Using data from the first four rounds of the ESS (2002 - 2008), this paper tests how the material preconditions of representative democracy have evolved in mature electoral systems of Western Europe, and in the consolidating systems of post-communist Eastern Europe. The main findings of the paper suggest that two decades after the breakdown of communism, the party systems of Eastern Europe are still in a state of relative flux, and citizens’ criteria for vote choice there are still very much of a circumstantial rather than a structural nature. Social-structural cleavages, stable party alignments, and ideological foundations of the vote are generally much weaker in post-communist Eastern Europe than they are in the West of the continent.