¹ Clearly, the party system is also affected by institutional factors, in particular by the electoral system. See, for example, Rae, D., The Political Consequences of Electoral Laws (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1971)Google Scholar; and Powell, G. Bingham, Contemporary Democracies (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982)Google Scholar. But causal inference is a problem with these studies as the type of electoral rule adopted may reflect the nature of pre-existing political cleavages; Shamir, M., ‘Changes in Electoral Systems as Interventions: Another Test of Duverger's Hypothesis’, European Journal of Political Research, 13 (1985), 1–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Consequently the type of electoral system may have some influence on party competition, but this should not be over-estimated.

² Classic expositions of this approach are to be found in Lipset, S. M., Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1981)Google Scholar; and Lipset, S. M. and Rokkan, S., ‘Cleavage Structures, Party Systems and Voter Alignments: An Introduction’, in Lipset, S. M. and Rokkan, S., eds, Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-National Perspectives (New York: Free Press, 1967).Google Scholar

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⁷ In Britain, for example, research into trends in class voting indicates that there was probably a change in 1970, but no secular decline; see Evans, G. A., Heath, A. F. and Payne, C., ‘Modelling the Class/Party Relationship 1964–87’, Electoral Studies, 10 (1991), 99–117CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Heath, A. F., Jowell, R., Curtice, J., Evans, G. A., Field, J. and Witherspoon, S., Understanding Political Change: The British Voter 1964–1987 (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1991), pp. 62–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Recent analyses of political attitudes also point towards a stable pattern of association: Evans, G. A., ‘The Decline of Class Divisions in Britain? Class and Ideological Preferences in the 1960s and the 1980s’, British Journal of Sociology, 44 (1993), 449–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar; although class is clearly not the only influence on attitudes: Evans, O. A., ‘Is Britain a Class-Divided Society? A Re-analysis and Extension of Marshall et al.'s Study of Class Consciousness’, Sociology, 26 (1992), 233–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Comparative evidence on the continuing importance of class-related cleavages is given in Rose, R., ed., Electoral Behaviour: A Comparative Handbook (New York: Free Press, 1974)Google Scholar; Knutson, O., ‘The Impact of Structural and Ideological Party Cleavages in Western European Democracies: A Comparative Empirical Analysis’, British Journal of Political Science, 18 (1988), 323–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Weakliem, D., ‘The Two Lefts? Occupation and Political Choices in France, Italy and the Netherlands,’ American Journal of Sociology, 96 (1991), 1327–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸ Lipset, 's Political ManGoogle Scholar is an elaboration of this position, although it is only in his later work with Rokkan that the role of parties is given particular emphasis: see Sartori, Giovanni, ‘The Sociology of Parties: A Critical Review’Google Scholar, in Mair, Peter, ed., The West European Party System, pp. 150–82, especially at p. 175Google Scholar. In the British context, Butler, David and Stokes, Donald' Political Change in Britain (London: Macmillan, 1969)Google Scholar presents a similarly influential account of the role of institutional influences on voters' political affiliations.

⁹ Belknap, G. and Campbell, A., ‘Political Party Identification and Attitudes Towards Foreign Policy’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 15 (1952), 601–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Campbell, A., Converse, P., Miller, W. and Stokes, D., The American Voter (New York: Wiley, 1960).Google Scholar

¹⁰ See Jennings, K. and Niemi, R., Generations and Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. And for a recent example of this approach see Niemi, R. and Jennings, K., ‘Issues and Inheritance in the Formation of Party Identification’, American Journal of Political Science, 35 (1991), 970–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹¹ Various pieces of argument and evidence are provided by Przeworski, A., Capitalism and Social Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Granberg, D. and Holmberg, S., The Political System Matters (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988)Google Scholar; and Wright, E. O., Classes (London: Verso, 1985).Google Scholar

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¹⁴ For example, Mrs Thatcher's main effect on political attitudes in Britain may have been to produce a pro-welfare state backlash among the electorate. See Crewe, I., and Searing, D., ‘Mrs Thatcher's Crusade: Conservatism in Britain 1972–1986’, in Cooper, B., Kornberg, A. and Mishler, W., eds, The Resurgence of Conservatism in Anglo-American Democracies (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1988), pp. 258–303Google Scholar; and Heath, et al. , Understanding Political Change, pp. 175–7.Google Scholar

¹⁵ See Inglehart, R., ‘The Changing Structure of Political Cleavages in Europe’, in Dalton, R., Flanagan, S. and Beck, P., eds, Electoral Change in Advanced Industrial Democracies (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984)Google Scholar; and Huber, J., ‘Values and Partisanship in Left-Right Orientations: Measuring Ideology’, European Journal of Political Research, 17 (1989), 599–621.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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⁷³ We should note that the empirical research reported in Section 1 indicates that Kitschelt's representation of the association between libertarian/cosmopolitanism and redistributive strategies in the West applies more to elites than to the views of the mass public, for whom the dimensions are relatively orthogonal.

⁷⁴ In this respect it should be noted that it has been argued that if there is any dimension of ideology that has a clear existence in the minds of Eastern European electorates it is likely to be the division between authority and democracy inherited from the period of communist rule, rather than one based on economic conflicts. See Kolankiewicz, , ‘Parties, Presidents, and Parliament’.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ See Kolankiewicz, , ‘Parties, Presidents, and Parliament’.Google Scholar

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⁷⁷ The attempts by the Conservative government in Britain to develop constituencies among the electorate by council house sales and mass share ownership are a celebrated example of this strategy, although they appear to have brought only slight benefits in terms of votes. See Heath, A. F., Jewell, R., Curtice, J. and Evans, G. A., ‘The Extension of Popular Capitalism’, Strathclyde Papers in Politics, No. 60 (1989)Google Scholar; Norris, P., ‘Thatcher's Enterprise Society and Electoral Change’, West European Politics, 13 (1990), 63–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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⁸² The assignment of countries within this category is to some extent provisional. We assume that countries that have achieved relative macro-economic stabilization (by whatever route), with more modern industry and infrastructure, a more developed service sector, and in greater proximity to Western markets are more likely to attract foreign investment and sustain economic growth. See Kaser, M. and Allsopp, C., ‘The Assessment: Macroeconomic Transition in Eastern Europe, 1989–1991’, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 8 (1992), 1–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘The ECE Economies in 1992’, Economic Bulletin for Europe, 44 (1992), 25–46Google Scholar; Balcerowicz, L., The Transition to Democracy and the Market Economy (London: School of Slavonic and East European Studies, 1993).Google Scholar However, it should be noted that the theory which underpins our views on the structure of party competition is not affected if a country is misassigned. The rules which apply to the category in which it actually falls are then the relevant ones.

⁸³ In Eastern Europe, of course, this is a relative category: all countries in the region contain ethnic minorities of some sort.

⁸⁴ Again, disagreement may arise as to the categorization of Russia and the Czech Republic as established states. However, their dominance in the former Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia makes it more accurate to treat them as successors rather than break-away states.

⁸⁵ The proliferation of parties obtaining seats in the 1991 elections in Poland (due to the low cut-off level for the allocation of seats to parties) may serve to obscure the major dimensions of party competition in that country. This highlights the important distinction made earlier between the issue basis of political competition and the act of voting itself. A more suitable test of the structuring of party competition under these conditions would be an analysis of the dimensionality and social bases of political attitudes, which are less likely to have been dissipated in the way that votes were.

⁸⁶ In the Czech Republic there has been support for this prediction in the 1992 elections, where preliminary analyses indicate that there is a greater spread across the left–right spectrum than is the case in Slovakia (see below); Brokl, , ‘The Results and Consequences of the 1992 Elections’.Google Scholar

⁸⁷ Preliminary evidence suggests that such scapegoating could occur within less educated strata, and in particular among those who are opposed to further democratization. See Gibson, J. and Duch, R., ‘Anti-Semitic Attitudes of the Mass Public: Estimates and Explanations Based on a Survey of the Moscow Oblast’ Public Opinion Quarterly, 56 (1992), 1–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸⁸ This argument is consistent with the rational choice approach to political culture described in Section 1. It should be noted that other writers have also argued that success in achieving democratic or constitutional government in Eastern Europe depends on the evolution of a system of payoffs and sanctions which will make it rational for actors to accept democratic outcomes and the authority of rules. See Przeworksi, , Democracy and the MarketGoogle Scholar; and Elster, J., ‘Constitutionalism in Eastern Europe: An Introduction’, University of Chicago Law Review, 58 (1991), 447–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸⁹ Poland does have, of course, a German minority residing in the territories annexed in 1945, who have a degree of political representation through Kroll's Ethnic German Party. Nevertheless, their political presence is minimal.

⁹⁰ Of course, if ethnically based citizenship laws in these countries are fully enforced, the result will be the effective exclusion from the electoral process of the Russian minorities. Party competition in both Estonia and Latvia could then be structured around socio-economic bases and pro- versus anti-market issues. However, the evidence so far suggests that ethnic exclusion is not occurring to that extent.

⁹¹ In the Ukraine the impact of ethnic factors is difficult to estimate. In the Eastern Ukraine, Russians and Ukrainians have coexisted in reasonable harmony for many centuries. It is therefore unclear if Russians will form a distinct bloc, as they do in other former Soviet republics. Regional identities may prove to be more salient than those derived from ethnicity. Ukrainian statehood is a contemporary phenomenon and consequently has fewer historical connections with ethnicity than is found in the Baltic republics. In this respect it may be compared to Belarus.

⁹² Unsurprisingly, at the present time the evidence concerning the normative commitment to democracy is extremely weak. Nevertheless, on two main questions that compare popular support for national elections in Yaroslavl' in 1990 with that obtained in the 1980 US National Election Study, Russians (68.3 per cent; 62 per cent) come out as far less committed to voting in national elections than do Americans (90.7 per cent; 91.7 per cent); see Hahn, J., ‘Continuity and Change in Russian Political Culture’, British Journal of Political Science, 21 (1991), 393–421.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Gibson, Duch and Tedin's study of attitudes in the Moscow, oblast'Google Scholar finds evidence of support for ‘core democratic values’, but presents no data from Western societies with which to compare their findings; see Gibson, , Duch, and Tedin, , ‘Democratic Values and the Transformation of the Soviet Union’.Google Scholar

⁹³ The scale of the ethnic problem in Russia is such that it may well result in the development of intergroup bargaining procedures through which conflicts can be resolved. This may help to prevent the decline of normative commitment among ethnic minorities.

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