Yamalova E.N. The effect of political delimitations upon the party systems of post-Soviet Baltic states

Abstract: In this research the author examines the effect of political delimitations based on the analysis of the four political breakups, which in one or another way reflected in the competitiveness of the parties throughout the post-Soviet development of the Baltic states. The breakups were first and foremost in ideology (left–right), then religious background (Catholicism–secularism), division by residency (city–town), and division by the ethnicity (titular ethnos–Russian heritage population). The main conclusion of the conducted research is the empirical confirmation of the hypothesis that in the establishment of the new democracies the influence of the ideological-value political breakups upon the development of the party system diminishes as the society rids itself of the transitional characteristics and forms the more stable professional and socio-class interests. The process of the influence of the structural and political delimitations upon the party systems in the post-Soviet Baltic states can be divided into two stages: 1990’s – under the rapid transformation of the social structure and lack of clearly expressed public interests, the electoral splits were formed by the political elites based on the competition between ideological platforms (communism–anti-communism, market–gradualism, European integration–pro-Russian movement); 2000’s – in addition to the political proposals initiated by the elites, a more noticeable role began to be played by the structural splits and electoral demand, thus within the framework of the most recent electoral cycles the biggest role is played not by the divisions of political values and ideologies, but a divisions of residency (city–town) and ethnic nature.  

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