INTERESTS AND SYMBOLS IN POSTCOMMUNIST POLITICAL-CULTURE - THE CASE OF HUNGARY

This paper examines the dynamics of the transition to democracy in pos tcommunist Hungary. We describe the ''founding election'' of 1990 by m odeling voter turnout and party choice. Our results show that in the 1 990 election there was a large social democratic constituency in Hunga ry, but that it was not effectively mobilized. We argue that both the conservatives and the liberals failed to express the interests of the electorate, and instead played the game of politics of symbols that fe atured starkly drawn ideological issues. Because of this abyss between parties and the electorate, many Hungarians expressed their oppositio n to the political system by boycotting the polls. The moral is that t he victory of the socialists in the 1994 election is hardly surprising . By campaigning with an aggressively social-democratic platform, they captured the attention of a distinctive social constituency and thus may be setting the stage for relatively stable post-communist rule.