Interests and values: Polish parties and their electorates

The distribution of power between leaders and members, relationships with the state and civil society and whether or not they seek to enrol and mobilise their supporters are obviously all important issues to consider when determining what kinds of political parties are emerging in post-communist Eastern Europe. However, in some ways a more fundamental and basic question is: what is the nature of these parties' links with their electorates? Before considering whether or not parties are seeking to organise and encapsulate their voters, it is necessary to determine precisely what kind of electorates they are attracting and seeking to attract in the first place. This article, therefore, seeks to increase our understanding of the type of party that is developing in Eastern Europe by examining the electoral strategies and policies of the six main parties and groupings to have emerged in Poland since the collapse of communism and emergence of pluralist politics in 1989.