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Solidarność: Reluctant Vanguard or Makeshift Coalition?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Barbara Heyns  and
Ireneusz Bialecki
Barbara Heyns
Affiliation:
New York University
Ireneusz Bialecki
Affiliation:
Polish Academy of Science
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Abstract

We analyze the election data from the first “almost free” political contest in the Eastern bloc, the Polish election of June 1989. Voting data for state socialist societies provide a novel source of information on the political transitions in process in East Central Europe; the source of electoral support for opposition candidates in Poland affords a glimpse of the emerging political groups that must deal with continuing economic crises while attempting to reconstruct or consolidate democratic procedures. Data on turnout and on the ecological patterning of votes for Solidarność and for the government coalition are reviewed. Electoral victory has transformed Solidarność from an opposition movement with strong trade union roots to a political coalition with a rather different constituency: the strongest relative support for Solidarność candidates was found in rural areas, particularly in the southeast, rather than in the urban, industrial centers where the movement was born.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 85 , Issue 2 , June 1991 , pp. 351 - 370
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1991

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