, more extensive structures, lower levels of professionalization, and their leaders show more positive attitudes towards building organization as an election-winning strategy. This study has suggested two reasons for this Bulgarian exception to the general trend of post-communist party development: the bigger role played by the 'successor' party in Bulgarian politics and the sequence of local and national elections.