Of Time and Partisan Stability in Former Soviet States

• In Event: Authoritarianism and Political Behavior

Abstract

At the end of 1991 the Republics of the Soviet Union (USSR) were officially granted self-governing independence. New institutions were promptly formed in these states, ranging from political parties to governance systems. Relying on theories of socialization and partisanship, we argue with regard to individuals from former Soviet states, an individual’s age at the time their state received independence has long term implications for their partisan and electoral behavior. We hypothesize that individuals who were socialized for many decades under the USSR regime will have less stable and weaker partisan attitudes than those who spent only a portion of their early childhood socialized under the USSR. We further expect, due to the relative newness of these democracies which were once Soviet states, individuals from these states have weaker partisan attitudes than individuals from other democracies. To test our predictions, we utilize all four modules of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) surveys. We implement a multilevel model which incorporates individual and state-level information to explore what predicts the strength of an individual’s partisan attitudes. The estimated results indicate the older an individual was at the time their state was granted independence, the less likely they feel close to a political party. The results also imply respondents from former Soviet states have weaker partisan attitudes than respondents from other democracies found in the CSES. This article has important implications for partisan stability among electorates, democratic evaluations of representation, and political stability within democracies.

Authors

• John H. Aldrich, Duke University

• Katelyn R. Mehling

• Kristen M. Renberg, Duke University