The Shades of Communism: The Basis of Political Divisions in the Republic of Macedonia

The bases of the political divisions in Macedonia are hard to explain solely through the traditional theoretical approach based on social structures and values. We include the perceptions of the communist past together with the social structures and values; and use survey data to run a multinomial logistic regression with undecided voters as the base category. Results show that perceptions of communism have the strongest influence on political divisions. Diverging perceptions of communism combine with attitudes toward religious values and shape a cultural left-right dimension. On the other hand, there is an absence of a left-right distinction in economic policies. The finding could be a useful explanation for political divisions in other post-communist countries, where there is an absence of distinction in economic policies.