Searching for voting patterns in post-communist Poland's sejm elections

THEFIRSTDECADE OFPOST-COMMUNISTELECTIONS ANDVOTING: What Have We Studied, and How Have We Studied It?

“…Two articles address this in a comparative vein, and both conclude that the key explanatory variable in distinguishing between the relative success of post-communist parties across countries is the nature of the party itself and the type of strategy it pursues (Mahr & Nagle 1995, Ishiyama 1997. The same point is emphasized in singlecountry studies of the post-communist Party of Democratic Socialism in Germany (Olsen 1998) and Party of the Democratic Left in Poland (Curry 1995); see Wade et al (1995) for a more demographic-based approach. In the Russian context, the debate often concerns whether the success of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation really represents a preference for a return to communism or whether the party has managed to morph itself into something new (Tsipko 1996, Urban 1996.…”

“…20 Many have chosen to look toward traditional socioeconomic cleavages such as urban/rural splits, generational effects, and class (Kopstein & Richter 1992;Clem & Craumer 1995cWyman et al 1995;Szelenyi et al 1997;Moser 1999b). Other scholars have looked beyond socioeconomic considerations to cleavages based on factors such as geography (Wade et al 1995, Hough 1998, ethnicity (Birch 1995), center-periphery conflict (Wyman et al 1995, O'Loughlin et al 1996, degree of religiosity (Jasiewicz 1993), and a contemporary-versus-traditional conflict (Gershanok 1996). Some studies have also addressed a cleavage that may be peculiar to transition countries, which is the attitude of voters toward political and economic reform , Powers & Cox 1997, Shabad & Slomczynski 1999.…”

Electoral Participation, Ideology, and Party Politics in Post-Communist Europe

“…As the transition from communism continues across Europe, scholarly attention remains focused on several closely related issues. Both country-specific and cross-national analyses examine the forces that drive mass participation and electoral choice in an environment where they are no longer mandated by the state (Bahry and Way 1994;Heyns and Bialecki 1991;Millard 1992;Pacek 1994;Powers and Cox 1997;Sakwa 1995;Wade, Lavelle and Groth 1995;Whitefield and Evans 1994). Scholars also continue to assess the determinants of the electoral success of the ex-communist and other successor parties (Haraszti 1995;Ishiyama 1995;Mahr and Nagle 1995;Moraski and Loewenberg 1999;Rose 1997;Zubek 1994).…”

Twenty years after 1989: moving on from transitology

“…A number of academic articles have sought to critically outline subjects, such as: the evolution of the Polish party-system since 1989 (Baylis 1994, Millard 1994c, Marody 1995; the voting patterns in the 1991 and 1993 parliamentary elections (Millard 1994b, Wade et al 1995; and the reshaping of Poland's administrative bureaucracy since the end of Communist rule (Wiatr 1995). Most of these case-studies have focused on the lack of consensus among the multitude of new political parties that acquired their seats at the post-Communist Sejm (i.e.…”