Politicians in times of transformation: "Transformational correctness" or genuine differences in perception?

Abstract

The paper presents selected results of the 1996 study of top Polish politicians-members of the 1993-97 Parliament and leaders of those important political parties which failed to get into this Parliament. Presented results pertain to five aspects of politicians' attitudes: (1) opinions on qualities of persons who should be vs. actually are involved in politics, (2) normatively accepted definitions of politics, (3) visions of the good state, (4) visions of democracy, and (5) opinions on what defines political views as being either on the left or on the right. As a result, consistently found across all five domains, there is a strong attitudinal similarity among politicians of differing political parties and of divergent political orientations. This finding is interpreted as reflection of a fundamental track similarity in the way in which Polish politicians perceive the most important tasks confronting the whole political class in times of systemic transformation. Transformational correctness - believing that in such times politicians should have (or at least should display) certain views - might be a strong force behind this similarity. --