Shifting Parties, Constant Cleavage: The Reversed Cleavage Model
Shifting Parties, Constant Cleavage: The Reversed Cleavage Model

Summary/Abstract: When studying party system formation in unstable party systems such as postcommunist Lithuania, the Western European theoretical framework is a useful although not sufficient tool to understand this process. The problem relates to the very high level of instability. In addition to unstable electoral support for the established parties, new parties successfully emerge, but disappear, then change name, splinter and merge with other parties. This article introduces the reversed cleavage model which is an attempt to study cleavages in a post-communist setting, exemplified with the urban–rural cleavage in Lithuania. Instead of focusing upon continuous representation of political parties, the reversed cleavage model applies cleavage continuity as a point of departure. The unstable party system in Lithuania is thereby not related to voters’ missing perception of cleavages, but to the parties’ inability to establish long-lasting alignments with the electorate. Party system formation along the urban–rural cleavage in post-communist Lithuania, is explained by shifting parties and a constant cleavage.

• Details
• Contents