Echoes of Latifundism? Electoral Constituencies of Successor Parties in Post-Communist Countries

Abstract

This article examines patterns of elector support for successor parties in Hungary, Poland, East Germany, and Russia. After consideration of competing hypotheses purporting to explain variance in successor vote, the author proposes a new hypothesis—that regions dominated by latifundism in pre-communist times, and where masses of agricultural proletarians and impoverished peasants experienced the communist period as an era of unprecedented social advancement, show an above-average level of elector support for successor parties. This hypothesis is tested on a regional level in the four country-cases and found to be valid and a more powerful determinate of regional variance in patterns of successor vote than socio-economic status of regions in the post-communist era.