THE STRUCTURING OF THE VOTE IN POSTCOMMUNIST PART SYSTEMS - THE BULGARIAN EXAMPLE

Consolidated democracies involve structured linkages between citizens and political decision making elites that are typically organized via political parties. Given the economic and institutional instability an d uncertainty in post-communist emerging democracies, it has often bee n maintained that a structuring of party systems in such countries is slow to emerge. This paper demonstrates with data from a 1991 pre-elec tion study in Bulgaria that significant aspects of political structuri ng may in fact appear in post-communist polities quite early. The stru cturing is based on citizens' individual resources which they expect t o convert into economic benefits in the economic market economy, their market location in occupational terms, their general ideological disp ositions, and their evaluation of the economic performance of the incu mbent governments. While the structuring of party systems may still be weaker than in Western Europe, the Bulgarian evidence casts doubt on the tabula rasa hypothesis in the study of postcommunist politics. Of course, further comparative analysis of post-communist democracies is required to buttress our conclusions.