Political Cleavages and Post-Communist Politics

Considerable attention has been paid over the past decade to political cleavages in postcommunist Eastern Europe. Investigators have attempted to establish whether such cleavages exist, to map their character, & to explain their formation theoretically. Research initially focused on whether communist rule had created distinctive forms of cleavage in the region as a whole, or indeed obliterated social capacity to form any structured social or ideological divisions. The results of this work, however, have tended to support a more differentiated & less sui generis understanding in which the character of cleavages varies considerably across the region. Debate has turned to accounting for the formation & variation in cleavages by reference to factors such as long-standing cultural legacies, forms of communist rule & modes of transition from it, the effects of social structure & individual social experience in the postcommunist period, & the impact of institutions & party strategies. 1 Table, 57 References. Adapted from the source document.