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Echoes from the Past: The Relationship between Satisfaction with Economic Reforms and Voting Behavior in Poland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Denise V. Powers  and
James H. Cox
Denise V. Powers
Affiliation:
University of North Carolinaat Chapel Hill
James H. Cox
Affiliation:
State University of New Yorkat Binghamton
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Abstract

Electorates in several East European countries have thrown their support behind reconstructed communist parties. Is personal economic hardship driving this phenomenon? We argue that political behavior in postcommunist societies is fundamentally structured by interpretations of the transition histories, which were centrally constitutive events. We propose a structural equation model in which understandings of the past mediate the relationship between personal circumstances and satisfaction with economic reforms. We analyze cross-sectional data collected in Poland immediately after the 1993 parliamentary elections and find, consistent with our hypotheses, that understandings of the past exert as much of an effect on attitudes toward reforms as do personal economic assessments. We use multinomial logit to analyze vote choice and find that personal economic circumstances are of little importance. Attitudes toward economic reforms have a limited effect on voting behavior, but their importance is eclipsed by understandings of the past and other factors, such as religion.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 91 , Issue 3 , September 1997 , pp. 617 - 633
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1997

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