Polish electoral space aft er 2001 against the background of rivalry between the two main actors of the political scene

Th e aim of the paper is to specify the main patterns – and identify the basic determinants – of the formation of the Polish electoral space aft er 2001, with particular emphasis on factors of a geographical nature, against the background of the rivalry between the two main actors of the political scene, i.e., Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska, PO) and Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, PiS). Using spatial econometric tools, it was found that the PO–PiS oligopoly on the Polish political party market results in increasing spatial clustering and geographical polarisation of voters of both parties in the form of urban–rural heterogeneity and east–west divergence. Th ese phenomena are explained by processes of alignment and convergence of individuals' views according to the logic of localised entrenchment of dominant opinions and consolidation of preferences within historically shaped regional arrangements according to the path dependency principle.