Social dimensions in party choice in Albania

1
Social dimensions in party choice in Albania

• Kristen Ringdal, Teuta Starova, Albert Simkus

Paper prepared for the RC28 Spring Meeting in
Brno, Czech Republic, May 24-27, 2007
2
Background

• Class voting is declining in Western countries,
  and the same goes for other social cleavages
• What about transition countries?
• Some of them are divided by strong ethnic
  conflict which wipe out other cleavages.
• Albania is an interesting case with no ethnic
  conflics

3
Elections in Albania

• Change to democracy in 1990
• National elections held 1991, 1992, 1996, 1997,
  2001, 2005
• The election process has gradually improved

4
The parties

• Democratic Party (DP), 1990
• Largest anticommunist party
• Socialist Party (SP), 1991
• Former Party of Labor of Albania (PLA), the old
  communist party of Albania.
• Other right wing parties
• RP, LMP, DCP, NFP, LDU, RDP
• Other left wing parties
• SDP, PSD, DAP, SMI

5
Research questions

• Are Western concepts of class voting and social
  cleavages of relevance in Albania?
• Do we find differences among social groups in
  turnout at the 2001 parliamentary election?
• Do we find class voting in the 2001 parliamentary
  election in Albania?
• Do other social cleavages contribute to an
  explanation of party choice in the 2001
  parliamentary elections in Albania?

6
Data source

• South East European Social Survey Program
  (SEESSP, face-to-face interviews, 2003-04.
• Covering most of former Yugoslavia and Albania.
• The total sample size exceeds 21000 respondents
• Albania n2048.
• The fieldwork for the survey was conducted by the
  private agency, Institute for Sociological
  Researches.
• Retrospective questions on voting in the 2001
  parliamentary election

7
(No Transcript)
8
(No Transcript)
9
(No Transcript)
10
(No Transcript)
11
Summary

• Social differences in turnout not unlike those
  found in Western countries
• Class voting?
• Yes, but in opposite direction high class x SP
• North-South cleavage is the main divide in
  voting, also explaining voting patterns by
  religion.
• Left right self-classification very strongly
  correlated to voting for the SP

12
Conclusion

• Western concepts of class voting and social
  cleavages are of relevance for Albania, but they
  need to be interpreted into the special situation
  of country.