Social structure, social coalitions and party choice in Hungary

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between social structure and party choice in Hungary on the basis of a survey from 2009 (N = 2980). The following structural variables are examined: ascriptive variables (age and gender), territorial variables (region and urban-rural residence), social class variables (education, social class and household income), sector employment and religious variables (religious denomination, church attendance and self-declared religiosity).The analysis shows that age and territorial variables are the most important socio-structural variables for explaining party support in Hungary. The role of religious and class variables is considerably smaller in this respect.The two largest parties, Fidesz and the Socialist Party, are first and foremost anchored in different generations and in territorial variables although different degrees of religiosity also has significant effect on support for these parties. The impact of the religious variables is, however, low. The class variables have the opposite impact on the two largest parties from what we should expect according to traditional class voting. Fidesz gets strongest support from the working class and the lower educated strata while the Socialist Party gets strongest support from the service class. The two largest parties are foremost social coalitions of very different social groups. The explanatory power of social structure on party choice is low in Hungary. This is also confirmed from comparative studies.