Research On Social Cleavages And Its Impact On The Left In East-Central Europe

Cleavage is usually a phenomenon that all members in a certain society are divided into different groups according to a certain social structure. Studying political party and party system in cleavage perspectives is an important tradition in political sociology. Its significance lies in, through inspecting social and political cleavages, profoundly revealing intrinsic cause for political party and transition of political structure. With the process of economic and political transition in East-Central Europe, problems in socio-political cleavage emerge. So the scholars start to care and study socio-political cleavage and its impact on party development. This article mainly takes Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic as the inspection object. Meanwhile, based on the analysis of western cleavage theories and methodologies, the article has conducted more systematic research to cleavage situation and its impact on the Left.The article altogether has five chapters. Chapter I theoretically defines the cleavage, typologies and methodologies, and particularly compares the model of cleavage in terms of advantages and disadvantages, all of which ended up with a conclusion that it is inevitable for the classic Lipset-Rokkan cleavage model to encounter predicaments in interpreting the structure of cleavage and party politics of East-Central Europe. Chapter II discusses the particularities of social and political cleavages in East-Central Europe in terms of complexity of transition, differences of electorates, differences in party type and role of the Media Politics. Chapter III interprets the situation of cleavage in East-Central Europe based on the model of Lipset-Rokkan cleavage, that is, the Center-Periphery Cleavage, the State-Church Cleavage, the Agriculture Industry Cleavage and the Class Cleavage, responding to the conclusion of Chapter II. Chapter IV centers around relations between cleavage structure and party politics to identify the situation of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic respectively by cases. Chapter V mainly discusses the impact of cleavages on Left and how the latter makes choices which are for their own benefits just with the help of cleavage. Finally, the text draws a conclusion: in East-Central Europe, with the further development of the transition process, the status and the function of Ideology cleavage are bound to be changed in the system of cleavage structure, based on the ideology cleavage on the sense of worth and the socio-economic cleavage on the sense of value while the socio-economic cleavage is playing a more and more important role in parties' vicissitude. The Left in East-central Europe should fully realize the trend, position accurately, consolidate and extend the base of voters, pushing for a more superior position in the pattern of party politics.