The development of stable partisan commitments among political elites is crucial for party-system institutionalization in the new democracies of post-communist Europe. Little is known, however, about the partisan behavior of those who compete for national office. This study begins to fill this gap through an analysis of inter-party mobility among all candidates who ran for the lower house of parliament in two pairs of consecutive elections in Poland (1991–3 and 1993–7) and in three pairs of consecutive elections in the Czech Republic (1990–2, 1992–6 and 1996–8). We consider the overall extent of inter-party mobility, structural versus voluntary components of mobility, patterns of movement between types of parties and electoral payoffs of stable and shifting partisan affiliations. Although the overall rate of party-switching has declined substantially in the Czech Republic but not in Poland, changes in other characteristics of inter-party mobility indicate that party-system institutionalization is taking place in both countries.
How do fluid party systems that exist in many new democracies affect democratic accountability? To address this question, the authors analyze a new database of all legislative incumbents and all competitive elections that took place in Poland since 1991. They find that when district-level economic outcomes are bad, voters in that country punish legislators from a governing party and reward legislators from an opposition party. As a result, electoral control in Poland works through political parties just as it does in mature democracies. However, the authors also find that, in contrast to mature democracies, legislators from a governing party tend to switch to an opposition party when the economy in their district deteriorates. When they do so, their chances of reelection are better than those of politicians who remained loyal to governing parties and are no worse than those of incumbents who ran as opposition party loyalists. These empirical results suggest that while elections in new democracies function as a mechanism of political control, fluid party systems undermine the extent to which elections promote democratic accountability.
Do perceptions of political party corruption play a significant role in vote choice? More specifically, is intention to vote for a specific party influenced by perceptions of corruption of that party, as well as by perceptions of the degree of corruption of competing parties? To determine whether perceptions of political party corruption matter at all for voters' preferences, we propose a party choice model in which we estimate the influence of perceptions of corruption of each party, net of other variables, on vote intention. We focus on Poland, and use data from the Polish Panel survey, POLPAN, 1988POLPAN, -2008 Our analyses indicate that perceptions of political party corruption have an effect on the decision to participate in elections, on intention to vote for a particular party and on vote choice regardless of which party is chosen. Assessments of party malfeasance matter even when other determinants of the vote are considered.
The basic premise of this article is that, contrary to the tabula rasa hypothesis, individuals in the new democracies of post-Communist Eastern Europe have been able to form meaningful political identities even under conditions of great fluidity and uncertainty. These identities are expressed through the pattern of voting choices that individuals make during successive elections. The authors based their analysis on a 1993 panel survey of a national sample of the adult Polish population first interviewed in 1988. They show that when political identity is conceptualized in a dynamic manner, the majority of the Polish electorate exhibit patterns of electoral choice that conform well to interpretable types of political identity. Such political identities are shaped by social group memberships and individuals' experiences under communism. These identities, in turn, shape individuals' orientations toward crucial issues related to the systemic transformation of their society.
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