Discussion
Populist right parties in Central and Eastern Europe such as Law and Justice (PiS) and Fidesz regularly raise the issue of an allegedly incomplete elite exchange after the beginning of the political and economic transformation. PiS even formulates the demand for a revolution and the establishment of a new, a “fourth republic”. The party proposes a comprehensive lustration of all current elites and their replacement by new elites not linked to the socialist regime. Furthermore, politicians from this party suspect that there are potential collaborators with the socialist regime among former opposition forces. This idea could easily develop in the context of a negotiated regime change rather than a revolutionary elite replacement in Poland in 1989. The transformation began with round table discussions involving leaders of the socialist government, representatives of the churches and the democratic opposition. However, there was no wholesale change in the elites after the first partly free elections in 1989, as the former secretary of state of the communist party was elected as president and the post-communist party led the government twice in the following legislatures.
Taking PiS's claims as a starting point, this study aims to trace the long-term changes in political elites in Poland and compares them with five other post-socialist countries in Central and Eastern Europe
(Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Russia and Ukraine, as well as the five East German regions which had formed the GDR). The study is based on a newly compiled data set that concentrates on the impact of state-organized selection processes (including elections and appointments) on the composition of political elites over three decades from the first post-socialist elites until 2020. The data set covers their sociodemographic characteristics as well as their role during socialism (old elite, dissenters, newcomers after socialism). Key results are rather homogenous sociodemographic characteristics of elites (male, 51-56 years old) over time and in all countries despite differences regarding the socialist past of elites. The analysis for Poland shows strong continuities from socialist regime supporters in the beginning of the 1990s which decreases to the lowest value in the sample by 2020. The share of former opposition forces exhibits the highest percentage in comparison with other countries and seems to be connected to the governing parties. The political elites exhibit a high degree of elite exchange in general, while there is no strong additional effect of the PiS-governments in 2006 and 2016. In 2020, the government even strengthened elite continuity since the share of repeated office holders reached a peak.
