Rozłamy socjopolityczne w Polsce: iluzja czy rzeczywistość?
Socio-Political Cleavages in Poland: Illusion or Reality?

Summary/Abstract: This article addresses the important yet neglected issue of whether the Polish party system has become more structured and consolidated. After twenty-five years of democracy, it would be reasonable to expect such an outcome. To answer the question, we based our analysis on the classic socio-political-cleavage theory of Lipset and Rokkan and the work of those who were influenced by them. Our analysis, which makes use of data collected over the last two decades by the Polish National Election Study, shows that it has been possible to discern symptoms of consolidation and the emergence of socio-political cleavages only since 2005. Our conclusions are therefore tentative – we can observe a degree of structuring, but we cannot claim that we have found full cleavages akin to those observed in Western Europe in the second half of the twentieth century.

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