Post-communism: Similarities based on differences

Alongside these unique characteristics of (post)communist societies and voters that might have contributed to the increase in personalized political communication, there are also new developments in post-communist societies, and consequently voters’ behaviour, that might have increased the degree of personalized political communication. Evidence from East and Central European countries suggests that the voters’ behaviour of post-communist countries has some resemblance to trends observed in established Western democracies. However, it should be taken into account that the origins of these political communication trends are different in the two systems. Some of the characteristics that post-communist and Western democracies’ seem to share in relation to voters’ behaviour are electoral volatility, low party identification and weak impact of cleavages on the vote.

For instance, electoral volatility in the post-communist societies is among the highest in the world. Volatility indices are not only higher than those of Western democracies, but also of those countries of the third wave of democratization which have moved earlier than communist ones from authoritarian to democratic regimes (e.g. Latin American countries, Spain, Portugal). Although the differences in volatility between post-communist and Western societies are considerable, the systems share the trend in electoral behaviour characterized by shifting voters’ allegiances between elections (Bielasiak, 2002; Lewis, 2000; Rose, 1995).

Moreover, this electoral volatility can partly be explained by the low party identification and general distrust of political parties which is a characteristic of all post-communist societies. Political parties are often the least trusted of all the institutions in the society (Poguntke & Scarrow, 1996; Rose, 1995; Tomšič & Prijon, 2010), just as is the case in West European countries (Grbeša, 2008), but the levels of party identification are usually even lower than in Western democracies (Lewis, 2000).

Finally, the pattern of social cleavages and their impact on electoral choices are remarkably similar in Western and post-communist societies. Although the overall impact of social cleavages on the vote is in general not very great, both groups of societies are politically divided along the lines of religion and class. The only significant difference is in the impact of age on the political preferences of the electorate. As compared to trends in Western democracies, in post-communist societies the older generations socialized in the former regime position themselves on the “left” side of the political spectrum and have nostalgic memories of communist times, while younger generations belong to the political right, often having nationalist tendencies and little or no support for the old regime (Evans, 2006; McAllister & White, 2007).

Although this data indicates that the “patterns of party representation” in post-communist societies are quite similar to those observed in the West, “the trajectory of party development is nevertheless different and, while parties may share characteristics and seem to occupy similar positions within a political system, this may be for very different reasons” (Lewis, 2000: 160). In line with this, quite strong antiparty, reflected in the low levels of trust in the parties, is considered to be a legacy of “prolonged one-party rule” which has “fostered an underlying distrust of all party-like structures” (Poguntke & Scarrow, 1996: 257). In addition, citizens who were made by the former regime to express their party identification and participate in party activities, often just for securing material and social benefit and not because of any strong ties with the party, decided to practice their new right to be politically independent of any party affiliation (Rose, 1995; Šiber, 2007). Bielasiak (2002: 207) similarly writes that the difficulty of forming strong party identification in the new regime is a consequence of “severed party-constituency linkages” which make it harder for parties of the new regimes to “reconstruct the ties that bind citizens to specific political organizations”.

These trends that characterize voters’ behaviour of post-communist societies, namely high electoral volatility, low party identification, distrust of political parties and weak influence of cleavages on the vote, could be seen as setting the ground for personalized voting. Indeed, in a climate of general distrust of parties, low party identification, and especially in the early democratic period, uncertainty as to what each party represents and whether it can deliver the promises it makes, it could be speculated that voters were more inclined to make electoral decisions based on their evaluations of leaders and perhaps even their personas. Voters socialized in communism might have been accustomed to candidate-centred voting given that all the candidates running for public office were from the same party, and they presumably used the familiar technique of reaching a voting decision in the new system as well, at least until the rules of the new game in town, democracy and multi-party system, became more transparent and known.

One of the reasons why political actors might have pursued a persona-centred communication strategy might be, as in Western democracies, the state of social and ideological cleavages in the society, but in post-communist societies these feature in a different way. The inability of parties to differentiate according to social cleavages was not due to a lessening of cleavages, but rather because of the uncertainty about them in the early democratic period. Political actors were not aware of the needs and interests of their citizens, partly because they had little or no

just trying to define their interests (Lewis, 2000). In this situation, it seems logical to try to use the leaders as “brand differentiators” (Kuhn, 2004; Langer, 2011) and mobilize the voters around a leader, and not issues.

In summary, there seem to be some context-specific characteristics of communist and early post-communist societies that have the potential to increase the personalisation in voters’ behaviour and leaders’ communication. Although high degree of authoritarianism and low educational levels are considered to continue into the post-communist era, if eventually these societies became less authoritarian and the levels of education grew, it might be speculated that the personalisation in leaders’ communication and voters’ behaviour decreased. With regard to the possible influences of the personalisation in voting behaviour on other actors, it is also possible only to speculate since there is no empirical evidence on the topic. It might be expected that the personalized voting would increase both political actors and media’s focus on politicians and their personae, since both of these political communication actors might be inclined to provide the voters with the type of information that they consider relevant when reaching electoral decisions.