Cleavage Perceptions in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania: A Bottom-Up Perspective

Using the cleavage concept in the broad sense and drawing on survey data from 2001 and 2014, this article sets out to identify and analyse the cleavages structuring politics in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Almost ideal cases for a most similar systems research design, there are also some major differences. While Estonia and Latvia opted for a policy of gradual integration of their large minority groups, leaving a large number of them without citizenship, Lithuania offered citizenship to all legal residents. This makes Lithuania stand out as a mainstream European country in the Baltic context. A cleavage may concept involve ascriptive, attitudinal and behaviour differences. If a conflict generates differences on all three levels over time, we have a full cleavage. This is not the kind of cleavages we expect to find in the fluid Baltic party systems. But we will be on the lookout for structural and issue divides. The former involves a relationship between material conditions or identities and a specific set of attitudes, such as pro-redistribution sentiments. The latter consists of overlapping attitudinal and behavioural elements, including the relationship between particular beliefs and party choices. The survey data at hand offers several entries. We start our investigation by exploring the potential of an item specifically designed to tap the relevance of the cleavages. The term ‘cleavage’ is not mentioned in the questions; instead respondents are asked which alternative explanations best explain(s) differences between parties in their [own] country, which can easily be translated into cleavages familiar from the debate in and on Eastern Europe. We will therefore be in a position to identify the most relevant cleavages, where and when they occur, at an early stage. We then set out to identify the factors promoting the most salient cleavage perspectives.