Searching for Voting Patterns in Post-communist Poland's Sejm Elections

This article explores associations between participation and party voting and a number of socio-economic variables observed at the voivodship level in Poland's 1993 Sejm elections. It further identifies similarities and differences between the impact of those factors in the 1991 and 1993 elections. The regression estimates indicate that 1993 was not a “reproduction” of 1991. In the most recent election, increases in voting participation accounted for the great upsurge in support for parties of the left, while socio-economic factors were of lesser significance. Moreover, a geographical political cleavage, not previously identified in other voting studies, had an important influence on both participation and party voting.