Echoes of Latifundism? Electoral Constituencies of Successor Parties in Post-Communist Countries
Author(s)
Lubecki, Jacek
Abstract
Though the strength of successor parties and loyal electorates in post-Communist Hungary, Poland, eastern Germany, and Russia has typically been explained in economic or cultural terms on both individual and group levels, such explanations are not adequate. A new perspective is proposed here: in pre-Communist times, these regions were dominated by large landed estates worked by impoverished peasants, and the Communist era was a time of unprecedented social advancement for agricultural workers and peasants. This legacy is a better explanation for the electoral victories of the post-Communist successor parties.
