Learning to Choose: Electoral Politics in East-Central Europe 9780804780902

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LEARNING TO

CHOOSE

LEARNING TO CHOOSE Electoral Politics in East-Central Europe

HUBERT TWORZECKI

STANFORD

UNIVERSITY

Stanford, California

PRESS

Stanford University Press Stanford, California

© 2003 by the Board ofTrustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tworzecki, Hubert. Learning to choose : electoral politics in East-Central Europe I Hubert Tworzecki. p. em. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN o-8047-4407-6 (cloth : alk paper) I. Elections-Europe, Eastern-History. 2. Europe, Eastern-Politics and government-1989- I. Title. JN96.A956 T95 2002 324' .0943-dc21 Original Printing 2003 Last figure below indicates year of this printing: 12 II 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 Typeset by BookMatters in ulr4Adobe Garamond

2002008538

ToMarzena

A companion Web site to this book, http:/ /www.ee-voter.net, provides a comprehensive set of election results, as well as analyses supplementing those included in the text. Aggregate-level election data, based on official government sources, can be accessed by country, year, and political party, and can be displayed in table, chart, or map format. Survey-based analyses of vote determinants for each political party are also available, and may be displayed and compared in a variety of ways.

CONTENTS

List ofTables and Figures Acknowledgments PART ONE

X1

INTRODUCTION

§

I

Party Systems and New Democracies

§

2

Rules, Actors, and Outcomes

PART TWO

VU1

3 42

THE PUBLIC MIND

§3

The Structure of Mass Opinion

§4

Political Tendencies

I02

§5

Parties in the Public Eye

I32

PART THREE

77

VOTING

§6

Electoral Turnout

I 59

§7

Individual-Level Determinants ofVoting

I75

§8

Aggregate-Level Factors: Locality and Voting Behavior

209

Conclusions

234

Notes

249

Bibliography

259

Index

LIST

OF TABLES AND

FIGURES

TABLES

I.r. p. 3.2. 4·1. 4.2. 4·3· 4·4· 5.1. 5.2. 5-3· 5-4· 5·5· 6.I. 6.2. 6.3. 6+ 7·1. 7.2. 7·3· 7·4· 7·5· 8.I. 8.2. 8.3.

Parliamentary election results for parties with 5 percent or more of the national vote Correlations between index variables and the left-right scale Factor analysis of ideological index variables Political tendencies Poland-regression analysis of political tendencies Hungary-regression analysis of political tendencies Czech Republic-regression analysis of political tendencies Distribution of party evaluations, by year of study Distribution of party evaluations, 1995 only, by level of education Poland-distribution of party evaluations, by individual party Hungary-distribution of party evaluations, by individual party Czech Republic-distribution of party evaluations, by individual party Turnout levels (%) in national elections, 1990-2ooo Self-reported electoral participation, 1995 Regression analysis of electoral participation Correlates of electoral turnout Retrospective economic assessments, personal and national Consistency in voting behavior (for parties and tendencies) Poland-logistic regression results for vote intention variables Czech Republic-logistic regression results for vote intention variables Hungary-logistic regression results for vote intention variables Poland -correlations between factor scores and socioeconomic indicators Poland-regional effects tests on factor scores Poland-1997 vote regressions

Vlll

6 98 roo 109 n6 124 128 134 136 139 145 151 r6o 164 r68 173 196 199 20! 204 206 220 22! 223

List of Tables and Figures 8+ 8.5. 8.6. 8.7. 8.8. 8.9.

Hungary-correlations between factor scores and socioeconomic indicators Hungary-regional effects tests on factor scores Hungary-1998 vote regressions Czech Republic-correlations between factor scores and socioeconomic indicators Czech Republic-regional effects tests on factor scores Czech Republic-1998 vote regressions

IX

225 226 227 230 231 232

FIGURES

J.I. 3.2. 3·3· 3+

4-I. 4-2. 4·3· 6.1. 6.2. 7·1. 7.2. 7-3·

7·4· 7·5· 8.1. 8.2. 8.3. 8.4. 8.5. 8.6.

Poland-distribution of cases on ideological index variables Hungary-distribution of cases on ideological index variables Czech Republic-distribution of cases on ideological index variables Distribution of cases on left-right continuum Poland-distribution of political tendencies across socioeconomic categories Hungary-distribution of political tendencies across socioeconomic categories Czech Republic-distribution of political tendencies across socioeconomic categories Bivariate relationships between participation index and selected socioeconomic indicators Average levels of turnout in parliamentary elections, 1990-1998 Poland-distribution of voting intentions across socioeconomic categories Hungary-distribution of voting intentions across socioeconomic categories Czech Republic-distribution of voting intentions across socioeconomic categories Parties in issue space Scores on goal congruence index, by voting intention Poland-factor analysis of voivodship-level electoral returns, parliamentary elections only, 1991-1997 Poland-maps of factor scores Hungary-factor analysis of megye-level electoral returns, 1990-1998 Hungary-maps of factor scores Czech Republic-factor analysis of okresy-level electoral returns, 1992-1998 Czech Republic-maps of factor scores

84 86 90 97 112 120 126 166 171 180 184 186 189 193 218 219 224 225 229 229

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

With great pleasure I would like to acknowledge many friends and colleagues whose support and assistance have been crucial in the completion of this project. I would like to extend special thanks to Gabor T 6ka for making the public opinion data sets used here available to me early on and for commenting on portions of the manuscript. Tom Remington, Krzysztof Jasiewicz, Valerie Bunce, Walter Connor, Herbert Kitschelt, Andrzej Korbonski, and Sharon Wolchik helped me clarifY my ideas and offered insightful criticism. My gratitude also goes to several anonymous readers whose comments proved invaluable in pruning the manuscript into shape. Kamila Valenta and other graduate students at Emory University helped me greatly with data collection and processing. The staff of Hoover Institution Archives and Warsaw University Library offered me generous assistance while I was conducting my research. Suzanne Copenhagen's and Agnes Kruchio's careful copyediting of the text undoubtedly improved its quality and accessibility. I would also like to express my appreciation to Muriel Bell, Amanda Moran, Mariana Raykov, and Kate Wahl of Stanford University Press for guiding this project to successful publication. My very special thanks go to my parents for the warm support that I received from them while working on this project. My biggest gratitude goes to my partner, Marzena, whose love, patience, intellectual companionship, and sense of humor have been essential to me.

Xl

LEARNING

TO

CHOOSE

PART

ONE

INTRODUCTION

ONE

Party Systems and New Democracies

THE CONTROVERSY

An optimistic observer witnessing Czech, Hungarian, and Polish elections of the late 1990s might have easily concluded that democracy in East-Central Europe had been practiced for a long time and had become quite routine. No significant segments of either the elites or the general public questioned the democratic rules of the game, there was never any doubt that the losers would hand over power peacefully, and the competition involved participants who were well known and whose reasonably steady standings in the opinion surveys gave everyone a fair idea of what was at stake on polling day. A free and boisterous press gave voice to a full range of contending opinions, and commentators analyzed the unfolding campaigns with a confidence and panache that would put many American pundits to shame. Most important, this observer would see that the elections were no mere plebiscites meant to give a popular mandate to those already in power. On the contrary, in each of the three countries they offered a genuine choice among several credible alternatives capable of forming the next government. Democracy in the region has been successfully consolidated, for all intents and purposes, an optimistic observer would say, in sharp contrast to much of the rest of the postcommunist world (Rupnik 1999). A more skeptical observer might have seen a picture that was not quite so rosy. He might have noted that political parties remain small and cliquish, 3

4

Introduction

more interested in power and its spoils than in serving the needs of their constituents. Creaky legal systems and high-level corruption persist as major problems, while shadowy connections between the worlds of politics and business continue to provide material for scandal-hungry newspapers. Large segments of the general public feel alienated from the political process, turnout in elections is often low, and surveys show widespread disenchantment with the partisan bickering of parliamentarians. Ethnic prejudice, though absent from the vast majority of political discourse, can still be found all too easily in publications produced by a variety of fringe groups. For all these problems, however, even a critical analyst would find it difficult to disagree with the conclusion that Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic have by now managed successfully to navigate through the most turbulent waters of political and economic transformation. Their essentially liberal variant of democracy, the few rough edges notwithstanding, bears no resemblance to the semi-authoritarian, pseudodemocratic alternative that looked plausible not too long ago. Soon after the transition, some observers forecast that East-Central Europe might follow a "Latin American" pattern of great social disparities, hobbled institutional development, and political instability (Przeworski 1991). And indeed, there were plenty of reasons to be concerned. In Poland, the decade began on an inauspicious note, with Lech Wal~sa, the leading contender in the 1990 presidential elections, carefully exploiting xenophobic, anti-intellectual, and crudely populist sentiments of an electorate reeling from the effects of economic shock therapy (Zubek 1992). The runner-up, a demagogue named Stan Tyminski, pandered to similar feelings but in a much more extreme manner. Once in office, however, Wal~sa pulled back from the brink and stayed true to his constitutional responsibilities. The fateful line between democracy and authoritarianism was not crossed. In Hungary, too, the first years of postcommunism witnessed the rise of what was widely seen as a far-right faction within the leading party of government. By 1992 there were concerns in some quarters about the future of Hungarian democracy, but the extremists were successfully marginalized by Premier] 6zsef Antall and other respected moderates and reduced to a noisy but relatively minor element of political folklore (Muray 1994; Konrad 1995). And in the Czech Republic, President Havel was outspoken in exercising a moderating influence in a political climate that initially saw the passage of a sweeping "lustration" law that some compared to communist-era witch

Party Systems and New Democracies

5

hunts and later witnessed attempts to deny citizenship to members of the Roma minority (Szulc 1996). It could be argued, therefore, that at least some credit for the successful democratic consolidation in East-Central Europe must go to political leaders who rejected the temptation of resorting to authoritarian solutions. Vladimir Meciar's Slovakia and Ion Iliescu's Romania, among others, were not so lucky, not to mention the extreme case of Slobodan MiloseviC's Yugoslavia. Of course, the good fortune of Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Poland was not merely due to the high-mindedness of their politicians. The region's geographic proximity to Western Europe set in motion a virtuous circle of foreign investment and economic growth. The three countries received the bulk of foreign capital making its way into the postcommunist world, which helped ensure the success of economic reforms, which in turn reduced social tensions and gave politics a chance to stabilize along democratic norms. 1 Furthermore, a realistic prospect of membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union gave urgency to a crowded agenda of much-needed reforms in areas ranging from civil-military relations to criminal justice to tax collection. The need to harmonize with western standards and to be seen as worthy of admission to the exclusive Euro-Atlantic club did much to keep the elites, among whom prowestern orientation was already strong, on their best democratic behavior. Most of the credit, however, must lie with ordinary voters. Laden with the baggage of socialist-era habits and attitudes, without experience in the choosing of governments, without preexisting party attachments, and even without good knowledge of what their own interests would be in a rapidly changing economic environment, the voters of East-Central Europe were faced with the task of choosing from among a bewildering array of political parties that sprung up after the transition. To complicate matters further, the voters could not predict with any degree of certainty whether they would find themselves among the winners or the losers of the transformation process (Bunce and Csanadi 1993). Given the accompanying weakness of the new party organizations, virtually all of which were poorly rooted in the nascent and still inchoate civil society, it seemed that much time would have to pass before this electoral tabula rasa (where all votes were basically up for grabs to anyone with the presence of mind to register his circle of friends as a "political party") would show any signs of stabilization (Mair 1997; Geddes 1995; Wyman et al. 1995). A long period characterized by volatile, single-issue

TABLE I.I

Parliamentary election results for parties with 5 percent or more of the national vote

ELECTION YEAR

Poland

I99I

I993

I997

Democratic Union/Freedom Union (UD/UW) Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) Catholic Electoral Action (ZChN/WAK) Center Citizens' Alliance (PC/POC) Polish Peasants' Party (PSL) Confederation oflndependent Poland (KPN) Liberal-Democratic Congress (KLD) Peasants' Accord (PL) Solidarity/Solidarity Electoral Action (AWS) Non-Party Bloc for the Support of Reforms (BBWR) Labor Union (UP) Movement for the Reconstruction of Poland (ROP)

12.3 12.0 8.7 8.7 8.7 7·5 7·5 5·5 5-I

!0.6 20.4 6.4

13·4 27.1

15·4 5·8

7·3

33·8 5-4 7·3

75·9%

7I.2o/o

5·6 87.2%

Hungary

I990

I994

I998

Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) Alliance of Free Democrats (SZDSZ) Independent Smallholders' Party (FKgP) Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) Federation ofYoung Democrats (FIDESZ) Christian-Democratic People's Party (KDNP) Hungarian Justice and Life Party (MIEP)

24·7 2!.4 1!.7 !0.9 9·0 6.5

1!.7 19·7 8.8

84.1o/o

87·3%

5·6 87.6%

Czech Republic*

I992

I996

I998

Civic Democratic Party (ODS-KDS/ODS) Left Bloc/Communist Party (LB/KSCM) Czechoslovak Social Democracy (CSSD) Republican Party of Czechoslovakia (SPR-RSC) Christian Democratic Union (KDU-CSL) Liberal Social Union (LSU) Civic Democratic Alliance (ODA) Movement for Moravia and Silesia (HSD-SMS) Freedom Union (US)

29·7 14.1 6.5 6.o 6.3 6.5 5·9 5·9

29.6 !0.3 26.4 8.0 8.1

27·7

80.9%

88.8%

TOTAL FOR PARTIES WITH

TOTAL FOR PARTIES WITH

TOTAL FOR PARTIES WITH

NOTE:

-"ill~ d t$U:Iilf$tlft Political Dissatisfaction

131995

§

~

~

~

"'

:-"' ~

0.0

0

I"

Right 92

8

-.2

(/)

Lefl92

~

ro

"'

-.4

2

Lib 92

-.6

Right95

-.8 Weekly

left 95 Monthly

less Freq

Yearly

Church Attendance .8 .6

g

.4

~

.2

"' >-

/

--- ....

/

~

0

0.0

I"

8

(/)

/

... ... ... /

/

left92

ro

"'

2

Right 92

-.2

~

-.4

Lib 92

-.6

Right95

-.8 Profess/Mgr

Lefl95 White Collar

Blue Collar

Occupation

F•nn

FIGURE 4.1

(continued)

.8 .6

g ~

.4 .2

~

1-

c

0.0

0

~

Right92

8

-.2

(f)

c

Left92

"' ~

:;;

-.4

Lib92

-.6

Right95

-.8 18-30

Left95

Age Group .8 .6

g

.4

~

.2

~

-:-:..:~ ~ ... ~ ~:.--:: ~ ~ ......

1-

c

0.0

0

i"

Right92

8 (f)

-.2

c

Left 92

"' ~

:;;

-.4

Lib 92

Right95

-.6

Left95

-.8 Weekly

less Freq

Yearly

Monthly

Church Attendance .8 .6

g

.4

~

.2

!" c

0

/ /

... ... .. . /

0.0

~

8

(f)

/

/

"' ~

:;;

Right92

-.2

c

Left 92

-.4

Lib92 Right95

-.6

left 95

-.8 Profess!Mgr

White Collar

Blue Collar

Occupation

Farm

II4

The Public Mind

on socioeconomic as well as ideological variables. The former, operationalized as continuous variables when feasible (Age) or as dummy variables when necessary (Female, Unemployed, and so forth), were added into multiple regression equations together with a set of ideological and policy indexes developed in Chapter 3· Two models were tested in each case: one with socioeconomic variables only, the other with ideological indexes added in as well. The results, presented in Table 4.2, make it clear that socioeconomic background variables do not explain political predispositions nearly as well as ideological and policy preferences: the proportion of variance explained grows by two to five times when the latter are inserted into an equation. The table clearly shows the twin pillars of Polish rightism: religiosity and anticommunism. In both years and in both models the variables that generate the most significant coefficients are church attendance and former communist party membership, as well as high scores on the clericalism and decommunization policy indexes. In contrast, economics-related issues show no effects whatsoever, whereas social-structural variables (occupation, place of residence) show a weak effect that grows even weaker with the passage of time. The strongly ideological character of this tendency is further confirmed by the fact that respondents who favor it can (and do) identifY themselves as being on the right of the political spectrum. The leftist tendency, in turn, also has two distinct components. First, it is dearly tied to biography (former communist party membership) and ideology, as evidenced by leftist self-identification and opposition to decommunization. Its second component, however, has to do with economics and shows a very interesting transformation. It suggests that the support base of Poland's leftist parties gradually shifted from those who were at best skeptical about the political and economic transformations to those who approved of those changes (note that in 1995, Model2, the coefficients on both political and economic dissatisfaction are negative, indicating the absence of dissatisfaction). Finally, the liberal tendency: it is dearly strongest among persons with higher education, women, and older individuals. In other words, uniquely among the three tendencies it has a dear social-structural profile. Politically, liberals perceived themselves as centrist on the left-right scale, and showed little enthusiasm for the highly ideological themes of clericalism, nationalism, or decommunization. Instead, they showed a basic satisfaction with the functioning of the post-1989 political and economic systems, perhaps in

Political Tendencies

II5

reflection of the fact that politicians associated with the two liberal parties were largely responsible for bringing them into existence.

Hungary How does Poland's pattern of political tendencies compare with that of Hungary? During the period of time covered by the CEU surveys the Hungarian party system presented a somewhat simpler picture, with the same six parties winning parliamentary seats in both the 1990 and 1994 elections. fu in Poland, factor analysis of political party ratings reveals that in Hungary partisan sympathies tend to come in tendency-like packages: if one is favorably disposed toward one of the rightist parties, chances are that one will have a favorable opinion about the others as well. Indeed, Table 4.1 shows that just two factors-identified provisionally as "right" and "left"can account for 56 and 64 percent of the variance in 1992 and 1995 party ratings, respectively. The first factor brings together persons who in 1992 felt affinity for the three parties of the Christian-national coalition government. First and foremost among them was the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF), which to a large extent defined itself in the tradition of rural and small-town populism of the interwar years. This populism was equally opposed to communism and to "urban-cosmopolitan" liberalism, both of which it perceived as alien to the national culture (Glatz 1995). The MDF was also highly integrationist in outlook, claiming to speak on behalf of the entire nation and favoring a model of society held together by strong institutions of church and state. This extended to economic policy as well, where MDF's position was supportive of the so-called "third way'': a market-based economy but with considerable state involvement on behalf of national priorities and objectives. In practical terms of post-1989 politics, this meant support for market reforms, but without the kind of "shock therapy" that had been implemented in Poland, for example (Kovacs 1993, 257-58; Szabo 1995, 14; Racz and Kukorelli 1995, 260; Boz6ki 1992, 22-23). Second in the anticommunist trio are the Independent Smallholders (FKgP). This historical party, with roots in the interwar period, was ideologically close the MD F. Its program emphasized the question of restitution to its rightful owners of agricultural land confiscated by the communist regime in the late 1940s to the point that is was seen by many voters as a

TABLE 4.2

Poland-regression analysis of political tendencies

RIGHT

LEFT

1992

Age Attends church weekly or more Attends church yearly or less Former Communist Party member Primary education Post-secondary education Unemployed Employed in private sector Farming occupation Professional/managerial occupation

LIBERAL

1992

1995

1992

1995

Model

Model

Model

Model

Model

Model

Model

Model

Model

Model

I

2

I

2

I

2

I

2

I

2

.ro** .13**

.OJ .04

-.09**

-.07*

-.17**

-.02 .05

.02 -.04

.05 .01

-.!2**

-.07*

-.02

-.OJ

-.o8**

-.ro**

-.02

.Io**

.OJ

-.OJ -.02

-.02 -.01

-.05 .o6

-.07* .04

.02 .00

.00 .or

-.0} -.OJ

-.or -.04

.05 .OI

.02 -.02

-.or -.OJ

-.02

-.02 -.ro**

.00 .OI

.OJ .02

-.n**

.06 .2!**

.07*

-.n**

-.06 -.09** .OI

.09**

.OI

.03

.!2** .02

.12**

.02

-.02

-.OJ

-.03

.02

.oo

.OJ

-.02 -.02

-.02 .00

-.05 .IJ**

-.06 .n**

-.or -.or

.00 -.o8*

.OJ -.o6*

-.OJ .OI

-.04 .00

.o6 -.ro*

.OI

-.07* .OJ

-.07 -.or

.Io**

.09* .OI

Low skill labor occupation Protestant religion Female Place of residence < 2K population Place of residence > rooK population Clericalism index Decommunization index Nationalism index Political dissatisfaction index Economic dissatisfaction index Welfarism index Market reforms index Law and order index Leftist self-identification Rightist self-identification (Constant) RSQUARE

NOTE:

N

.00

-.or

.07*

.00 -.05 .02

.00 -.02 .02

-.or -.04 -.o8*

-.12**

-.13**

.05

.2!** .r8**

.oS**

.02

.00

.Or

.or

-.06

-.04

-.02 .05 .04

-.02 .or .00

.00 .n** -.02

-.or .n** -.03

-.02

-.02

.o8*

.o6

-.or .02 -.05

-.04 .03 .r7**

-.04 .00

.OJ

-.07*

-.05

.r9** .r8** .05 .03

.u**

.02

.q**

-.08 -.r4** .07** -.07*

-.q**

-.o8**

-.or -.07* -.05

-.oS* .oo -.07*

-.03

-.OJ

.05

-.09**

-.01

-.03 .04 .OJ

-.25*

.04 -.04 .03 .14** -.n** -.38**

.18

.04 -.or .07* .09** -.rS** -.II

-.02

-.12

-.04 .03 .04 -.09** .13** ·32*

-.44**

-.09** -.07* .00 -.20

.13

·30

.IO

.18

.03

.19

.08

.13

-.21**

.15** .17 ·35

-.13 .09

.r2**

= II49 (1992); II73 (r995); entries are standardized regression coefficients; *entries significant at .05; **entries significant at .or.

II8

The Public Mind

single-issue party. The FKgP suffered from what its leaders perceived as second~class status in the ruling coalition, and the party was beset by internal factional disputes, which led to the formation of several new "Smallholders" parties after a split in 1992. Only one of these, representing the radical populist faction of the original FKgP, was able to win seats in the 1994 elections, prompting some analysts to question the viability of the Smallholder tradition. Its reliance on a rather "old" issue and a mostly elderly electorate seemed to bode poorly for its prospects, but the FKgP did improve its standing significantly in 1998, perhaps in reflection of a basic demand in the Hungarian system for a party focused on rural voters and their concerns (Racz and Kukorelli 1995, 261; Szabo 1995, 14-15). Also covered by the anticommunist tendency in 1992 was the ChristianDemocratic People's Party (KDNP), predominantly Catholic in character and relying on parish-based organizations for mobilizing its support base, mainly in the northeast of Hungary (Enyedi 1996; T6ka 1995, 35). Though initially touted as a model of grassroots political activism, the parochial base had proved detrimental to the party's ability to spread beyond its northern strongholds. Following a poor showing in the 1994 elections, it became increasingly divided into moderate and radical factions, the latter combining militant nationalism with welfare state positions. A downward spiral of popularity continued, and KDNP suffered a major defeat in 1998, gaining only 2. 7 percent of the popular vote. Although in 1992 all three parties in the first tendency shared the same Christian-national and anticommunist outlook, such similarity did not characterize parties in the second one. The second group included the excommunists (MSZP), as well as the liberals (SZDSZ) and the Young Democrats (FIDESZ). This combination is surprising, since early on in the evolution of the Hungarian party system the SZDSZ was strongly anticommunist and market-oriented in its rhetoric-far more so than the MDF, which emphasized a gradualist approach to political and economic transformation (Tokes 1996, 377). Indeed, it has even been argued that the excommunist elites, seeking to protect their privileges and economic position, initially saw the greatest threat as coming not from the Forum, but from the liberals (Kovacs 1996, 514-15). However, the Hungarian Democratic Forum soon realized that the SZDSZ's liberals were its greatest political competitors and proceeded to

Political Tendencies

II9

define themselves as even more radical anticommunists, simultaneously hinting that the SZDSZ was a party of excommunists and Jews, to emphasize its alienness from the country's national traditions (Markus 1994, 161). 5 The gulf between the liberals and the right became unbridgeable, and the persistent hostility had the effect of pushing the liberals to the left, toward cooperation with the reform communists of the MSZP. This shift took place in 1992 and served as a first step toward the eventual cooperation of these two parties in government following the 1994 elections (Glatz 1995, 27). Remarkably, this new map of political alliances was clearly picked up by survey respondents already in 1992, as the data in Table 4.1 show. The third party covered by the leftist tendency in 1992-the League of Young Democrats (FIDESZ)-underwent a similarly complicated ideological journey. Initially a loose alliance of groups rooted in student circles, the party presented a youthful, nonconformist style and sought to transcend the old urbanist-populist cleavage exemplified by the SZDSZ and the MDF. The party stood at the top of opinion polls right through the end of 1993, when leadership divisions led to the departure from FIDESZ'sranks of its most popular politician, Gabor Fodor and his supporters. The group that remained, under the leadership of Viktor Orban, decided to reshape the party's image in a conservative mold, initially with disastrous consequences for its popularity. However, this strategy ultimately did pay off in 1998, when FIDESZ won the elections by picking up the mantle of Hungarian conservatism from the seriously weakened and conflict-ridden MDF (Racz and Kukorelli 1995, 259; Lomax 1997, 253; Lomax 1995, 134-35). FIDESZ's radical transformation is reflected in the composition of the two political tendencies: in 1992 the party was favored by persons who disliked the Christiannational parties of the ruling coalition. By 1995, however, FIDESZ became a viable alternative for individuals of the rightist orientation. The social-structural characteristics of the Hungarian political tendencies are presented in Figure 4.2. As in Poland, the effects are quite weak, except for the frequency of church attendance, which is associated with support for the right. Effects due to generational and place of residence factors appear to become less pronounced with the passage of time, whereas occupation (which may be used as an indicator of class or social status) shows an increase in support for the left among people with professional and managerial occupations-which is certainly compatible with the widespread view that by

FIGURE 4.2

Hungary-distribution of political tendencies across socioeconomic categories ··~------------------------------------. .6 .4

~···-~

.2

§

e 8

(/)

0.0

r----

--::::::-~

.......

-.2

c

::l

::li:

Right92

-.4

left 92

-.6

Right95

-.8 -1--------~-------~---------l 18-30 31-45 46-60 61+

left 95

Age Group .B ~----------------------,

.6 .4 .2

c 0

0.0

i"

en8

-.2

c

Right 92

ro

~

-.4

Left92

-.6

Right95

-.8 -1--------~-------~---------l Weekly Monthly Yearly Less Freq

left95

Church Attendance

.a .6

i 2! c

""i" 0

8

(/)

.4 .2 0.0

... ...

f-----=-·..:..·--·-:::::- ..

-

~:::-..~.-.-..

-.2

---~·

c

Right92

ro

"

::;;:

-.4

Lefl92

-.6

Right95

+:------=:-::'=----=-:r::-------::-1 Whrte Collar Blue Collar Farm

-.8 Profess/Mgr

Occupation

Left 95

FIGURE 4.2

(continued}

.8T-----------------------------------------~

.6 .4 .2

" 0

~

j

.:::

0.0

..................... .

-2

Right 92 -.4

l.eft92 Right95

-.6

+--------------------------------------------1 Female

-.8 Male

Sex

Left95

.

-·~---------------------------------------.6

(;-

.4

"" ,_""" "0

0.0

§

.2

({)

-.2

" & ::;;

-.4

--. .

~-~~~~~~~~~~~~­

.-.--~--------! Right 92

Left92

-.6

Right95

-.8 +-------------------~---------------------1 Primary Secondary Post...Sec

Lett95

EdUcation

.BT-----------------------------------------, .6 .4

--

.2~

5

e

0.0

8 ({)

-.2

I"

-.4

...............

.......... -.:_·;_·f--

Right92

lefl92

-.6

Rlght95

-.8 +-------------~--------------~-------------1 Rural 2K-19K 20K-99K >100K

Lefl95

Place of Residence

The Public Mind

I22

1994 the excommunist MSZP and its liberal coalition partner had found a strong support base in Hungary's new economic elites (Markus n.d.; Agh 1995; Kovacs 1996). Regression analyses in Table 4·3 shed additional light on the character of these two main political outlooks, confirming that they are linked more to ideological and policy predispositions than to social-structural factors (note the weak R2 values for models with social-structural variables only). In both years the rightist tendency is associated with high scores on clericalism and decommunization indexes, as well as (in 1995) with nationalism and a clearly right-of-center ideological self-placement. Support for the left, in turn, is partly biographical (as in Poland, Communist Party membership plays a significant role) and partly rooted in ideological and policy preferences that are almost a mirror image of those associated with the right. This is true even of economic dissatisfaction, expressed in 1995 by rightist, but not by leftist identifiers.

The Czech Republic The Czech results also reveal a two-dimensional structure of political tendencies (Table 4.1). The first tendency groups individuals who show affinity for parties of the right-of-center coalition that governed the Czech lands for much of the 1990s: the Civic Democratic Party (ODS), the Civic Democratic Alliance (ODA), and the Christian Democratic Union-Czech People's Party (KDU-CSL). The first two emerged as independent entities after the breakup of the Civic Forum in February 1991 (Malova 1995, 90-91). They defined themselves as supporters of rapid transition toward a market-based economy, although their Thatcherite zeal was apparent more in their rhetoric than in actual policymaking, which sought to shield Czech workers from unemployment and rising prices, as well as preserve extensive social protections (Eyal 2000; Kabele 1995). Both parties supported a decommunization program under the auspices of the so-called "lustration" law of October 1991, which affected persons associated with the old regime holding government and other state-sector jobs (Szulc 1996, 60-61; Rosenberg 1995). The third party, the KDU-CSL, appealed mainly to the tradition- and religion-minded rural electorate, especially in Moravia, thus providing some counter-weight within the ruling coalition to the other two parties' predominantly urban and secular support base (Jehlicka et al. 1993, 241-44).

Political Tendencies

I2J

The other tendency presents something of a puzzle, however, since it brings together support for the unreformed, hard-line communists (KSCM), the left-of-center Social Democrats (CSSD) and the neo-fascist Republicans (SPR-RSC). The most plausible explanation for this pattern is that it represents a kind of "anybody but the government" reaction to the policies of the ruling coalition. The reason for it is probably the absence of a large, center-seeking, reform-communist party similar to the ones that dominate the political left in Poland and Hungary. In the Czech Republic, voters hostile to the ODS-ODA-KDU-CSL coalition's policies and the transformation process generally appear drawn to range of parties, from the moderate (CSSD) to the extremist (KSCM and SPR-RSC). It may seem strange to find support for the extreme right Republicans linked to support for the extreme left Communists, but in some ways the two parties are not too far apart: they both capitalize on popular discontent with the transformation process, blaming the difficulties on the government, foreigners, capitalists, and minorities. There is also little doubt that some members of their leaderships share a similar political past of having served in the pre-1989 communist regime and its security apparatus (Berend 1996, 315; Wolchik 1993, 73-74). The Czech Republic also differs from Poland and Hungary in that the two tendencies show a clear socioeconomic differentiation (see Figure 4.3). Education and occupation play a large (and growing) role in determining a person's political outlook: in a pattern more reminiscent ofWestern Europe rather than the two postcommunist cases thus far, support for the right is associated with higher educational and professional status. Church attendance also shows a very significant impact, although in the grand scheme of Czech politics this does not account for very much, given the relatively small total proportion of active church-goers (only about 20 percent attend services at least once a year, compared with 30 percent of Hungarians and 90 percent of Poles). The regression analyses provide additional information about the two tendencies (Table 4.4). As in the other two national cases, the explanatory power of the models improves significantly with the addition of ideological and policy-oriented variables, although it is clear that by 1995 the right becomes associated with higher educational and professional status whereas the left is favored by those with low skill occupations (the latter relationship remains true even after the ideological variables are added to the equation). (continued on page IJo)

4-3

TABLE

Hungary-regression analysis of political tendencies

LEFT

RIGHT

1992

Age Attends church weekly or more Attends church yearly or less Former Communist Parry member Primary education Post-secondary education Unemployed Employed in private sector Farming occupation Professional! managerial occupation Low skill labor occupation Protestant religion

1992

1995

1995

Model

Model

Model

Model

Model

Model

Model

Model

I

2

I

2

I

2

I

2

.o6* .09** -.16** -.oS** .Io**

.0) .02 .02 .04 .02 -.01 .03

-.03 .07* -.2o** -.1o**

-.0) .0) -.u** -.03

-.o6* -.04 .o6 .09**

-.04 .00 .04 .0)

.04 -.02 .o8* .19**

.04 -.or .02 .u**

.07* .02 .02 .03 .0) .02

-.0) -.02 .03 .01 -.03 -.02

-.04 -.03 .03 .02 -.05

-.04 .00 -.03 .00 -.02

-.OJ

-.01 -.03 .00 .00 -.04 .o8*

.00 -.03 .or -.01

-.OI

-.01 .00 -.04 -.01 -.02 -.06

.01 .01

.05 -.0!

.03 -.02

-.03 -.02

-.03

-.or

-.0) -.02

-.02 -.01

.02 .02 -.1o** -.03

-.OJ .06

Female Place of residence < 2Kpopulation Place of residence > rooK population Clericalism index Decommunization index Nationalism index Political dissatisfaction index Economic dissatisfaction index Welfarism index Market reforms index Law and order index Leftist self-identification Rightist self-identification (Constant) R SQUARE

.oo .04

-.01 .02

-.02

-.01

.OI

.OI

.o8* -.06

.ro** -.03

-.04

-.03

.00

.00

.0)

.02

.22** .09** .04 -.21** .07*

-.03

-.I) .II

.r8** .o8** .u** -.03

.04 .07* .07* -.0) .03 .24 .25

·43** .08

.02 .or

-.04

-.o6* -.09** -.r6** -.09**

-.12**

-.07* -.09** -.14**

-.2r**

-.09**

.0) .02 .07* .or -.15** .o8** ·36* .21

.OI

.04

.IO

.04 .o6* .00 .u** .02 -.18

-.30*

.o8** .o6* -.01 .o8** -.o8** -.09

.0)

.IO

.07

.22

NOTE: N = 8ro (1992); 1568 (1995); entries are standardized regression coefficients; *entries significantat .05; **entries significant at .or.

FIGURE 4·3 Czech Republic-distribution of political tendencies across socioeconomic categories .8 ,-----------------------~

.6

Right 92

Left92 -.6

Right95

-.~a_+,o:--------:,c:-,-4-,:5:-------.::-6-'6o=-------cc:i61•

Left 95

Age Group .8 , - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - , .6 .4 .2

.0 -.2 -.4 -.6

-.8

... ... ·· . ... . ... ......

... .. .. ·

~

.

.. Right92

Left 92 Right95

-1.0 Weekly

left95 Monthly

Yearly

Less Freq

Church Attendance .8 .6

/ /

/

g

.4

~

.2

"c

/

/ /

...... :.."-"" ...... ..... .

t0

/

/

.,;

0.0

E'

8

(J)

-.2

--~

c

"'"

::;

Right92 -.4

Left92

-.6

Right95

-.8

Left 95

Profess/Mgr

Clerical

Blue Collar

Occupation

F•nn

FIGURE

4·3 (continued)

.8~--------------------------------------,

.6 .4 .2

5

0.0

............ .

............... .

~

8

en

-.2

c

:E

~

Right92 -.4

left92

-.6

Right95

-.8

Left 95

Male

Female

Sex .8 .6

g

.4

-g" ,'!!

.2

c 0

0.0

~

8

(/)

-.2

c

"'" ::0

Right92

-.4

Left 92

-.6

Right95

-.8

left95

Primary

Education .8 .6

g ~

>-" c 0

.4

.2 0.0

~

8 (/)

...

:-:.-...~----

.............. . . - ; ; - .

-.2

.---

c

:!i"'

Right 92

-.4

Left92

-.6

Righl95

-.8

Left 95

Rural

2K-19K

Place of Residence

20K-99K

>100K

TABLE 4·4 Czech Republic-regression analysis of political tendencies

RIGHT

LEFT

1992

Age Attends church weekly or more Attends church yearly or less Former Communist Party member Primary education Post-secondary education Unemployed Employed in private sector Farming occupation Professional/ managerial occupation Low skill labor occupation Protestant religion

1992

1995

1995

Model

Model

Model

Model

Model

Model

Model

Model

I

2

I

2

I

2

I

2

.or .13** -.o8* -.19**

.o6* .o6 -.02 -.04

-.09** .01 -.or

-.03 .o6 .00

-.or

-.01 .00 .or -.02 .OJ

.oo

-.OJ

-.06 .o8** -.o8** .or -.OJ .1o**

.00

.01 .00

-.04 -.or

.OJ

.or

-.22**

.05* -.01 .02 -.03

-.06 .o6 -.or

-.12**

.03

.o6

-.12**

-.or

.ro**

-.02

-.02 .00 -.or .00

.04 -.02 .00 -.o8** .1J** -.06

.01 .04 -.02

.01 -.02

.01 .02

.03

.OJ

.2o** .09**

.09** -.04

-.02 -.02 .04 -.02 .05* -.02

.01 .02

.n** -.o6**

-.OJ

.00 -.o6* .07* .00 -.05 .00 .02

-.or .04 .02 .o8** -.05*

Female Place of residence < 2K population Place of residence > rooK population Clericalism index Decommunization index Nationalism index Political dissatisfaction index Economic dissatisfaction index Welfarism index Market reforms index Law and order index Leftist self-identification Rightist self-identification (Constant) RSQUARE

-.06 .07

.03 .07*

-.01

-.04

.11**

.OJ

.u**

.ro**

-.o8** .n**

.o8* -.15** -.05** -.04 .o8* -.16**

.15** -.04 -.r8** -.13** .or .14** -.01 -.2r** .Ir**

.15 .09

-.o6* -.r6** .17**

-.ro**

-.17** .23** -.20

-.05* .15** -.n** .J2**

·43

.13

.04* -.03 .o6**

.00 .04 -.06

-.o8* .03 .00

-.04 -.OJ

-.04 -.02

.02

.05*

-.26** -.01

.rr**

.06 .2r**

.09** .IJ** -.o8** .04 .07* .00 -.29** ·55

-.n** -.02

.14

·49**

.05

.24

-.44**

-.JO*

.12

.28

NOTE: N= Sro (1992); 1568 (1995); entries are standardized regression coefficients; *entries significant at .05; **entries significant at .or.

IJO

The Public Mind

The rightist tendency is associated with support for decommunization policies, support for market reforms, and a positive assessment of the general political and economic situation. The left presents a mirror image of this pattern, with the signs of the coefficients pointing in the opposite direction. Both the leftist and the rightist respondents identifY themselves as such on the left-right scale, confirming the appropriateness of this terminology in the Czech case.

CONCLUSIONS

Let me recapitulate the argument presented thus far. The chapter began with the hypothesis that in the postcommunist environment, characterized by an absence of established, organizationally and programmatically mature political parties, voters would be unlikely to develop something resembling permanent, affective partisan identifications. However, since most of them have no trouble stating where they stand on a variety of issues (see Chapter 3), >they should be in a position to develop a general preference for a set of parties whose ideological and programmatic priorities they see as compatible with their own. These general political "tendencies" have been shown to exist. However, the question of whether there is a connection between them and actual voting behavior remains open at this time. It will be taken up in Chapter 7· To sum up, contrary to the expectations of those observers who initially saw little chance for the stabilization of postcommunist party systems, this chapter identified in all three countries a structured set of partisan preferences that had remained essentially the same over the period of several years despite considerable turmoil on the political scene. In each case these sets of preferences were associated with specific collections of policy predispositions and socioeconomic characteristics of survey respondents. In short, the party systems of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic were not built on an electoral tabula rasa. They were defined first and foremost by a combination of legacies of the communist era and its different assessments by different sections of society. Second, they owed much to older ideological themes, such as nationalism, etatism, and traditional political religiosity-themes with roots going back at least to the interwar period. Third, these systems were shaped by policy conflicts over the direction, speed, and scope of the

Political Tendencies

IJI

transition process. These similarities are not coincidental but reflect the fact that all three countries inherited a common set of problems from their communist past and face a common set of challenges in the present. At the same time, it is clear that differences in the type of social structure and the level of economic development have found expression in the patterns of electoral politics. The general mechanisms of democratization may be the same, but their content owes much to the specifics of national experience.

FIVE

Parties in the Public Eye

LEADERS, PROGRAMS, OR . . . ?

The evidence presented thus far strongly suggests that East-Central European survey respondents have a good understanding of which political parties they do and do not favor. The patterns of their replies can be interpreted as being reflective of general political tendencies rooted more in values and beliefs than in socioeconomic backgrounds. However, the evidence as to the specific reasons for partisan sympathies is more circumstantial than direct: we know that persons who favor leftist parties, for example, also have a negative view of decommunization policies, but this is not quite the same as knowing that this is the predominant (or even the major) reason for leftist partisanship. What is needed, in other words, is some way of "unpacking" partisan sympathies so that their specific content can be revealed. This task is crucial, since it goes to the heart of the scholarly controversy over "volatility'' versus "structuring" in East-Central European party systems, outlined at the beginning of this volume. Those who view evidence of structuring with skepticism argue that it is caused by voters responding to superficial cues about parties; others believe that voters engage in more complex evaluations (T6ka 1999). New light would be shed on this puzzle if a way could be found to determine what criteria the voters actually use. Fortunately, the Central European University (CEU) surveys contain a set of questions asking the respondents to say, in their own words, what they IJ2

Parties in the Public Eye

IJJ

liked and disliked about each political party. Because the questions are openended, their content is far richer than is the case with the more common multiple-choice format. A quantitative analysis of such responses does require careful coding, however, so that general patterns can be identified in the data without losing the richness of detail. With this in mind, the CEU project created a set of one hundred coding categories, which I narrowed down to fourteen by aggregating some into broad, thematically based ones (for example, the "Group Reference" category brings together all responses mentioning a party representing or serving the interests of a particular group in society) but treating individually those dealing with very specific, but significant issues (for example, a party's "credibility'') .1 Up to three positive and three negative responses coded in this fashion are available for each respondent, which means that the N values in the tables presented in this chapter refer to responses rather than cases. With these data at hand it is possible to examine what the respondents focus on when given a chance to give their opinions about political parties. The first task is to identify the distribution of replies among the fourteen categories and check for differences among countries and across time. Although there are no a priori reasons to expect significant national differences (why should the Hungarians refer to party ideologies more frequently than the Czechs, for example?), one could reasonably argue that the content of evaluations should change over time. In the immediate posttransition period the information available to voters was very limited. Most of the parties had only just been created, their programmatic profiles and their linkages with social groups were still poorly defined, and of course they had no track record in office. Under such conditions, the widespread expectation was that voters would be swayed more by charismatic leaders or crude, emotional appeals than by programs or performance evaluations (Evans and Whitefield 1993). With the passage of time, however, voters could be expected to acquire a better understanding of which social groups the various parties seek to represent, what their programmatic declarations and policy priorities mean in practice, and how competent they are in terms of actual political performance. The data in Table 5-1 do not conform to these expectations. The countries do differ, the answers are distributed across a wide range of categories, and their evolution over time defies any simple explanation. For example, references to leaders and other party notables were expected to decline with the

TABLE 5.1

Distribution of party evaluations, by year of study

Poland

I992

I993

I994

I995

Avg.

Domestic policy Group reference Personalities Performance Credibility Other style/behavior Ideology General behavior trait General program reference Nonclassifiable Coalition behavior Nonpolitical Foreign policy

15.S 12.9 7·1 U.5 12.2 S.3 S.6 6.6 6.1

21.2

15.6 12.3 13.0 13·3 10.1

12.4 14·5 14·9 u.S 10.2

7·4 4·4 6.2 5·9

9·1 7·4 4·6 6.2

16.3 13·4 U.9 11.7 10.4 7·S 6.3 6.3 5·S

4-2 4·5 1.9 1.2

2.4 4·0 !.3 !.1

3·7 3·7 r.S !.0

100.0%

100.0%

100.0%

4·3 3·0 2.5 !.2

13·7 12.5 10.3 9·0 6.3 4·9 7·S p 3·S 3-1 !.3

100.0%

·7 100.0%

Hungary*

I992

I993

I995

Avg.

Performance Credibility Domestic policy Group reference General behavior trait Personalities Other style/behavior General program reference Coalition behavior Nonpolitical Ideology Nonclassifiable Foreign policy

14.2 2!.9 12.2 9-2 5·5 7·S 5-2 6.4

q.S 10.2

2!.9 9-2 u.S

1S.o 13.S 12.6

9·9 13·3 9·5 6.5 4·3

9·9 S.6 S.3 S.2

6.3 1.7 4·5 ·5 .6

4·8 4·3 3·7 !.3 .8

100.0%

100.0%

TOTAL (RESPONSES)

TOTAL (RESPONSES)

5·8 3·8 4·7 2.6 ·7 100.0%

13-9 10.5 7·1 7·5 12.9 6.S 2.2 7·4 2.1 .6 !.0 100.0%

5·8

(continued)

Parties in the Public Eye

I35 TABLE 5.1

Czech Republic

(continued)

I992

I993

I994

I995

Avg.

Domestic policy 17.8 Other style/behavior 12.3 Personalities 11.5 Performance 10.9 Credibility 10.3 Group reference 6.4 General program reference 8.4 General behavior trait 2.9 Coalition behavior 4·6 Ideology 3-4 Foreign policy 7·4 Nonclassifiable 1.9 Nonpolitical 2.1

18.7 15-J

22.1 14.0 12.7

24-7 10.5 n.6

20.8 12.9 11.9

9·4 9-2 9·0 5·9 4-5 4·9 4·4 1.2 I.8

7·8 7·4 9·9 6.9 6.2 4.1 3·6 1.9 4-1 1.3

9·9 8.9 8.2 7·1 4·8 4·5 3·6 3·2 2.7 1.4

100.0%

100.0%

TOTAL (RESPONSES)

100.0%

u.S 11.5 8.7 7·5 7·1 5·5 4·6 2.8 2.5

3-1 1.3 10o.o%

·9 100.0%

For each year, the total includes all evaluations (both positive and negative) of major political parties; missing and "don't know" responses are not counted; *questions not asked in Hungary in 1994 survey. NOTE:

passage of time, but their proportion remains steady in Hungary and the Czech Republic and actually doubles in the Polish case. References to specific social groups were expected to increase, but their proportion hardly moves at all in Hungary and rises only marginally in the other two countries. The proportion of performance evaluations does increase significantly, as predicted, but only in Hungary. Neither ideology nor programs feature prominently among the responses, and this remains true for the entire period for which the data are available.

DIFFERENT GROUPS, DIFFERENT CRITERIA?

It may well be, of course, that results from entire national samples obscure differences among various groups in society. This may be particularly true of differences in political sophistication. It can be hypothesized, for example, that more sophisticated individuals will refer to more abstract themes (ide-

TABLE 5.2 Distribution of party evaluations, 1995 only, by level of education

Poland Group reference Domestic policy Personalities General behavior trait General program reference Other style/behavior Ideology Credibility Nonclassifiable Performance Coalition behavior Nonpolitical Foreign policy TOTAL (RESPONSES)

N

(RESPONSES I CASES)

Hungary Ideology Group reference Other style/behavior Domestic policy Personalities Credibility Performance Coalition behavior General behavior trait Nonpolitical General program reference Nondassifiable Foreign policy TOTAL (RESPONSES)

N

(RESPONSES/CASES)

PostMaximumSecondary Minimum

Primary

Secondary

17.8 14.6 r6.7 3·8 5-2 8.9 7.1 8.8 I.4 10.8 3-2 ·7 I.1

13.8 11.9 14-4 4·6 6.3 8.9 7·3 ro.8 2.6 12-3 4·3 1.7 I.2

8.9 8.2 12.3 7-7 9-0 n.8

roo.r% qo6/447

roo.1% 3759/680

roo.oo/o 486/66

Primary

Secondary

3-0 12.!

4·7 8.1 6.7 1I.4 9·9 9·0 22.6 7·0 12.9 r.6

5·5 12.6 9·7 9·7 21.4 5·8 13.6 I.9 4-0 ·3 ·4 roo.o% 58961674

4·5 .8 ·7 99·9% 39751375

9·7 II.3 3·5 II.4 4·6 ·5 I. I

8.9 6.4 4·4 3·9 3·8 2.9 2.6 2.5 2.1 1.5 !.4 I.2 .I

PostMaximumSecondary Minimum 8.5 7·1 8.7 9·8 8.3 8.4 22.2 6.4 13-4 I.2 4·6 ·7 .8

5·5 5·0 3·2 2.8 r.6 L3

1.2 I.2 ·7 ·7 .6 ·5 ·3

100.1% 1981fr47 (continued)

Parties in the Public Eye

IJ7 TABLE 5.2

Czech Republic Group reference Personalities Credibility General program reference Domestic poli~y Other style/behavior Performance General behavior trait Coalition behavior Nonpolitical Nonclassifiable Foreign policy Ideology TOTAL (RESPONSES)

N

(RESPONSES/CASES)

(continued)

Primary

Secondary

15.0 13.0 6.3 6.1 24.1

8.8 1!.4 7·5 6.9 24.8 !0.7 7·9 6.4 4·2 !.5 4·3 2.0 3·6 IOO.Oo/o 91821!029

9·5 7·0 5·6 3·5 I.O 3·7 I.6 3·6 10o.oo/o 28651372

PostMaximumSecondary Minimum 7·2 !0.3 8.5 7·9 25.8 1!.1 8.5 6.5 4·3 ·9 3·9 !.7 3·6 IOO.oo/o 16oo!I67

7·8 2.7 2.2 !.8 !.7 I.6 !.5 ·9 .8 .6 .6 ·4 .o

For each year, the total includes all evaluations (positive and negative) of major political parties; missing and "don't know" responses are not counted; the tables are sorted on the last column, which shows the range of results within category. NOTE:

ology, programmatic profile) whereas less sophisticated persons will make simpler references to leaders, groups, or specific policies and issues associated with a given party. Table 5.2 shows the types of responses broken down by level of education and confirms that such differences do in fact exist. It is true that group references (for example, "I favor this party because it defends farmers") are almost twice as prevalent, in all three countries, among the least educated respondents as among those with university education, with secondary-school respondents somewhere in between. Also as expected, the proportion of references to party leaders does increase as the level of education declines, but the effect is much weaker. Abstract ideological references are more frequent among the best educated respondents, but this pattern is visible only in Hungary and (less so) in Poland. A similar weak pattern is observable with programmatic references (highest among the best educated), but this time only in Poland and the Czech Republic.

The Public Mind In sum, if the level of education is taken as an indicator of political sophistication, then it is indeed true that more sophisticated individuals evaluate political parties differently than less sophisticated ones, but these effects are not strong. Another possibility is that the various parties have very distinct profiles in terms of their public image. This proposition in tested in the next three tables, which show the results broken down by individual party. Since these questions were not asked about all the parties in all the years, the tables show only the most recent available results. Here the differences are indeed strong and clear, and since they are likely to speak to something quite fundamental about each country's party system, they warrant being placed in the broader political context. It is to this context that we turn next.

COUNTRY-SPECIFIC PATTERNS

Poland Let us begin with Poland (Table 5-3) and proceed in a roughly right-to-left order. The Christian-National Union (ZChN), a party that from its inception staked out a position of close association with the Catholic Church, its doctrine, and its hierarchy, had certainly registered as such in the public mind. The most frequent references to it had to do with domestic policy issues related to church-state relations (the place of religion in public life, the presence of religious education in schools), and moral issues such as abortion on which the party had taken a strong stand. These were closely followed by mentions of the Catholic Church as a "group" with which the party was associated. In both categories negative references (that is, reasons the party was disliked) greatly outnumbered positive ones. In third place, and more or less evenly split between positives and negatives, were mentions of ideology, focused on ZChN's close attachment to the Catholic religious and social doctrine. Whereas the ZChN was clearly perceived as a religious party, the Center Alliance (PC), which in the early I990s had ambitions of becoming Poland's version of Christian Democracy (Slodkowska I99I, I55-59), registered in the public mind in quite a different light. By far the most common mention was that of its leaders, who by an overwhelming majority of respondents were seen in strongly negative light. References to the party's actual behavior, particularly its credibility and its performance as a member of the governing

TABLE

5·3·

Poland-distribution of party evaluations, by individual party

ZChNI993

All Responses

Domestic policy 23·9 Group reference 20.7 Ideology 12.7 8.o General behavior trait Credibility 7·6 6.2 Personalities 6.1 Performance General program reference 4-3 Nondassifiable 4·2 Other style/behavior 3-3 Coalition behavior !.5 Nonpolitical !.3 .I Foreign policy TOTAL

N

(REFERENCES)

roo.o% 996

Negative

Only

Only

PC I993

p 6.8 6.5

!8.8 13·9 6.1

·7 2.5 2.1 1.5 2.5

7·3

.8 .8

·7 .0

3·4 2.5 1.3 .6 .I

Personalities General behavior trait Credibility Coalition behavior Other style/behavior Performance Domestic policy Nonclassifiable General program reference Group reference Ideology Nonpolitical Foreign policy

30•3% 302

69.7'Yo 694

.2

5-l

4·1 4·6 I.8

TOTAL

N

(REFERENCES)

Positive

Negative

Only

Only 18.4 12.4 10.0 10.8

5-4 3.1 2.5 2.2 1.2 .o

3·1 ·9 !.7 ·4 !.7 3·2 5·5 2.4 !.7 ·7 1.3 ·5 .o

100.0% 848

22.9% 194

All Responses

Positive

21.5 13·3 11.7 II.2 9·6 9·6 8.8

7·9 6.4 3·3 3-I

1.4 I.8 ·9 ·7 .0 77·I% 654

(continued)

TABLE

KPNI995

All Responses

Group reference Personalities Domestic policy Performance Credibility Coalition behavior Other style/behavior General program reference Ideology General behavior trait Non classifiable Nonpolitical Foreign policy TOTAL

N

(REFERENCES)

25·5 17·3 I5.8 9·2 7-I 6.8

5-4

Positive Only

Negative Only

19-3 5·6 9·3 1.8 1.8 I.O I.4

6.2 11.7 6.5

5·2 3·5 I.8 I.J I.O .I

3·4 I.8

IOO.Oo/o

47-0o/o

I527

·5 ·3 ·7 .0 718

7·5 5·3 5·8 3·9 1.8 1.7 1.2 1.0 ·3 .I

5·3· (continued)

UWI995

All Responses

Group reference Credibility Performance Domestic policy Personalities Other style/behavior Ideology General program reference General behavior trait Nonclassifiable Coalition behavior Nonpolitical Foreign policy

53-0o/o

TOTAL

809

N

(REFERENCES)

17·9 12.8 I2.2 I2.I 9·9 9·2 7·7 6.7 4-I 3-3 2.0

1.4 ·9 IOO.Oo/o 179I

Positive Only

Negative Only

7·6 4·7 8.7

10.3 8.I

9·7 5-0 4.1 1.7 6.I .6 I.5 I. I .8 .6 52.2% 935

3·5 2.4 4·9 5·0 6.0 .6 3·5 I.8 .8 .6 ·3 47·8o/o 856

PSLI995

All Responses

Group reference Personalities Domestic policy Performance Credibility Coalition behavior Other style/behavior General program reference Ideology General behavior trait Nonclassifiable Nonpolitical Foreign policy TOTAL

N

(REFERENCES)

25·5 17-3 15.8 9-2 7·1 6.8 5·4 5·2 3·5 r.8 I.3 1.0 .I roo.o% 1527

Positive

Negative

Only

Only

19-3 5·6 9·3 I.8 r.8 1.0 1.4

6.2 II.? 6.5

3·4 r.8 ·5 ·3 ·7 .0 47-0o/o 718

7·5 5·3 5·8 3·9 r.8 1.7 1.2 1.0 ·3 .I 53-0% 809

SdRP I995

All Responses

Group reference Credibility Performance Domestic policy Personalities Other style/behavior Ideology General program reference General behavior trait Nonclassifiable Coalition behavior Nonpolitical Foreign policy TOTAL

N

(REFERENCES)

17-9 12.8 12.2 12.1 9·9 9-2 7·7 6.7 4•1 3·3 2.0 1.4 ·9 Ioo.o% 1791

~-

Positive

Negative

Only

Only

7·6 4·7 8.7

10.3 8.1

9·7 5-0 4·1 1.7 6.! .6

3·5 2.4 4·9 5-0 6.0 .6

3-5

1.5 1.1 .8 .6

r.8 .8 .6

52.2%

47-8% 856

935

·3

The Public Mind coalition, were also common and also highly negative. This unenviable public perception undoubtedly had its roots in the highly erratic political path pursued by the party's leader, Jaroslaw Kaczynski. A strong supporter ofLech Walysa during the "war at the top" in the summer of 1990 and in the presidential elections of that same year, Kaczynski broke with Walt;sa soon thereafter and with time became one of his harshest critics. The PC entered the coalition government that emerged after the parliamentary elections of 1991 (indeed, Kaczynski is often credited with bringing these negotiations to fruition), but again its allegiances seemed to change, and the party became highly critical of the government's policies while at the same time refusing to quit the coalition. The PC's initial aims of becoming a moderate, center-right party gave way to an ever more shrill anticommunist line, culminating in January of 1993 with a street demonstration (staged and attended by PC's leaders) at which President Walysa was burned in effigy amid allegations that he had collaborated with the communist secret police. It should be noted, however, that Kaczynski was never seen as an inflexible ideologue, as someone for whom principles took precedence over personal friendships or obligations to coalition partners. On the contrary, his reputation was that of an efficient operator, skilled in political intrigue and entirely focused on the pursuit of power (Lewis 1995, II4-16). The party's shift to radical anticommunism in 1992 was in all likelihood a calculated move designed to stake out a far-right position on an ideological cleavage that seemed set to dominate Poland's political scene. As the numbers presented here indicate, this strategy proved disastrous. The PC failed to enter parliament following the elections of 1993, and three years later its much weakened remnants joined the Solidarity Electoral Action (AWS). Third in the set of right-wing parties is the Confederation oflndependent Poland (KPN), an organization with roots in the anticommunist dissident movement. The KPN was founded quite openly in September 1979 and proclaimed a program calling for nothing less than the destruction of communisim and the restoration of the country's independence. Needless to say, the KPN's activists, particularly its leader Leszek Moczulski, had spent their share of time as political prisoners. After 1989 the party pursued hard-line anticommunism combined with populist economic slogans, an integrationist vision of nation and state, and an emphasis on a strong leader. Indeed, the

Parties in the Public Eye

I43

party's self-identification with the tradition of Marshall Pilsudski is quite telling. More than any other party, it has often been described as an organization built around a single person. It is not surprising that this is how the public perceived it, with most of the responses shown in Table 5·3 referring negatively to Moczulski himself. Mentions of nationalist ideology were common, as were those related to party performance and general competence. The latter is quite curious, given the party's lack of service in government. Whereas the balance of responses toward the right-wing parties tilted toward the negative, the liberal Freedom Union (UW) shows a slight majority of positive evaluations. Given the party's record as an advocate of market reforms, and the fact that by 1995 it was headed be Leszek Balcerowicz (whose name was synonymous with the reform program), it is not surprising that many people referred to economic policy in their evaluations. Besides Balcerowicz, the UW held in its ranks some of the country's best liked and most respected politicians, and this, too, shows up in the data. The references to personalities, almost as numerous as those to economic policy, are not limited to the leader but include other ranking figures as well. Of course, a party that builds its image around the themes of credibility and competence (its 1993 election slogan spoke of"calm strength") invites judgements based on these criteria. It was inevitable, therefore, that just as the reform process had its benefits and costs, references to the party's performance, credibility, and general style of behavior also showed a mixture of positives and negatives. The picture that emerges from these data is therefore quite complex but surprisingly positive given the initial unpopularity of the economic reform package. The Polish Peasants' Party (PSL) also presents a picture roughly balanced between almost equal numbers of positive and negative responses. Chief among them are, of course, group references (most of them positive) to the PSL as the party of Poland's farmers and rural residents. Domestic policy issues, focused on matters related to agriculture, also feature prominently (and mostly positively) in the evaluations, but assessments of the party's performance are strongly negative. Many respondents also mentioned the party's leader, Waldemar Pawlak, who at the time the 1995 CEU survey was taken had completed a brief term as prime minister in a coalition government with the excommunist SLD. The tensions within that coalition (where the PSL was very much the junior partner), the weaknesses of Pawlak

I44

The Public Mind

as a leader, and his inability to deliver on the election promise of improved economic support for agriculture undoubtedly contributed to the negative character of most of the references. Perhaps the most surprising picture of all comes out of responses about Poland's reform communists, the Social Democracy of the Republic of Poland (SdRP). Given the prominence of anticommunism in Poland's political rhetoric and the strong emotions anything associated with the old system tends to generate, the fact that the SdRP shows a slight majority of positive evaluations calls for a close examination of the data. What is this party associated with in people's minds? The largest category of answers is of the "group reference" type, describing the SdRP as a party of the former nomenklatura. A good proportion of these answers, coming perhaps from former apparatchiks and their families, did not see this as necessarily a bad thing. References to the party's performance and credibility show an inconsistent picture, with positives prevailing the former category and negatives in the latter. References to domestic policy also feature prominently in the table; the majority of them positively evaluate the party's approach to economic and social issues. The overall impression that emerges from the Polish data is that the right had clearly suffered from a serious public image problem. Those high negatives spelled electoral disaster in 1993, and the situation was unlikely to change as long as the leaders of the various small right-of-center parties remained incapable of putting aside their individual ambitions and joining together to form a broadly based right-of-center coalition. It took another defeat (in the presidential contest of 1995) to push matters forward, and in 1996 the right reluctantly and halfheartedly came together to form the Solidarity Electoral Action (AWS).

HUNGARY

Among Hungary's right-wing parties (see Table 5.4), only the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) had a serious problem with its public perception, as evidenced by negative comments reaching close to 70 percent of all responses. Performance evaluations (negative at 2:1) were the most often mentioned category, followed by references to domestic policy that concentrated on economic issues (negative at 4:1). General comments about the

TABLE

5·4

Hungary-distribution of party evaluations, by individual party

MDFI995

All Responses

Performance Domestic policy General behavior trait Credibility Other style/behavior Group reference Coalition behavior Personalities General program reference Ideology Foreign policy Nonclassifiable Nonpolitical TOTAL

N

(REFERENCES)

31.3 I5.2 I3-5 7·4 6.8 5·6 5-4 4·8 4·3 3·8 1.2 ·5 .2 IOO.Oo/o

I807

Positive Only

Negative Only

I0.3 3·0 1.2 1.9 1.9 2.5

21.0 I2.2 12.3

·5 2.8 J.I 2.4

·9

5·5 4·9 3·I 4·9 2.0 1.2 1.4

.I

·3 ·3 .I

30-7% 555

69·3% I252

.2

FKgP I995

All Responses

Personalities 24·5 General behavior trait 20.6 Credibility I3·3 Performance 10.8 Group reference 9-2 Domestic policy 7·5 Other style/behavior 5·7 General program reference 2.9 Ideology 2.5 Coalition behavior 2.2 Nonclassifiable ·4 Foreign policy ·3 Nonpolitical .0 TOTAL

N

(REFERENCES)

wo.oo/o 2422

Positive Only

Negative Only

9·4 2.I

I5.I I8.6

9·6 6.3 7·8 4·7 1.4 1.9

3·7 4·5 1.4 2.8

·7 .2

1.9 2.I .I .2 .0

·3 .I .0

444Yo !075

4-2 I.O

55·6% I347

(continued)

TABLE

KDNPI995

All Responses

Group reference Performance Ideology General behavior trait Domestic policy Other style/behavior Credibility Coalition behavior General program reference Personalities Nonclassifiable Foreign policy Nonpolitical TOTAL

N

(REFERENCES)

I5.2 I5.0 I4.0 I2.9 II.9 9·I 6.I

5-3 5·2 5·0 .2 .I

.o IOO.Oo/o I4I6

Positive

Negative

Only

Only

9·3 6.6

5·9 8.4 6.I 6.7 6.2 6.I 2.3

7·8 6.I 5·6 3·0 3·8 I.4 3·0 H .2 .I .0 50.6o/o 7I6

3·9 2.I I.6 .0

.o .0 49·4% 700

5·4 (continued)

FJDESZI995

All Responses

Performance General behavior trait Group reference Nonpolitical Credibility Other style/behavior Personalities Coalition behavior General program reference Ideology Domestic policy Foreign policy Nonclassifiable TOTAL

N

(REFERENCES)

25·9 I4·9 u.8 8.9 8.5

Positive

Negative

Only

Only

I4·7 2.4 8.0

II.2 I2.5 3·8 I.8

4·5 2.5 2.5

7·I 4·7 2.0 2.5 .8 2.8 .8 1.9

·3 .2

.I

7·4 6.4 6.2

IOO.Oo/o 2046

·3 48.2% 986

J.7

5-4 3·9 5·3 !.7 !.7 .6 .0 .0

5I.8o/o

w6o

SZDSZI995

All Responses

Performance 24-I Coalition behavior I8.7 General behavior trait 9·9 Credibility 9·6 Domestic policy 8.I Group reference 6.7 Personalities 6.4 General program reference 5·5 Other style/behavior 5-3 Ideology 4·4 Nonpolitical ·5 Nonclassifiable ·4 .2 Foreign policy TOTAL

N

(REFERENCES)

IOO.Oo/o I824

Positive Only

Negative Only

I3·3 4·9 2.9

!0.9 I3.8

3·4 ·4 ·3 .I

7·0 4·7 4·9 4·0 2.I I.O 2.6 I.O .I .2 .I

47·5% 867

52·5% 957

4·9 3·2 2.7 4·3 4·4 2.7

MSZPI995

All Responses

Performance 25.2 Domestic policy 24·4 Group reference n.6 Credibility 8.8 General behavior trait 7·2 Personalities 5·6 Other style/behavior 5·4 General program reference 3·9 Ideology 2.9 Coalition behavior 2.3 Nonclassifiable !.4 Foreign policy I. I .2 Nonpolitical TOTAL

N

(REFERENCES)

wo.oo/o 2337

Positive Only

Negative Only

!0.8

I4·5 I9.0 8.I 6.7

5·4 3·5 2.I !.2 !.9 !.5 3·3 !.3 ·3 .I .8 .I 32·5% 759

5·9 3·7 3·9 .6 I.6 !.9 !.2 ·3 .I 67·5% I578

The Public Mind party's style and behavior were also common and almost entirely negative. It appears, therefore, that the crux of the MDF's problem lay with its handling of the economy during its term as the senior member of the 1990-94 ruling coalition. The MDF never advocated Polish-style "shock therapy" but favored a slower economic transition "without a catastrophe" (Racz and Kukorelli 1995, 26o); however, as both unemployment and inflation continued to worsen, the MDF developed a reputation for indifference to the growing economic hardships. This reputation of indifference to the present was largely due to the party's seeming preoccupation with the country's past and with the politics of national symbols. The ceremonial reburial of Admiral Horthy in 1993 represented to many a culmination of an ideological offensive aimed at the restoration of a conservative, Christian-national reading of Hungary's interwar history, a vision that glossed over the authoritarian and repressive aspects ofHorthy's regime. The "media war," which was carried out at the same time and resulted in the government's seizure of effective control over some major news outlets, was to serve the same ideological purpose. The virulent antiliberal and anti-Semitic attacks launched by this new Christian-national press led to serious questions about the MDF's democratic credentials (Glatz 1995). The party was weakened by internal divisions between moderates and hard-line conservatives, and the shock of its defeat in 1994 only exacerbated these problems. It appears, therefore, that by 1995 the MDF was a spent force, burdened by a tremendous negative baggage associated with its years in power and threatened with being reduced to irrelevance by the emerging leader of the right, the Young Democrats (FIDESZ). Two years earlier a group ofFIDESZ leaders associated with Viktor Orban sensed that with MDF's decline a vacuum was opening on the right of the political scene and that their organization had an opportunity to become the country's dominant center-right party. Once firmly in charge ofFIDESZ, they reshaped its image from that of a youth-oriented, liberal party to a moderately conservative one, and indeed by 1995 FIDESZ was being perceived as such. FIDESZ's evaluations reveal an almost equal balance of positive and negative comments, with by far the largest single category consisting of generally positive evaluations of its performance. Very general comments about the party's behavior are also prominent but are in large measure negative, reflecting perhaps some respondents' unfavorable reaction to Orban's cocky and self-assured political

Parties in the Public Eye

I49

style. FIDESZ's roots as a youth movement are also evident in a high proportion of group reference evaluations, showing FIDESZ is favorably perceived as a party of young people. The remaining two right-of-center parties were perceived in distinctly different light, although both garnered a similar proportion of positive and negative responses. When asked about the Smallholders' Party (FKgP), only a few persons replied with a "group reference" answer by mentioning the rural, agrarian character of its support base, and even fewer mentioned domestic policy issues related to agriculture. Instead, the greatest proportion of replies focused on the party's firebrand leader, J6zsefTorgyan. The majority of comments about Torgyan were negative, but their proportion was not as high as in the case of the many general references to his party's behavior. The Smallholders, it should be noted, brought themselves to public attention in 1992 when Torgyan announced the party's withdrawal from the governing coalition. Most of his parliamentarians refused to comply, however, and continued to support the government. Eventually the party split into two competing groups, but the anti-Torgyan offshoot suffered a devastating defeat in the 1994 election. The memory of these disputes was probably behind the many poor evaluations of the FKgP's past actions, although the data reflect considerable ambivalence, evident in the largely positive comments about the party's credibility and performance. In contrast to the leader-centered Smallholders, the ChristianDemocratic People's Party (KDNP) registered in the public mind as an ideological party, defined by its focus on religious and moral issues and its association with Catholicism. Comments about its performance and general behavioral traits were also common. The responses were almost equally split between positive and negative, quite unlike in the case of Poland's ZChN, whose profile was in many ways similar. (Of course the very negative reaction to ZChN had much to do with the perception that it was doing the bidding of Poland's powerful Catholic Church, and that through it the Church was trying to exert undue influence on the political process.) In Hungary, a country with a generally lower level of religious practice, such fears fell on less fertile ground. The Free Democrats (SZDSZ) were judged mostly on their performance in government and, more specifically, on their role in the post-1994 governing coalition. The coalition-related evaluations were highly negative, reflecting perhaps many respondents' disappointment with the party's choice

The Public Mind to form a government with the excommunists of the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP). That, however, should not have come as a total surprise, since informal contacts between the two had been going on since 1991 (Tamas 1999). Despised by many on the right, the SZDSZ found itself in a curious position of being a socially liberal, market-oriented party gravitating toward an ever-closer alliance with the heirs of the former regime. But by 1994 the MSZP had changed as well. It had dropped much of its socialist baggage and sought to convey an image of expertise and competence. In the campaign of that year the party presented itself as a safe, dependable choice. This strategy of seeking to be judged on present-day performance rather than on the legacies of the past appears to have been successful. The data in Table 5-4 show performance evaluations as the largest single category of replies. These, a year into the party's term in office, show a small majority of negative opinions. Much more strongly negative are references to the party's handling of economic policy, showing that staking one's reputation on performance can be a double-edged sword. Group reference mentions are also common, but curiously hardly any of them mention the MSZP as a party of the former nomenklatura. Instead, the focus is on the socialists as the party of the lower social strata. Comments related to ideology were very infrequent. Overall, the MSZP received a very high proportion of negative comments (67.5 percent), far more than its Polish counterpart.

The Czech Republic In the Czech case (Table 5.5), most parties received a fairly similar number of positive and negative evaluations. The most lopsided results were obtained by the far-right Republican Party (SPR-RSC), whose leaders, actions, and general credibility elicited many critical comments. Ideology or policyrelated issues were rarely mentioned, however, which is curious considering the Republicans' shrill nationalistic rhetoric and their well-known positions on foreigners and minorities. Also curious is the close balance of positive and negative comments about the Communist Party (KSCM). The Czech communists, unlike their Hungarian and Polish counterparts, did not shed their hard-line image and did not try to distance themselves from their pre-1989 forebears. The party's first reform-minded chairman, Jan Svoboda, resigned in 1993 when he failed to convince his colleagues to abandon the communist label. The party persisted in using red stars and hammer-and-sickle symbols

TABLE

5·5

Czech Republic-distribution of party evaluations, by individual party

ODS I995 Domestic policy Performance Personalities General behavior trait Group reference Other style/behavior Credibility General program reference Nonpolitical Foreign policy Coalition behavior Ideology Nondassifiable TOTAL

N

(REFERENCES)

Positive Negative All Responses Only Only 27.6 1!.1 9·6 8.9 8.1

13-5 9·8 4·9 I.O

5·7 5·7 4·0 2.6 I.8

·9 2.0 4·1 5-I I.6 3·1 ·4 !.1

·9 100.0% 3787

·5 48.o% 1818

7·5 6.6

14.2 !.3 4·7 7·9 7·2 5·5 2.4 .6 4·1 ·9 2.2 ·7 ·4 52.0% 1969

ODAI995 Personalities Domestic policy Performance Other style/behavior Credibility Coalition behavior General program reference General behavior trait Group reference Ideology Nonpolitical Foreign policy Nondassifiable TOTAL

N

(REFERENCES)

Positive Negative All Responses Only Only 19-4 14-7 12.1 1!.2 8.5 8.4 7·4 6.5 3·9 2.9 2.5 !.3 !.3

wo.oo/o 23!0

!2.8 9·5 8.6 4·8 4·5 3·8 5·5 !.3 !.3 2.5 I.O .8 ·9 57-2% 1322

6.6 5·2 3·5 6.3 4-0 4·6 !.9 5·2 2.7 ·4 !.4 ·5 ·3 42.8% 988 (continued)

TABLE

KDU-CSL I995 Domestic policy Group reference Personalities Other style/behavior Ideology Credibility Performance General program reference Coalition behavior General behavior trait Nonpolitical Nonclassifiable Foreign policy TOTAL

N

(REFERENCES)

All Positive Negative Respomes Only Only 39·1 13·9 7·4 6.0

16.2

5·9 5·7 5·2 5·0 4·6 3·3 2.5 1.1

3-7 H 2.1

·4 IOO.Oo/o 2563

7·5 H 2.6

4·1 2.2 1.2 1.2

22.9 6.4 4-0

H 2.1 2.2 3·1 ·9 2.4 2.1 1.3

·7 .2

·4 .2

48.4% 1241

5I.6o/o 1322

5·5 (continued)

ODAI995 Domestic policy Personalities Other style/behavior Group reference General program reference General behavior trait Performance Credibility Nonpolitical Ideology Coalition behavior Foreign policy Nonclassifiable TOTAL

N

(REFERENCES)

Positive Negative All Responses Only Only 23·3 18.7 13.8 10.6 8.0 5·7 4·6 4·5 3·1 3·0 2.7 I.O .8 IOO.Oo/o 2957

20.6 6.1 6.9 10.1 6.3 .8 1.4 I.6 2.0 2.0 ·7 ·5

2.7 12.6 6.9 ·5 I.8 4·8 3·2 2.9 1.1 1.1 2.0

·5

.6

.2

59·6% 1761

40.4% II96

All

KSCMI995 Other style/behavior Domestic policy Credibility Group reference General program reference Nonpolitical Ideology General behavior trait Performance Coalition behavior Nonclassifiable Foreign policy Personalities (REFERENCES)

NOTE:

r6.3 14.8 14.0 13·9 9·0 6.8 5·7 5.6 4·5 3·2 3·2 1.6 1.5 100.0%

TOTAL

N

Responses

34

Positive Negative Only Only 4·9 12.8 2.9 10.0 4·8 3·7 1.2 I.6 1.5 ·5 1.5 l.O

·3 46.7% 950

11.4 2.0 II. I 3·9 4-2 3·0 4·4 4·0 3·0 2.7 1.7 ·5 1.2 53·3% 1084

All

SPR-RSC

I993*

Personalities Performance General behavior trait Credibility Group reference Other style/behavior General program reference Ideology Domestic policy Foreign policy Nonpolitical Non classifiab1e Coalition behavior TOTAL

N

(REFERENCES)

Question about SPR-RSC was not asked in 1995; 1993 data were used instead.

Responses I?·O 14.8 13·4 13.1 9·0 8.9 8.9 4·2 3·6 2.0 I.8 1.8 1.5 roo.o% r685

Positive Negative Only Only 2.8 6.8 2.1

14.2 8.o 11.3

3-I

9·9 2.7 6.9 4·0 3·5 ·4 ·5 .6

6.2 2.0 4·9 ·7 3·3 1.5 !.2 ·9 ·4 36.o% 6o6

·9 I. I 64.0% 1079

I 54

The Public Mind

in its publications, but despite that many respondents positively evaluated its position on social policy issues, particularly as related to the maintenance of the social safety net. Group references, quite positive overall, focused on the communists as the party of"the people" or the "disadvantaged," rather than of persons associated with the former regime. However, a variety of comments about the party's general style and behavior, as well as the ones about its credibility, were strongly negative. The three parties of the ruling coalition (ODS, ODA, and KDU-CSL) were evaluated in quite distinct ways. The Civic Democratic Party (ODS), the coalition's senior member, elicited a very large proportion of comments related to domestic policy issues. Those focusing on the party's handling of the economy tended to give favorable opinions, whereas those mentioning social welfare programs had a much less positive view. Nearly all respondents who mentioned ODS's overall performance did so in a positive way, but there was also a fair proportion of strongly negative comments about the party's style and behavior. Considering the prominence ofODS's leader and the country's prime minister on the Czech political scene, references to V aclav Klaus were not especially prominent, and those that were made reflected a fairly even division of opinion between favorable and unfavorable evaluations. Comments related to ideology were almost entirely absent, despite Klaus's zealous advocacy of market economics. The Civic Democratic Alliance (ODA) was a party that sought to straddle the line between ODS's emphasis on market reforms and the socialdemocratic sensibilities typically associated with the left. In practical terms, however, its positions differed little from those of the ODS, and this lack of clear definition left it vulnerable to being abandoned by its supporters. In 1995, however, it received mostly positive comments focusing on its politicians, its positions on both economic reforms and social protections, and its general political performance. Lack of definition was not a problem for the Christian Democratic Union (KDU-CSL), which elicited comments concentrated on religious and agrarian issues, both reflective of the party's rural support base. Most of the group reference comments also described the KDU-CSL as a pro-church party or (less often) a party of the "people," but hardly any respondents identified it as an organization representing specifically agrarian interests. But perhaps the most interesting case is that of the Social Democrats

Parties in the Public Eye

I 55

(CSSD), who by 1995 were rapidly climbing in the opinion polls in a pattern that anticipated their very strong showing in parliamentary elections held the following year. Among the CEU survey respondents, the CSSD's commitment to the maintenance of a social safety net brought it almost entirely positive comments in the "domestic policy'' category, as did (among group reference answers) a perception that it was a party of those left behind by the economic transition. To the extent that the CSSD had a public image problem, it had to do with its leader, Milos Zeman, mentions of whom were negative at a rate of 2:1. Overall, however, the CSSD's positive rating of nearly 6o percent is the strongest of all the parties listed in the table, foreshadowing its rise to the status of the country's most popular party, particularly after the economic crisis and financial scandals of 1997 tarnished the reputation of once-invincible ODS. The CSSD was in an ideal position to fill this role: its message of maintaining the system of social protections fell on increasingly receptive ears, and since it had never been in power, it could not be blamed for anything. The CEU data confirm this picture of a party that said all the right things and had little negative baggage to detract from its appeal.

CONCLUSIONS

The results from all three countries show that the nature of party evaluations spans a wide range of criteria. The parties are quite distinct in this regard, bur for each party the pattern of responses is distributed across many categories. Although this is not a conclusive proof that voters are not superficial in their judgments, it gives strong indication that political parties in EastCentral Europe are not built around single issues, particularly charismatic leaders, or narrow affiliations with social groups. A further conclusion that emerges from these data has to do with the distinctiveness of patterns obtained by individual parties. The fact that these patterns are so unique suggests that the step a voter must make from a general ideological predisposition (tendency) to specific party support can hinge on a variety of factors related to a party's actual conduct, the characteristics of its leaders, its specific policy positions, and so forth. This is of course in line with the general thrust of the Michigan model, in which party identification (or, in this case, political tendency) provides a voter with a

The Public Mind long-term, general predisposition that, immediately prior to election time, can be affected by factors such as candidate personalities or party performance evaluations (Campbell et al. 1960). But to confirm that this is indeed the case, that even predisposed or committed individuals use a wide range of idiosyncratic criteria when choosing a political party, we must examine the factors responsible for the voting decision itself In the final analysis, a way must be found to measure the relative influence of long-term background factors as compared to the more idiosyncratic, ephemeral influences characteristic of each party and each election. This is the task for Chapter 7·

PART THREE

VOTING

SIX

Electoral Turnout

FREE TO STAY AT HOME?

One of the key characteristics of Eastern Europe's communist systems was the hegemonic status of a single political party, periodically legitimized through that old standby of authoritarian rulers, an "election without choice" (Hermet et al. 1978). Indeed, since they offered no real choice among competing parties, the legitimizing function of these elections rested largely with turnout: an overwhelming expression of popular support for those in power was crucial and was ensured by electoral laws that made voting compulsory. As a consequence, turnout figures that fell just a few points short of roo percent were a staple of communist-era elections. The advent of democratization brought with it the choice of many political parties, as well as the choice of staying at home on voting day. It was clear that from now on turnout would be determined by an entirely new set of factors, but at the start of the decade their exact nature was an open question. Would Eastern Europe's voters flock to the polls in vast numbers to exercise the franchise that had been denied to them for so many decades, or would they take advantage of their new freedom to not participate at all? Would socioeconomic status and political sophistication prove to be the key predictors of turnout, as is the case in advanced democracies, or would it be the unsophisticated and easily manipulatable voters who would turn out en I 59

Voting

I6o TABLE 6.1 Turnout levels (%) in national elections, 1990-2000

Election year 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 2000

Czech Republic Hungary 97

65

Poland 61/53 43

85

52 69 68/68 76 48 74

55 61

NOTE: Hungarian figures refer to the first round of voting; Polish figures for presidential elections of 1990 and 1995 include first and second rounds.

masse in a behavior echoing communist-era compliance with the expectations of authority figures? The very first postcommunist elections, held across the region in 1989-91, showed that no easy answers would be forthcoming. In Poland and Hungary the turnouts proved unexpectedly low (see Table 6.1), prompting worries about the potential for instability and antireform backlash that could result from a sudden mobilization of nonvoters. At the other end of the spectrum were countries such as Albania and Bulgaria, where turnouts in the 90 percent range in elections held before the noncommunist opposition had much chance to organize itself, led to questions about the genuineness of the democratization process itsel£ Yet another pattern seemed to be emerging in Czechoslovakia, Slovenia, and East Germany, where a strong and rapid development of political pluralism went together with turnouts in the high 90 percent range. Few doubted that in all these cases the extent of popular involvement in the political process would be critical for the future of democracy, but much work lay ahead if the forces driving electoral turnout were to be understood.

Electoral Turnout THEORIES OF ELECTORAL PARTICIPATION

A closer investigation of electoral turnout and its role in the shaping of new party systems in East-Central Europe requires that we draw on the existing theoretical framework for the analysis of political participation. Even though it is based almost entirely on the experience of western democracies, particularly the United States, it gives us a basic set of hypotheses of at least some applicability to the postcommunist environment. At the most general level, participation in political life is said to be determined by three key factors: motives, means, and opportunities (Verba and Nie 1972). In other words, we first need to know why an individual would want to take the time and trouble to vote at all; second, assuming that he did, would he have the intellectual, psychological, and socioeconomic resources to do so; and third, would the political system, with its legal and organizational framework, facilitate or hinder his efforts? The question of motives has generated the most interesting debates, particularly in view of the continuing popularity of rational choice approaches to the study of voting behavior. Downs, in his classic study, postulated that voters engage in expected utility calculations, weighing the benefits that would result from their favored party's coming to power against the costs (time, effort) of going to the polling station and discounting the result by the probability that their individual vote would give rise to the preferred outcome (Downs 1957). The problem with this formulation was that in virtually all electoral contests this probability would be so close to zero that rational individuals should almost never bother to vote. To explain this paradox, Downs and others who followed his model were forced to add another term to the equation: the concept of civic duty, the fulfillment of which provided a sense of satisfaction sufficient to offset the costs of voting (Riker and Ordeshook 1968). Unfortunately, this modification essentially defeats the economic character of the model, since the reasons it gives as to why people go to the polls have nothing to do with the ostensible purpose of voting, the Downsian "expected utility maximization." Another group of scholars has argued that voters try to minimize the "maximum regret" they would feel if an undesired candidate won (Ferejohn and Fiorina 1974). In the end, however, given the negligible chance of influencing the outcome, it is difficult to reject the proposition that most people vote mainly because of a moral imperative to do so (Meehl 1977).

Voting On the question of "opportunities," much work has been done to link turnout levels to the legal framework within which electoral competition takes place. In the United States, early studies have focused on the various barriers that limited the political participation of minorities. More recently, the impact of voting registration methods has been highlighted in comparative studies that contrast the European practice, in which the government generally takes the initiative to ensure that all eligible persons are registered to vote, and the American one (prevalent before the introduction of "motorvoter" laws) in which the initiative to register had to be taken individually by each person wishing to cast a ballot on election day Qackman 1987). Other systemic factors identified in numerous studies include the effects of close races or exceptionally newsworthy campaigns on bolstering political interest and, by extension, electoral turnout. In turn, the "means" necessary for participation to take place have been identified as the socioeconomic and psychological resources that a person brings to the political arena. Intellectual sophistication (as measured by educational attainment), income and social status, political awareness and engagement (newspaper readership, strength of partisanship), and a feeling of civic efficacy (the confidence that one's vote counts and one's opinions matter) have consistently been shown in empirical studies as having a significant influence on the likelihood of turning out to vote (Miller and Miller 1976). It has also been shown, however, that some individuals of modest or low socioeconomic status do in fact vote in large numbers. Part of the explanation for this behavior appears to lie with the force of habit: it seems that some individuals go to the polls as a matter of course, whereas others never do so at all. For others, the answer lies in their engagement in social networks such as churches, labor unions, close-knit rural communities, or ethnic neighborhoods in which awareness of common goals and interests or the pressure to conform to the group's norms and expectations facilitates the process of political mobilization (Verba and Nie, 1972). Forces acting at the level of the political system may further enhance these effects, as when political parties make an effort to "get out the vote" among their core constituency, or when laws are passed to hinder the participation of groups whose entry into the political process would have the potential of disturbing the status quo. As important as such contextual factors may be, they are often difficult to establish on the basis of ordinary survey data because nationally representa-

Electoral Turnout tive samples are too small to capture what may well be very localized effects. At the same time, socioeconomic differences may be overemphasized in surveys, since it has been demonstrated that overreporting of electoral participation, prompted by a respondent's desire to look "responsible" and civicminded, tends to be higher among those with higher educational and professional status (Silver et al. 1986). As a consequence, many studies rely on a combination of surveys and actual voting returns from each district. The former facilitate a deeper understanding of the psychology of participation, whereas the latter highlight differences among various types of communities. Both types of data will be used in this study in order to take advantage of their complementary strengths and paint a balanced picture of the participatory process and its consequences.

TURNOUT PATTERNS IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE OF THE

1990S

The official turnout figures reported in Table 6.1 give a clear indication of significant differences in participatory patterns in the three national cases. In the Czech part of then-Czechoslovakia, voters turned out in truly exceptional numbers (97 percent) in the very first posttransition elections of 1990. The proportion of voters has steadily declined during the course of the decade, but as of 1998 it was still substantially higher than in the other two countries. In Hungary the trends have been less clear: turnout was 65 percent in the first posttransition elections held in 1990; it rose to almost 70 percent four years later, only to decline to 55 percent in 1998. Poland is the only country of the three with direct presidential elections, and the turnout figures reflect different levels of public interest in presidential and parliamentary contests, with the latter failing to reach the 50 percent mark on two out of past three occasions. These aggregate figures give us a series of national-level snapshots taken at different points in time, but they cannot tell us anything about patterns in the voting habits of particular individuals. It can be hypothesized, in a crude approximation of the classic Verba and Nie model, that in each country there exists a group of politically involved persons who turn out to vote at every opportunity, a second group whose members have voted at least once, and a completely disengaged group whose members never vote at all.'

Voting TABLE

6.2

Self-reported electoral participation, 1995

Participation in Past Elections None At least one All (parliamentary only) All (including presidential) TOTAL

N

Czech Republic

Hungary

Poland I

Poland2

r6.4 12.6 70·9

9·6 21.9 68.5

41.3 r8.3 40·4

II.2 55·0

roo.o% 1569

roo.o% II96

roo.o% II73

33·8 roo.o% II73

NOTE: Results are from 1995 CEU surveys. Elections covered: Czech Rep. 1990, 1992; Hungary 1990, 1994; Poland r (parliamentary only) 1991, 1993; Poland 2 (parliamentary and presidential) 1990, 1991, 1993, 1995·

But how large is each of these groups, and do their proportions vary among the three countries? The 1995 CEU surveys contain questions about participation in past elections. At that time, these included two elections each for respondents in Hungary and the Czech Republic and four (two parliamentary, two presidential) for Polish respondents. Once again, the national cases exhibit strikingly different patterns (Table 6.2). In the Czech Republic and Hungary, the proportion of those who never participate in national elections is about 16 and IO percent, respectively, whereas the proportion of those who always turn out to vote is close to 70 percent in both countries. In Poland, the picture depends on whether presidential contests are included in the calculation. If they are, then the proportion of completely disengaged persons (those who never voted in any election) is, at II percent, not that different from the other countries. If only parliamentary elections are counted, however, then the proportion of such individuals rises to a very high level of 41 percent. And finally, Poland shows a distinctly small proportion of persons who always vote. In order to explore these patterns further and examine the various correlates of voting behavior among respondents of the 1995 CEU surveys, an "electoral participation index" was created on the basis of responses to questions about participation in the previous two elections and the likelihood of taking part in a future one. Participation in past elections and a definite will-

Electoral Turnout

ingness to vote in the future was scored as one point for each instance. One point was subtracted for a definite refusal to vote in the future. Probable yes or probable no responses were scored as plus or minus half a point. The resulting index will be used as an indicator of a person's overall level of electoral engagement and will serve as the dependent variable in the analyses that follow. The charts presented in Figure 6.1 show the nature of relationships between the index and a set of socioeconomic and political indicators. Of the socioeconomic indicators, education and occupation produce by far the strongest effects, a pattern common to all three countries and identified in many other democracies as well. Residence in a larger community and a more frequent church attendance show a modest positive relationship to electoral participation, but only in Poland. Gender appears to have very little effect; age shows highest participation levels for respondents in their middle years. The "political" indicators present a very interesting picture: as far as ideology is concerned, it does not seem to matter whether a person is on the left or on the right. What does matter is that the person not be in the center, where electoral participation scores are at their lowest. In other words, a higher likelihood of turning out to vote is not a feature that distinguishes the left from the right; rather, it distinguishes persons who have some conception of their ideological preferences from individuals who do not. The other indicator, "interest in politics," leaves no doubt as to its importance: in all three countries greater interest translates into higher levels of electoral participation. Multivariate regression analyses were then performed to estimate the relative effects of socioeconomic, ideological, and political interest factors. The three types were grouped into three blocks of independent variables, and three separate equations were estimated for each country (Table 6.3). Of the socioeconomic indicators, age and education produce significant coefficients, which remain so even after other variables are added to the model. Church attendance is also significant in Poland, whereas former Communist Party membership produces significant coefficients in Poland and Hungary. Place of residence and occupation effects, identified with bivariate analyses, mostly disappear in the multivariate regressions. When a battery of value-issue questions is added in Model 2, support for market reforms and either a leftist (except in Hungary) or a rightist ideological self-identification are identified as being positively related to electoral participation. Political and economic dissatisfaction produces lower (continued on page I70)

FIGURE 6.1

Bivariate relationships between participation index and selected socioeconomic indicators 3.0 . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ,

3.0

~

1,1

] c

2.5

0

~

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-------=-==-- ---- ::-:.::-:.::-:.~~~---

--/ /

I (/)

Poland

"

Poland

1.5

Czech Republic

Czech Republic

1.0 18-30

+--------------------1 female

Hungary

31-45

46-60

1.0 male

61+

Sex

Age Group 3.0

3.0

~

1,1

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i

15 za. a. c

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1.5

Poland

ill

~1ij

--------1.5

Poland

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:;; Czech Republic

1.0 +------~------.,..,.~------,----::1 Weekly Monthly Yearly Less Freq

Church Attendance

Hungary

Czech Republic

-1----------::---,----------::-:-:1

1.0 Primary

Secondary

Education

Post-Sec

Hungary

3.0 , - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ,

3.0 - , - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ,

~ ~

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::1

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::; Czech Republic

1.0 Profess/Mgr

Czech Republic

Hungary White Collar

1.0

Fann

Blue Collar

+-------~-----~-------1

Rura!/ woK population

MSZP

SZDSZ

FIDESZ

KDNP

FKGP

MDF

1992 1995

1992 1995

1992 1995

1992 1995

1992 1995

1992 1995

I.OI -41 .61 1.28 .8o !.24 .80 .64 2.90* ·74 !.45 .88 ·78 r.66

I.02** -92 1.04 1.94* 1.03 !.13 ·58 I. II ·99 ·77 -91 I.JO .82 .64

·99 .60 !.59 .67 !.04 ·50 ·98 I.OI !.40 !.28 ·56 .61 ·33* .8J

·97** -52 .64 1.02 .85 r.86 I.I8 !.35 -91 ·53 ·74 !.52 .81 !.09

·96** 1.29 1.32 I.I6 .86 -72 -92 .83 .87 .87 ·96 1.17 1.57* !.78**

·97** ·52 .60 ·48 ·58 !.89 ·95 .85 ·93 ·94 2.04* !.37 .82 ·95

·99 !.03** 3·49* .86 .28* .Jo** .00 ·48 3-23 ·39* 2.27 .29 .So !.25 ·76 !.99 .66 ·53 ·59 q6 .25* 2-49* -51 ·99 ·75 1.41 r.6o ·55

1.00

·98*

!.01

-49 .6J

·77

·93 .89 .6o

·73 3-70 5-41 ·57 !.12 !.65

I.I6 .80 !.63 ·58 1.83

·99 ·96 ·17 ·43 2.09* ·97 .69 I.J8 I.I9 1.85* ·44 ·78

·97 !.26 .62 ·78 I.I8 ·97 1.19 1.04 r.8r I.6I

I.OO !.03 1.35 .81 I.IO ·33 ·98 .62 !.99 !.38 ·58 ·99 r.6r 1.45

Clericalism index Decommunization index Nationalism index Political dissatisfaction index Personal economic dissatisfaction Welfarism index Market reforms index Law and order index Leftist self-identification Rightist self-identification Approval of national economic performance Goal congruence index Voted for party in last election PSEUDO-R SQUARE (NAGELKERKE)

-92

·77 I.IO

·96 !.20 ·92 !.25 1.27 2.65** .66 na1

!.05 .64** .85 .89 .61** 1.08 ·92 .83 1.99** .68 nar

!.43** !.35** J7.81**20.13** ·43

·59

!.13

!.02

·97 !.19

·95 ·92 .82*

·93 1.00 !.55* ·90 1.24 ·56 .66 na1

·96 ·95 ·92 !.1) .82 ·59 na1

!.38** I. 52** 12.96**17·33** ·31

·42

·94 I. II I.I6 .So .8r** r.o8 .So* ·91 1.14 I. II .86 !.20 .84** 1.03 .81 ·93 !.35 ·74 !.47 ·93 na1 na1 1.24** 1.32** 5·97**17.64** ·31

.JO

!.32 ·47* !.14 .83 I.I6 1.08 !.25 3-31* !.12 !.03 na1

I.I8 ·90 1.43* 1.30 !.07 ·71 I.I6 !.64 ·71 .So na1

r.3o** I.I9 14.32**18.65** ·42

·48

1.00 !.21 I.I6 .83 !.22 ·99 .81 !.23 -92 ·53 na1

·95 ·78 ·96 !.21 !.07 ·78 !.05 !.37 .65 !.15 na1

!.49** !.64** 10.9o**24.88** ·37

·44

·97 1.07 I.I6 2.25** !.03 ·70* .81* .81 .66** I. 77** .87 ·77 ·78* .83 ·95 ·99 .82 1.34 ·73 !.30 nar na1 1.37** 1.54** 8.63** 2.12** ·37

NOTE: Entries are exponential functions of unstandardized logistic regression coefficients; **significant at .or; *significant at .05; na1, not asked; na2, party not in power during previous year; na3, cannot be computed.

·57

208

Voting

attendant crises of direction and identity. Beyond that, however, the Hungarian system is not unlike the Polish one in having left-right competition structured more by biography and ideology (especially the theme of decommunization) than economic issues. This is a phenomenon undoubtedly related to the presence of a large, reform-minded, excommunist party whose attractiveness to the materially contented middle class blurs economic cleavages even as it perpetuates those related to communist-era history. To sum up, a close examination of public opinion and voting patterns in East-Central Europe makes the apparent paradox of stable individuals and volatile elections less mysterious. On the one hand, it is clear that the region's party systems are rooted in a set of socioeconomic and ideological divisions that predispose persons toward fairly stable political outlooks. The pattern of cleavages in each country is somewhat different, as can be expected given the differences in religiosity, urbanization, historical experiences, and so forth. In all cases, however, they provide the fundamental structure of public "demand" for certain types of political parties-a structure whose resilience gives a very definite shape and character to electoral politics and makes it possible for us to speak about the stabilization of these new systems. On the other hand, the "supply'' of political parties is often problematic (Bielasiak 1997; Ilonszki 1998). Even when there is a clear opening on the political stage, as there was in the case of a broad center-right party in Poland and Hungary or a center-left one in the Czech Republic, it may take some time before it is filled. To be sure, there is no shortage of political entrepreneurs ready and willing to fill such gaps, but their personal ambitions and narrow ideological commitments often stand in the way of effective organizationbuilding. In the meantime, the voters keep searching for the right match, revising their choices as they acquire new information or as the parties themselves shape and redefine their political identity. Little partisan loyalty can be expected in such an environment, and little was indeed found in this study.

EIGHT

Aggregate-Level Factors: Locality and Voting Behavior

THE POLITICS OF PLACE

The previous chapter focused on individual-level factors influencing voting behavior. Socioeconomic status, ideological and issue positions, programmatic goals, assessments of economic performance, and votes cast in previous elections were considered and their relative impact was assessed. The chapter relied on survey data collected by polling agencies in personal interviews with Polish, Czech, and Hungarian respondents. This made it possible to delve into the psychological background of voting decisions to find out not only who each respondent is (in a demographic sense) but also what he thinks, how he interprets the political world, and what core values lie behind the actions he takes. But as powerful as the survey method is, it has a number of disadvantages. For a start, the researcher can never be sure of the truthfulness and accuracy of the replies. Respondents may want to conceal their true opinions and partisan preferences, especially if the opinions and parties in question are regarded as extreme or otherwise shunned by the political mainstream. Further, wanting to seem civic-minded in the eyes of the interviewer, they may report that they had voted in the last election, when in fact they had not done so. Reports of past voting may also be skewed by feelings of regret for having chosen "wrong," or the desire to join the winning side retroactively. And as to current intentions, they are just that-intentions-and may or 209

2IO

Voting

may not come to be realized on voting day. All this poses a particularly acute problem for a researcher interested in the temporal dimension of electoral politics, that is, in questions of consistency of opinion, stability versus volatility of behaviqr, party system change, and so forth. Inaccuracies of recall make survey data questionable even when short periods are being considered. For longer periods, especially those that include the early decades of the twentieth century, such data are not available at all (Eulau 1994). A different set of problems is related to the issue of representativeness. A typical survey sample of 1,ooo-1,500 persons may be representative of the electorate as a whole, but not of smaller, subnational communities. In other words, national surveys can be used only to investigate relationships, such as those between social class and voting, that are manifest on a national scale. However, these national figures may overlook causal relationships of various kinds and intensities operating at the level of regions, towns, or even neighborhoods. A vote cast for a Catholic party in an anonymous, secularized urban community may not have the same meaning, or the same sources and connotations, as a vote for that party cast in a close-knit village that turns up for church every Sunday in its entirety. With surveys, however, we see only isolated individuals. The context in which they live, work, acquire information, converse with friends, and make political decisions is almost completely absent (Dogan and Derivry 1988). In order to address this gap in our knowledge, this chapter will use election returns aggregated at the level of subnational administrative units: voivodships in Poland, counties (megye) in Hungary, and districts (okresy) in the Czech Republic. 1 Such data have the principal advantage of representing actual votes and not simply intentions reported, more or less truthfully, to a survey-taker. Second, such data are available for a longer time, allowing for historical comparisons impossible to achieve with existing surveys. And third, aggregated data can be easily correlated with a variety of economic and social statistics, from the level of unemployment to the level of church attendance. This assay may reveal a significant amount of information about the environment in which a particular set of votes was cast. Electoral return data suffers, of course, from the fact that it is aggregated, grouped at the level of precincts, districts, provinces, or some other geographical units. 2 Since voting is done by secret ballot, there is no possibility of de-aggregating it, and there is only so much that can be said about geographical units without running into the problem of ecological fallacy, that is,

Locality and Voting Behavior

2II

making unwarranted inferences about individuals on the basis of grouped data (Achen and Shively 1995; Robinson 1950). Quite simply, provinces or districts cannot be religious, unemployed, or well educated; indeed, provinces cannot vote. However, several statistical procedures have been proposed as ways of partially addressing this problem of cross-level inference, and they can be used under some circumstances (King 1997; Goodman 1953).

LOCAL CONTEXT AND VOTING BEHAVIOR

How exactly might local context affect electoral politics? It has been known for decades that place and politics are in some way connected, and indeed, the early classics of voting research, such as Siegfried's 1913 Tableau politique de la France or V. 0. Key's landmark work on politics in the southern United States, made much of the fact that support for political parties consistently differed from one geographical location to another (Siegfried 1913; Key 1949). However, the exact reasons for such differentiation have remained elusive, even though the literature has proposed a number of possible mechanisms. One such mechanism involves the role of norms and values prevalent within a certain geographical location: the shared "cultural codes" that help individuals interpret reality and serve as guides to social interaction. To quote Rohe, political behavior "is not only influenced by what people actually think in private, that is to say by their political mentalities, but also by what can be said and done in public, that is to say by prevailing public philosophies" (Rohe 1990, 6). Putnam's study of Italian regional governments argues in this vein, suggesting that norms of civic engagement, developed over the course of centuries, have played a critical role in ensuring the success oflocal political institutions in the cities of the north, in sharp contrast to the corruption and inefficiency that flourish amid the mutual distrust and "amoral familism'' characteristic of the south (Putnam et al. 1993). The difficulty with such normative explanations is that the mechanisms they posit are not easy to measure, and even harder to refute. Critics of Putnam's work have wondered, for example, exactly how the civic norms of renaissance Florence might have been transmitted to the city's present-day inhabitants across hundreds of years of authoritarian rule and massive social and economic change. And why should these much older norms be more influential today than the norms responsible for support for fascism in the

2I2

Voting

1930s or communism in the 1950s? (Levi 1996; see also other articles in same volume). Norms may still matter, but showing where they come from, how they are transmitted, and what exact impact they have presents a tough challenge. Another possibility is that local context matters because of geographical disparities in political power and economic wealth. Much work has been done on the differences between "core" and "peripheral" regions, whereby the former, generally wealthier and home to "nation-building" cultures, meet with resistance in culturally distinct and economically less developed locales. A sense of ethnic, religious, or linguistic identity often meshes with a sense of being exploited (or at least being held back) by the core, producing support for regional, autonomist, or separatist parties (Hechter 1975; but see Brustein 1988). Cleavages of a similar type, of varying strength, can be found in most modern democracies, and they featured prominently in Lipset and Rokkan's landmark study ofWest European party systems (Lipset and Rokkan 1967). The difficulty with this approach involves being able to establish that geographical differentiation in the vote is not merely a by-product of differentiation in the social structure. Put another way, it can be argued that some places simply have more blue-collar workers, farmers, or religious conservatives, and this translates into increased support for working class, agrarian, or religious parties. After these social-structural variations are controlled for, there may not be much left for geography to explain (King 1996; McAllister and Studlar 1992). On the other side of the argument, there is research to show that a person is more likely to vote with his socioeconomic group if that group is dominant locally (Johnston 1990). So to quote an aptly coined phrase, it could well be that voting is not so much about "people like me" but more about "people around here" (Miller 1978, 283). But what does "around here" mean? By what exact mechanisms can local environment affect voting behavior? One line of argument stresses the "microsociology" of places, that is, locally specific patterns of issue salience, social stratification, economic relationships, influence networks, and so forth. According to Agnew, "even in a world in which many sources of information and social cues are extra-local, especially as transmitted by the electronic media, information and social cues are meaningful only when activated in everyday routine social interaction .... Home, work, church, school, and the like still form nodes around which everyday life circulates" (Agnew 1987, 3). In other words, electoral choices are made within relatively

Locality and Voting Behavior

2IJ

small social worlds, with opinions on major issues of the day likely to be based on the experience of local conditions. To take just one example, the issue of unemployment will play very differently in an economically depressed region, where half the population is out of work and where "there are no jobs," as compared to a place where jobs are relatively plentiful. In the former case unemployment is likely to be framed as being the result of circumstances beyond any single person's control; in the latter, as a problem of poor skills or insufficient motivation to find work. In addition, how political parties behave, which issues they stress, and what solutions they offer also depend on locality, so the meaning of a vote for a given party varies from place to place (Rohe 1990, 18). Further, the actual choice that voters face in each district depends on which parties have adequate local presence, which ones have "familiar candidates and compelling stories to tell," not to mention a record of delivering public works projects and other forms of patronage to the community in question (Agnew 1996, 139). If a district is perceived by a party as the stronghold of the opposing side, it may be contested only halfheartedly or not at all. In other words, since politicians expect certain places to be more friendly than others, they devise their strategies accordingly. Such expectations become part of conventional wisdom and shape the expectations of both candidates and voters in election after election, eventually turning into something akin to self-fulfilling prophecies. In this way, the "ideology of places," driven by its own psychological dynamics, may become more important than any underlying social, economic, or political reality (Murphy 1990).

PLACE AND POLITICS IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE

Is it likely that any of the mechanisms described above have been at work in postcommunist democracies? Have regional cleavages rooted in cultural differences, economic disparities, or other contextual factors played a role in the structuring and stabilization of electoral behavior in this part of the world? There are a number of reasons to think so. To begin, the countries in question have no shortage of region-specific cultural traditions dating back, in some cases, to the pre-World War I era of the great empires. In the Polish case it has been noted that different levels of political repression, civic development, and organizational activity in each of the three partition zones (Russian, German,

2I4

Voting

and Austro-Hungarian) of pre-1918 Poland produced three very different types of political culture. To take one example, Austria-Hungary and, to a lesser extent Germany, offered their Polish subjects far greater opportunities for political representation on legislative bodies and in public administration than was the case with Tsarist Russia. This had consequences for the kinds of ideologies and political movements that emerged in each zone, with effects very much evident in interwar-era elections (Staniszkis 1991, n2; Florczyk and Zukowski 1990, 282; Wereszycki 1979, 148-221; Wandycz 1974). In Hungary, there were cultural differences among regions related to the nature and level of economic development, ethnic and religious composition, and location within the Empire. One of Hungary's most prominent political cleavages of the modern era-the urbanist-populist divide-during the interwar years had a distinct geographical aspect, pitting ethnically Hungarian members of small-town and rural middle classes against the predominantly German and Jewish bourgeoisie concentrated in Budapest and the larger cities. Other cleavages linked to geography were present as well: in the south (especially the southeast) of the country the peasantry gave strong support to agrarian parties and movements, most notably the Smallholders, and in the industrial north blue collar workers tended to support the Social Democrats. The effects of these cleavages were not fully apparent in the absence of free elections under Horthy's regime, but despite the changes brought on by World War II, some of them were clearly evident when Hungarians went to the polls in 1945 (Korosenyi 1992b; Wittenberg 1999). At the beginning of the century the territory of today's Czech Republic also encompassed several different cultural traditions, from rural and Catholic Moravia to the secularized urban region around Prague to the very culturally distinct Sudetenland, with its large German population. In the interwar years the various regions were known for their political differences: the communists did best in the industrial districts ofRakovnik, Kladno, and Plzen, the conservative People's Party had its stronghold in rural Moravia, and the Socialists prevailed among urban voters in Bohemia Qehlicka et al. 1993; Jehlicka and Sykora 1991; Wolchik 1993, 64-65). 3 As to regional differences in social structure, in East-Central Europe, in addition to the usual rural-traditional versus urban-modern cleavage, we should expect to find differences related to the border changes and population movements that followed both world wars. In Poland, a country that at the end ofWorld War II was physically shifted westward, the war was fol-

Locality and Voting Behavior

2I5

lowed by a wave of internal migrations. Some people were fleeing the eastern districts so as not to find themselves permanently in the Soviet Union, whereas others were moving west to take advantage of land available for settlement in the post-German areas (Fierla et al. 1994). As a result, the social structure of Poland's western territories is quite different from the one found, for example, in the country's southeast. Rather than being cohesive and tied to a sense of place and its traditions, it is a mixture of people from different backgrounds brought together by external circumstances. Even half a century later, the western territories are characterized by what has been described as an "atomized" social structure, evident in weaker social bonds, higher rates of social pathologies, and more anomie belief systems of their residents (Florczyk and Zukowski 1990). A similar pattern can be found in the former Sudetenland region of the Czech Republic, which had been resettled after the expulsion of its ethnic German inhabitants (Danek and Stepanek 1992). In Hungary, the Tisza-Maros region of the Great Plain has a history of migrations and a resulting socioeconomic distinctiveness dating back several centuries. The ethnic composition of its inhabitants, its position within the feudal order, and its economic character have all played a role in the development of a culture of opposition and rebellion that led to it being called the "Stormy Corner" Qanos 1982; Bernat 1989, 69). Such differences in social structure may be significant for our purposes, since they may be related to varying levels of support for traditionalist parties, which tend to do best in places with the most "untouched" social structure, and, on the other side, parties on the extremes ofleft and right, which tend to register greatest support in the more anomie, atomized areas (Korzeniowski 1991). The role played by regional differences in economic conditions appears straightforward enough, but here too East-Central Europe's complicated history adds another wrinkle. The economic geography of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic was heavily influenced by industrialization policies embarked upon by communist governments, especially during the Stalinist period. The locations of some new industrial enterprises, such as the Nowa Huta steelworks near Krakow, were chosen for political rather than economic reasons (that is, to give a more "proletarian" character to a region perceived as hostile to communism). In most cases, however, the location of new industries was guided by the availability of raw materials and the presence of the necessary infrastructure. This meant that already industrialized regions became even more so, while less developed ones were often neglected (Kalinski 1995).

2I6

Voting

This buildup of giant industrial plants and the resulting productive overcapacity in a few, specific geographical areas was to have profound consequences after the transitions of 1989, since it was clear that economic restructuring would hit these places especially hard. The potential for social unrest was well appreciated by the new governments, as was the possibility that parties with an antimarket message would find a fertile ground in such localities. Some efforts were made, therefore (through subsidies, tax exemptions, and the like), to prevent the situation from getting out of hand in the most affected areas. This was true even in the Czech Republic, despite the radical pro-market rhetoric of the Klaus government (Kabele 1995, 75). Agriculture presented a similar problem, related to the communist-era system of state and collective farms. Even in Poland, where agriculture remained mostly in private hands, some regions (especially in the northwest) had a large proportion of collective farms scheduled to be dosed or sold off to private investors. People employed on these farms viewed the transition process with great apprehension and with the sense that in the new economy they would find themselves very much among the "losers." Needless to say, they were not likely to support parties perceived as responsible for the new hardships they were experiencing. And finally, with regard to possible effects due to the power of entrenched political perceptions, we now have a decade's worth of voting data in which to look for their presence, particularly as regards effects that persist because they become an integral part of conventional wisdom. For this study three parliamentary elections were chosen in each of the three countries. In the cases of Poland and the Czech Republic, the first postcommunist elections were not included on the grounds that their results were either set in advance through government-opposition negotiations (the Polish election of 1989), or that they were basically a plebiscite on communist rule, with the noncommunist side being represented by a large "umbrella'' organization (the Polish election of 1989 and the Czechoslovak election of 1990). This leaves us with the 1991, 1993, and 1997 elections in Poland, the 1990, 1994, and 1998 elections in Hungary, and the 1992, 1996, and 1998 elections in the Czech Republic. For each election, the data were limited to parties that obtained 5 percent or more of the popular vote. This threshold was designed to focus the analysis on the more significant players in a country's political scene. In the case of Poland, for example, this criterion gave nine parties for 1991, seven for 1993, and five for 1997.

Locality and Vflting Behavior

2IJ

AGGREGATE-LEVEL FACTORS AND PARTY SYSTEM DYNAMICS

Poland The starting objective is to find out whether the party systems of Poland, Hungary,·and the Czech Republic were structured by some underlying set of dimensions that had a territorial aspect. To this end, data from all available elections was placed into a single factor analytical equation (a separate one for each country). In the case of Poland, two factors were extracted from the combination of 1991, 1993, and 1997 election results, accounting for 36 and 24 percent of variance, respectively. 4 Figure 8.1 shows graphically how the parties are distributed along the two dimensions, and gives us a hint as to what these dimensions might be about. The horizontal dimension is relatively easy to decipher, as it shows the excommunist SLD on the left of the spectrum and the strongly anticommunist parties (AWS, POC, KPN, BBWR, WAK) on the right. In other words, the former communists did well in areas where the anticommunists did poorly and vice versa. The close proximity of party positions for the three election years shows that this picture had remained largely unchanged during the course of the decade The vertical dimension is more difficult to interpret at first glance, since both of its ends contain parties of different ideological profiles: at the top of the graph there are the market-liberal UD and KlD, the rather populist Solidarity, the left-of-center Labor Union (UP), and, indeed, the former communist SLD. In the lower section there are both the Catholic-national WAK and the old-regime-linked peasant PSL. The nature of the vertical dimension is revealed, however, if we look at its geographic distribution (Figure 8.2, top). The light-shaded area covers the country's less urbanized provinces and corresponds to places that gave strong support to the peasant and Christian-national parties; the dark-shaded areas, containing Poland's largest urban centers (including Warsaw, Katowice, Gdansk, Poznan, Lodi, and Szczecin), proved to·be the strongholds of the remaining parties. It appears, therefore, that electoral behavior of Poland's provinces in the 1990s was structured by one dimension separating the excommunists from their anticommunist opponents and another dimension separating agrarian parties from those with mainly urban electorates. This was confirmed by computing factor scores for each province and correlating them with anumber of socioeconomic indicators. 5 The urban-versus-rural character of the

Voting

2I8 FIGURE

8.1

Poland-factor analysis of voivodship-level electoral returns, parliamentary elections only, 1991-1997 1.0..----;-,--lrrr1i"71W"""'>lr---,-----, : ui59:c~D93 i U P93 -K~D91

..

.'

·5 SU)97··----i--------------~SOt9t----ijElWR93 _____ _ SLD93

i KPN93 KPN91

i

c 0

~ ·c: ro

.0

:5

SLD91

PQC91

o.o ------------- j·- -------- ----~ ----------- --j-- -----p;vvsg i '

i

i WAK93

'

i

'

WAK91

i

' ' -.5 ----------- --~-------- --- ---~--R0P9-7----~- ------------' '

' '

' '

' ' : PSLSP91 : i PSL97iPL91 i PSUlJ -1.0+----t-----t-----+-----1 -1.0 -.5 0.0 .5 1.0

Traditionalism first dimension is clearly evident in Table 8.1. On the one side there are urbanized and industrialized provinces, where education levels are higher but traditional social bonds are weaker (as evident in higher crime and divorce rates, as well as lower religiosity). On the other side there are mainly agricultural provinces (where unemployment was high in 1991 but, it is interesting, not in later years), with less educated but more religious and more tradition-minded populations. It is worth noting that the lighter-shaded area on the map (Figure 8.2, left) largely corresponds to lands controlled by Russia before Poland regained its independence in 1918-areas that even then had lagged behind the rest of the country in terms of urbanization and economic development (Wandycz 1974). The second (horizontal) factor is also linked with religiosity, but it is not about urban-rural differences. On the one side there are provinces where the fabric of traditional society had survived the communist period. On the other side-where the former communists do best-there are economically depressed areas, characterized by consistently high unemployment rates. These provinces have low religiosity, but high crime and divorce rates. And

Locality and Voting Behavior

2I9 FIGURE 8.2

Poland-maps of factor scores

Urbanization

E]Low

• EJ •

High

Traditionalism

E]Low

I •

High

as the map shows, they are located mainly in the west of the country, especially in post-German areas settled by a diverse mixture of refugees and other displaced persons after World War II. Anticommunist parties, in contrast, tend to do best in the rural southeast, in the lands controlled by AustriaHungary prior to 1918. This leads to a key question: Are the relationships we have just described due simply to differences in social and economic conditions, or is there something to the idea that regions harbor unique political cultures? To test the hypothesis that historical regions do matter, I divided Poland's provinces into four categories according to their status in pre-independence days. From those I created three dummy variables: for Galicja (the southeast), the German partition (midwest), and western territories (north and west). 6 These dummy variables were then inserted into regression equations, together with the most significant socioeconomic indicators identified earlier. The results, shown in Table 8.2, do not support regional effects for the first (urbanization) factor but for the second one do indicate an effect for Galicja (even after religiosity and unemployment are controlled for). So perhaps there is something to the argument about ongoing electoral consequences of strong patriotic, religious, and anticommunist traditions of the Galicjan region. But there is yet another possibility: that the relationships we observe are more the product of inertial tendencies in the party system than of socioeconomic conditions or political culture. It is entirely possible that once a

V0ting

220 TABLE 8.1

Poland-correlations between factor scores and socioeconomic indicators

Socioeconomic Indicators Urban residents (o/o) Employed in industry (o/o) Employed in private agriculture (o/o) Manual workers (o/o) Post-secondary education (o/o) Elementary only education (o/o) Religious believers (o/o) Crime rate Divorce rate Infant mortality Unemployment rate (1991) Unemployment rate (1993) Unemployment rate (1997)

Factor I: Urbanization .86** ·57** --93** .oo .68** -.9o** -.41** ·54** .68** ·35* -.41** -.!0

-.21

Factor 2: Traditionalism -.21 .04 .16 -.19 .20 -.16 .64** --33* --35* --39** -.30* --47** -.4o**

**Significant at .OI, *significant at .05 (two-tailed test); entries are bivariate correlation coefficients between factor scores and province-level socioeconomic indicators. NOTE:

region acquires-for whatever reason -a reputation for being a stronghold of a given political party, this party will continue to do well in that locality in subsequent elections. There are a number of mechanisms through which this can happen, ranging from opportunities for patronage appointments to something as simple as the fact that the party's competitors may not try very hard to challenge it in places regarded as hopeless. To check for this possibility, we need to examine the relationship between a party's results in the most recent election and the key socioeconomic determinant of its support while controlling for some measure of its past performance. To this end, I created variables specifically designed to capture the idea that a place may acquire a reputation for being a "stronghold": for each major party, provinces were ranked according to how the party did in elections of 1991 and 1993; the ranks were then summed, and this composite measure was used in the equation. Why the use of ranks? I believe that there is something qualitatively different about a place that becomes known, for

Locality and Voting Behavior

22I

TABLE 8.2 Poland-regional effects tests on factor scores

REGRESSION

Dependent: Factor I (Urbanization) Employed in private agriculture Post-secondary education Galicja German partition Western territories

Bivariate Correlations --93** .68** .03 .28 ·44**

Beta

b -.07** .09** .21 .28 .08

-.76 .21 .07 .IO

.04

.67 .88

CONSTANT RSQUARE

REGRESSION

Dependent: Factor 2 (Traditionalism) Religiosity Unemployment 1991-97 Galicja German partition Western territories

Bivariate Correlations .64** -.42** ·79** -.21 -.31*

CONSTANT RSQUARE

NOTE:

b .05** -.07** r.62** -.22 .07

Beta ·34 -.27 ·57 -.08 .03

-.24 ·76

**Significant at .or; *significant at .05.

example, for giving the highest support to the excommunists of anywhere in the country, from places that rank tenth or eleventh-even if the actual difference in the percentage of excommunist vote among them is very small. The use of summed ranks emphasizes this effect: this composite variable allows us to identify places that may have acquired a reputation for giving exceptional support to a given party for two elections in a row. The results of this analysis are shown in Table 8.3. There are four equations, each for a separate party chosen to be representative of one of the poles of the two factors identified earlier. For each party, the equation contains a key socioeconomic determinant of its vote as well as the composite rank variable of its past results. It is dear from all four equations that past electoral

222

Voting

performance is a strong predictor of future success, but it does not reduce the socioeconomic variables to insignificance. If we take the first equation as an example, it is clear that past performance of right-wing parties was a strong predictor of AWS success in 1997, but so was a region's religiosity. The other equations follow the same pattern. All the aggregate-level analyses presented above have, of course, their inherent limitations and should not be used to make inferences about individual behavior: just because there is a correlation between the level of unemployment and support for the excommunists does not mean that all the unemployed (and only the unemployed) vote for the excommunists. But perhaps the aggregate correlation between unemployment and excommunist support means something else: that economic conditions in a given locality have a broader effect, influencing many voters-and not just the unemployed-to adopt a sociotropic mode of thinking: "I am not doing too well, but it is not my fault because things are bad around here and the government is to blame; therefore, I will vote for a party most likely to prop up the local economy with subsidies." For much of the 1990s, the excommunists would have benefited from such a chain of reasoning, hence the correlation found in the aggregate data. One could easily make similar arguments for the other correlations identified earlier, but at this stage they must remain largely speculative, since aggregate data (even with King or Goodman-style individual-level inferences) simply do not allow us to delve into the background of people's voting decisions. A battery of opinion surveys, conducted in a set of selected local communities, would go a long way toward moving this investigation further. Such a project still lies in the future.

Hungary The Hungarian data yielded two dimensions underlying voting behavior in the elections 1990, 1994, and 1998, accounting for 28.9 and 23.3 percent of the variance. As in Poland, one of the dimensions separates counties consistently sympathetic to the excommunists from those favoring parties of the right. This is clear from the horizontal axis in Figure 8.3: on one side we have the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF), the Free Democrats (SZDSZ), the Young Democrats (FIDESZ), and the Christian Democrats (KDNP). On the other side we find the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP). The vertical axis is more difficult to interpret at first glance, since it differentiates

Locality and Voting Behavior

223

TABLE 8.3 Poland-1997 vote regressions

Dependent: AWS I997

b

Religiosity Right• sum of ranks 1991-93

·32* .23**

CONSTANT RSQUARE

Dependent: SLD I997

b -.41** .14 .2o**

CONSTANT

23.61** .85

Dependent: UW I997

b

Post-secondary education UD sum of ranks 1991-93

·47** .1o**

RSQUARE

3·55** .84

Dependent: PSL I997

b

Employed in private agriculture PSL sum of ranks 1991-93

.18** .13**

CONSTANT

CONSTANT RSQUARE

.21 -71

15.25** .65

Religiosity Unemployment (1997) SLD sum of ranks 1991-93 RSQUARE

Beta

Beta -.36 .08 .67

Beta .28 ·72

Beta ·33 .63

-.07 .85

NOTE: **Significant at .01; *significant at .05; • "Right" includes PC/POC, WAK/ZChN, BBWR, Solidarity.

most strongly between a rather diverse cluster of parties at one end of the spectrum and the Independent Smallholders (FKgP) at the other, with the former communists in the middle. Table 8.4, which shows correlations between factor scores and socioeconomic indicators, reveals that the horizontal factor is mainly about economic differences among the counties, especially as regards their ability to adapt to

Voting

224 FIGURE 8.3 Hungary-factor analysis of megye-level electoral returns, 1990-1998

1.0 -c-------.-----.-----.------,

FIPESZ~DS~B MIEP~B

c 0

~

·c: ro

:5

SZDS~90

$zcisz94-----

·5 ·-- -------- --~-- ----------- -~- ___ KDNP.90 ~szPea : MDF94 M ZP94 : KDNP$4 '

'

MD~90 0.0 -~~~~~~---~--------------~-------------; _____________ _ :

:

: FlciESZ94

: F/DESZ98 :

-.5 . ------------ ~------------- -~------------- ~-------------FKGP90 :

FKGP94

FK~P98

-1.0+----+----t-----+----< -1.0 -.5 .5 0.0 1.0

Adaptability

a market economy. It is clear that the MSZP did best in all three elections in areas of high unemployment, low educational attainment, and poor living conditions; parties of the right did best in the more "successful" regions.? A map (Figure 8.4, left) shows a rather scattered geographical pattern, although it is clear that the right is strongest in the traditionally well-off northwestern counties of the old "Vienna-Budapest corridor," whereas the MSZP found high support in the industrial northeast, an area with long-standing leftwing sympathies (Kovacs 1993, 271; Korosenyi 1992b, 124-25). The other dimension seems to be principally about urban-rural differences between the north and the south: on the one side we have Budapest and the surrounding northern counties, and on the other side we have southern counties with mostly agrarian economies and less educated populations-strongholds of the agrarian Independent Smallholders party (FKgP). As with the Polish data, I also wanted to see whether it was possible to separate effects due to "historical" regions from those related to current socioeconomic conditions. To accomplish this, Hungary's territory was divided into regions according to a scheme proposed by Korosenyi (Korosenyi 1992b). Dummy variables were created for the highly developed northwestern region,

FIGURE 8.4 Hungary-maps of factor scores

Urbanization

Adaptability [-] Low

L]Low

lli:I1

I

I •

• •

High

High

8.4 Hungary-correlations between factor scores and socioeconomic indicators TABLE

Socioeconomic Indicators Urban residents (%) Employed in industry(%) Employed in agriculture (%) Manual workers(%) Post-secondary education (%) Elementary only education (%) Attend church more than once per year(%) Crime rate Divorce rate Infant mortality rate Minority population (%) Unemployment rate (1990) Unemployment rate (1994) Unemployment rate (1997) Private entrepreneurs (per 1000 population)

Factor I: Adaptability

Factor 2: Urbanization

.01 ·46* -.10 .16

·30 .12 -.72** -·54* .64** -.63**

.II

-.29 ·48* -.20 -·35 -·33 --43 -·55* -.61** -.84** .II

.II

·47* .29 -.21 -.10 -.21 -.38 .00 .07

NOTE: **Significant at .01, *significant at .05 (two-tailed test); entries are bivariate correlation coefficients between factor scores and province-level socioeconomic indicators.

Voting

226 TABLE 8.5 Hungary-regional effects tests on factor scores

REGRESSION

Dependent: Factor I (Adaptability)

Bivariate Correlations

b

CONSTANT

-.34* ·41 .83 .87 ·50 .85 r.86*

R SQUARE

·57

Unemployment 1990-97 Traditionalism+ Northeast Southeast Northwest Midsouth

-·73** ·48* -.36 -.36 ·30 ·32

Beta -.80 ·35 ·30 ·36 .21 ·43

REGRESSION

Dependent: Bivariate Factor 2 (Urbanization) Correlations Employed in agriculture Northeast Southeast Northwest Midsouth CONSTANT RSQUARE

-.72** ·31 --44 .21 -.32

b -.09 -1.42 -2.69** -I. 55 -2.18*

Beta -.29 -.52 -I.IO

-.64 -I.IO

2.71** .65

NOTE: **Significant at .or; *significant at .05. +Traditionalism: an index combining estimates of church attendance (based on averaged responses from 1992-95 CEU surveys and census data on divorce rates).

the poorer, but industrialized northeast, the rural (and Protestant) southeast, the rural mid-south, and Budapest (used as a reference category). The results, shown in Table 8.5, unfortunately do not provide evidence for the existence of historical regional effects independent of current conditions. Finally, tests were conducted to see whether we could identifY separate effects for socioeconomic variables and for "inertial" consequences of past election results. & Table 8.6 shows, for most parties such independent effects cannot be found. The only exception is the Independent Smallholders

TABLE

8.6

Hungary-1998 vote regressions

Dependent: MSZP I998 Unemployment rate (1997) Traditionalism MSZP sum of ranks 1990-94

b

Beta

·35 -.91 .12

.23 -.24 ·42

CONSTANT

26.41**

RSQUARE

·55

Dependent: FIDESZ r998 Unemployment rate (1997) Employed in industry MSZP sum of ranks 1990-94 CONSTANT RSQUARE

Dependent: SZDSZ I998

b -.52 .66* -.04

b -.04 -.o6 -.12 .09**

CONSTANT

14.30** ·72

Dependent: FKgP I998 Employed in agriculture Elementary only education FKgP sum of ranks 1990-94 CONSTANT RSQUARE

NOTE:

-·43 ·38 -.14

29.29** ·50

Unemployment rate (1997) Employed in agriculture Elementary only education SZDSZ sum of ranks 1990-94 RSQUARE

Beta

b -·35 ·38** .26** -13·90 ·75

**Significant at .or; *significant at .05.

Beta -.08 -.13 -.27 .6o

Beta -·37 ·43 ·90

228

Voting

Party (FKgP), where we see that in 1998 both past electoral performance and educational attainment of the population played a role in determining the degree of electoral success.

Czech Republic For the Czech Republic, I looked at the results of 1992, 1996, and 1998 parliamentary elections. Two factors were extracted from the Czech data, accounting for 38 and 26 percent of the variance, respectively. One of the factors (the horizontal dimension in Figure 8.5) distinguishes between okresy that are the strongholds of market-oriented parties (ODS, ODA, US) and those that favor parties stressing the hardships and inequalities resulting from the economic transition. It would be tempting to call this a "left versus right" dimension, except that on the left side of the graph we have, in addition to the Communists and Social Democrats, the far-right Republicans. Similarly, on the right of the chart we have not only Klaus's party but also the Christian Democrats, whose populist orientation and "social market" economic proposals do not exactly qualify for a right-wing label. However, the Christian Democrats were an integral part of the ODS-led coalition governments, so perhaps the best interpretation of the first factor is that it distinguishes between regions sympathetic to the ruling (1992-98) coalition and those sympathetic to its opponents. Further details about this dimension emerge from the analysis of correlations with socioeconomic indicators (Table 8. 7). Opponents of the ODS-led coalition did best in industrial regions with high unemployment and lower educational levels. The coalition, in turn, received the most support in economically prosperous areas (where adaptation to market conditions has been more successful), especially in the greater Prague region. Some historical continuities are evident on the map (Figure 8.6, left), since support for the antigovernment side is concentrated in northwestern regions, known as strongholds of the left during the interwar and early postwar years. However, there does not appear to be a northwestern or any other regional effect independent of socioeconomic conditions that exist in a given locality (Table 8.8). 8 In short, it appears that this factor picks up differentiation in voting results prompted by present-day economic disparities and not by political traditions. The second factor (the vertical dimension in Figure 8.5) cuts across coali-

FIGURE 8.5 Czech Republic-factor analysis of okresy-level electoral returns, 1992-1998

1.0-,-----.-------.-------.-------, ODS$2 : ODS98 : ODS96 ·5

--------·;.:.oii···----------~-

SPR~C!I~cg2 LEVBLK92

cs~B&~ 96

j :

!

!

'

'

' '''

' ' ''

US98

,

0.0 ------------ -~------ ----- ---~----- .. ------ i ..ODA96. .... KSCM96 : : : KSCM98 CSSD@suti2 j

-.5

-----------··j··-----------·r··

i,

i.K~~~~~-

-1.0+-----+-----t-----+-----1 -1.0 -.5 0.0 .5 1.0

Adaptability

FIGURE 8.6 Czech Republic-maps of factor scores

Urbanization "Low

r::,::-; ~

• -

H;gh

Voting

230 TABLE 8.7 Czech Republic-correlations between factor scores and socioeconomic indicators

Socioeconomic Indicators

Factor I: Adaptability

Urban residents(%) Employed in industry(%) Employed in agriculture (%) Post-secondary education (%) Elementary only education (%) Religious believers (%) Roman Catholics (%) Crime rate Divorce rate Infant mortality Gypsy population (%) Non-Czech/Slovak/Moravian population (%) Unemployment rate (1991) Unemployment rate (1993) Unemployment rate (1995)

.02 -.20 -.12 ·51** -.61** .18 .14 .07 -.13 -.14 -·39** -.3o** -·35** -·57** -.68**

Factor 2: Urbanization ·52** -.07 -·59** .23* -.20 -.8o** -.82** .81** .69** ·43** ·54** ·34** -.42** -.27*

-.OJ

**Significant at .or; *significant at .05 (two-tailed test); entries are bivariate correlation coefficients between factor scores and province-level socioeconomic indicators. NOTE:

tion lines and separates the Christian Democrats (lower portion of the graph) from its partners, especially the ODS. Correlation tables reveal that this is largely a urban-secular versus rural-religious divide. The map confirms that the KDU-CSL did best in the rural and traditional-minded eastern Czech and Moravian districts (where there is a high proportion of religious believers), whereas the ODS found strongest support in the secularized areas of Prague and the northwest. These effects remained significant even after social-structural variables were controlled for (Table 8.8). Finally, as in the case of Poland and Hungary, I investigated the possibility that the observed structure of the party system had more to do with inertial tendencies in the party system itself than with socioeconomic cleavages or historical continuities. In Table 8.9 figures on the main parties' past electoral performance were included in regression equations together with key socioeconomic correlates of their support. Both kinds of factors were found to be significant in all

TABLE 8.8 Czech Republic-regional effects tests on factor scores

REGRESSION

Dependent: Factor I (Adaptability) Unemployment 1991-95 Elementary only education Religious believers Greater Prague South Bohemia West Bohemia North Bohemia East Bohemia South Moravia North Moravia

Bivariate Correlations -.58** -.6r** .19 ·43** .07 -.IO

-.32** ·33** .03

-.q

b

Beta

-.27** -.oS** .03** r.q*

-.15 -.26 .II

·52 -.14 -.06

--45 -.28 ·38 .23 -.05 -.09 .04 .19 -.05 -.02

2.66** .61

CONSTANT RSQUARE

REGRESSION

Dependent: Factor 2 (Urbanization) Religious believers Employed in agriculture Employed in industry Greater Prague South Bohemia West Bohemia North Bohemia East Bohemia South Moravia North Moravia

Bivariate Correlations -.So** --59** -.07 -32** -.09 .r6 ·4o**

-.q -.69** .08

CONSTANT RSQUARE

NOTE:

**Significant at .or; *significant at .05.

b -.03** -.07** -.02** ·49* -.23 -.IO

-.06 -.6s** -1.27** -.05 2.7o** ·90

Beta --37 --35 -.12 .IO

-.07 -.03 -.02 -.23 -.50 -.02

TABLE

8.9

Czech Republic-1998 vote regressions

Dependent: CSSD I998

b

Unemployment (1995) Elementary only education CSSD sum of ranks 1992-96

·99** .08 .o6**

CONSTANT RSQUARE

Dependent: ODS I998 Unemployment (1995) Elementary only education ODS sum of ranks 1992-96

b

RSQUARE

·75

Dependent: KSCM I998

b

Unemployment (1995) Elementary only education KSCM sum of ranks 1992-96

.12 .1o** .05**

Dependent: KDU-CSL I998

b -.02 .01 .09**

CONSTANT

2.76** ·96

NOTE:

-.32 -.II

.63

Beta .08 .14 .81

4·n** .87

Religious believers Employed in agriculture KDU-CSL sum of ranks 1992-96 RSQUARE

Beta

-.96** -.16 .o8** 28.85**

RSQUARE

·42 .07 ·46

22.67** .6o

CONSTANT

CONSTANT

Beta

Beta

**Significant at .01; *significant at .05.

-.07 .01 1.03

Locality and Voting Behavior

233

cases except the KDU-CSL, most likely because of the latter's extremely concentrated base of support.

NEW POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY, NOT SO NEW HISTORY

The above analysis of geographical variation in voting data shows that party systems in posttransition Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic conform to the same general pattern. In all three countries one of the dimensions of partisan competition differentiates between economically successful areas, favoring market-oriented parties, and depressed areas, favoring parties that promise to protect the less fortunate. All three countries also have a dimension that is perhaps more cultural than economic in character and that differentiates between urban and rural areas. The former tend to favor liberaldemocratic parties, whereas the latter are strongholds of parties either representing the material interests of rural residents or appealing to their more religious and tradition-minded outlook. This general pattern is not altogether surprising in light of the theoretical expectations, explored in Chapter 1, that party systems in new democracies would form on the foundation of deeply entrenched social and economic divisions. In the case of East-Central Europe, a region undergoing a very farreaching and painful transition to market-based economics, one such division clearly reflects different experiences with the benefits and costs of reform. It is only fitting, therefore, that this division should find expression in the party system. The other division has deeper roots, reflecting the region's turbulent history. It stems from uneven economic development and changes in the social structure caused by factors ranging from the policies of the great empires to the consequences of both world wars to the great social upheaval of the Stalinist period. East-Central Europe may be undergoing a great transition, but it certainly seems likely that the future of its politics will continue to be shaped both by its recent communist past and its more distant history.

Conclusions

CONTENDING APPROACHES, PARTIAL EXPLANATIONS?

A decade ago the countries of what used to be known as the Eastern Bloc stood on the threshold of a great political, economic, and social transformation. After nearly half a century of communist rule, their people faced not only the daunting task of creating the institutions of democracy and market economics but also the challenge of adapting to these new circumstances and learning how to function in a dramatically changed environment. This learning process is certainly far from over, but today, from the perspective of ten years, it is possible to assess how far it has progressed. It is a question of more than academic interest. In all likelihood, in a few years' time the first wave of former communist countries will be joining the European Union, adopting its rules, laws, procedures, and customs but also bringing with them their own priorities and the complexities of their national politics. The nature of these priorities will to a large degree depend on what happens in the electoral arena, making it imperative to understand the fundamental forces shaping mass politics in these new democracies. In this book I sought to do just that: to map out the basic contours of national party systems and uncover the structure of social and ideological divisions upon which these party systems rest. I also sought to address the ongoing academic debate on the question of whether the experiences of the 234

Conclusions

235

past decade ought to be described in terms of gradual stabilization or continuing electoral volatility. It was not my goal to explain the successes and failures of democratization in the whole of the postcommunist world. Rather, it was to explore how people learn to participate in electoral politics, taking for granted that the basic rules and procedures of democracy are in place while they do so. This is why, following a "most similar cases" strategy, my analysis was limited to three countries in which elections during the past decade have unquestionably been free and fair and where the constitutional rules of democratic politics were accepted and adhered to by all significant players. 1 To further reduce the range of variation in contextual factors, the three countries considered here-Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic-were chosen for their similar geographical location and geopolitical status. 2 Though similar in a number of respects, the three cases presented significant differences with potential bearing on the shape of party systems and the character of electoral comp 205; factor analysis of, roo; in Hungary, 87, 95, 207; and left-right continuum, 98, 99; in Poland, 85, 95, 202 White Mountain, Battle of, 23, 28 Wnuk-Lipinski, Edmund, 18 Wolchik, Sharon, 32 Workers' Party (Hungary), 251n14

Verba, Sidney, 35, 161, 163, 255m Voting, see Electoral politics

Young Czechs, 29 Young Democrats, Federation of (FIDESZ): comprehensive approach to voting behavior for, 203, 206-7; congruence with program goals, r9I, r92; in election of 1990, 59, 61; in election of 1994, 63; in election of 1998, 63, 64; election results, 1990, 1994, 1998, 6; and the Free Democrats, 59; in issue space, r89, 190; in leftist tendency, ro9, n8, n9; in negotiations for transition, 57; place and support for, 222, 224, 227; popular evaluation of, r46, 148-49; rightward shift of, 62, I19, 148; size of, 252m8; socioeconomic background of, 182, 183, r84, r85; turnout and support for, I73

WAK, see Christian-National Union Walt;sa, Lech: on bringing the communists to

ZChN, see Christian-National Union Zeman, Milos, 69, 70

UD, see Democratic Union UP, see Labor Union Urbanization: and Czech voting behavior, 228-33; and Hungarian voting behavior, 224-28; and Polish voting behavior, 218-22; in structuring electoral competition, 238 US, see Freedom Union UW, see Freedom Union