Herbert P. Kitschelt (born June 16, 1955) is a political science scholar and George V. Allen Professor of International Relations at Duke University, North Carolina.
Kitschelt's key intellectual contribution is arguably his redefinition of the competitive space for political parties in Western Europe.
He was also one of the first scholars to systematically study the rise of Green parties in Europe, which he understood as a form of 'left-libertarian' politics.
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) terms- are 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.