Changing patterns in electoral behaviour: comparative analysis of countries of Central and Eastern Europe

The aim of this doctoral thesis is to provide new information concerning electoral behaviour in countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) during transformation period and in election terms following onward. Political scientists who studied electoral behaviour across countries of Central and Eastern Europe with new democracies established shortly after fall of authoritarian regimes have found several findings, unique for this area; one of them being specific type of electoral volatility, typical for political systems which follow longer periods of authoritarian regime. This electoral volatility correlates with high party system instability with new parties emerging every electoral term and old political parties vanishing from political competition. While political scientists studied relationship between electoral volatility and increasing number of political parties, party switching presents considerable threat to stability of party system in CEE. Therefore, this paper studies socio-economic, demographic, and psychologic factors determining specific type of volatile voter. The aim of this article is to provide further knowledge of how political systems of CEE struggle with party system instability, identify major problems and what factors are required to change if political systems are to achieve higher..