ABSTRACT
The peoples of Central and Eastern Europe have participated in elections for over a hundred years; most of them have participated in truly democratic elections for no more than twenty-five years. Elections were first introduced in the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires in the late nineteenth century. These elections employed weighted suffrages, however, and they were largely indirect. Following the First World War, elections of varying quality were held throughout Eastern Europe in the new and newly reconfigured states that emerged from this conflict and its aftermath, though open electoral competition was curtailed in much of the region as right-wing authoritarian governments assumed power.
