A ‘Winner-Loser Divide’? Political Potentials in Central and Eastern Europe

Recent studies of cleavage change in Western Europe have theorised the emergence of new 'political potentials' in Western Europe (Azmanova 2011; Kriesi et al 2006, 2008, 2012; Teney et al 2014). According to this theory, the social changes of globalisation have given rise to distinct cohorts of winners and losers, who interpret their social position in terms of the social conflict of opportunity and risk. Losers of globalisation identify themselves as exposed to risk, and demand policies which offer security against those risks. Winners of globalisation identify themselves as exposed to opportunities, and demand policies which allow them to avail themselves of those opportunities. This results in the emergence of a ‘cosmopolitan-sovereigntist’ political conflict between those who support more economic, cultural and political openness and those who oppose it. This paper, which is part of a broader project analysing the winner-loser divide as a cleavage in Central and Eastern Europe, seeks to determine whether and to what extent such ‘political potentials’ have emerged in Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. Using individual-level survey data, this analysis distinguishes between three phenomena: objective transition winner and loser categories, subjective transition winner and loser categories, and ideological attitudes. The theory of an emerging winner-loser cleavage suggests that these three phenomena became increasingly closely associated over the period of analysis. Accordingly, this paper seeks to answer three questions: did objective winners and losers of transition also identify themselves subjectively as winners and losers?; did transition winners and losers hold diverging attitudes on the cosmopolitan-sovereigntist divide?; did these tendencies increase over time?