Four Dimensions of Center Periphery Conflict in the Polish Electoral Geography (original) (raw)

2002, Social change. Adaptation and Resistance. Ed. by T. …

AI-generated Abstract

The paper explores the application of the center-periphery model within the context of Polish electoral geography, identifying four dimensions that illustrate the political landscape influenced by historical and cultural factors. It examines political discord, ethnic dimensions, voter turnout trends, and analyzes these aspects using the Rokkan-Lipset theory of political cleavages, while cautioning against overgeneralization from Western contexts to post-communist Poland.

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Hidden dimensions: the stability and structure of regional political cleavages in Poland

Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 2000

The main aim of this paper is to show that behind the complex and fluid surface dimension of the Polish political scene it is possible to reveal a relatively stable two-dimensional structure of deep political identities. The study is based on the analysis of ecological data — the results of elections from 1990 to 1997. The results prove the exceptional stability of the Polish electoral geography and appear to be consistent with other studies based mainly on the survey data. The use of the spatial data allowed us to reveal the historical and spatial determinants of electoral behavior in Poland.

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Cleavage Structures and Voter Alignments within Nations

Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft, 2009

Despite its general popularity the cleavage theory has only rarely been used to explain regional electoral outcome. In this paper we examine whether a region′s social structure and its electoral results are systematically linked. to analyse the political preferences of an entire regional electorate in a single step, electoral results are translated into a left-right position for each region using Gross and Sigelmann′s concept of the ideological centre of gravity. We then analyse whether the left-right differences between the regions can be traced back to the socio-structural composition of regional populations. We apply this approach to the results of the 1998, 2002, and 2005 German federal elections in all of the 439 counties. Our results suggest that the church-state cleavage and the postmaterialism cleavage shape electoral outcomes in western regions considerably, but that the impact of the capital-labour divide has mostly vanished. Contrarily, eastern electorates seem largely guided by a centre-periphery cleavage that is rooted in a leftist mentality, but not much else.

Electoral geography in Poland

Discussion Papers, 1999

The paper focuses in the first place on the questions of electoral geography in Poland. In particular it concentrates on the author's suggestions concerning the spatial differences of voting preferences in the period of 1989-1997. After the year 1989, when the first free elections in Poland took place after fifty years of communist rule, there were two presidential elections held, four parliamentary elections, two elections of local authorities and two referendums. Owing to the spatial dimension of these elections their results can be used to analyse the spatial differentiation of Polish society. This paper analyses the election results in 49 voivodships. Owing to the large population and the culturally dualistic character of the Katowice voivodship this unit has been divided into two parts for easier analysis.

Political Divisions and Socio-Economic Disparities in Poland: A Geographical Approach

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