Abstract

The influence of the Church in Polish life, even during the communist era, continued to be significant. Employing logistic regression analysis on data taken from the Polish General Social Survey, this article models voting behaviour in the 1993 parliamentary elections. Having controlled for other relevant influences, those with low levels of religious affiliation are found to be most likely to abstain - a critical form of behaviour in the Polish case. As religious conviction increases, so does the likelihood of voting for non postcommunist parties. Any party possessing a policy platform which is too secular cannot therefore rely on mass electoral support.