Voting and Protesting: Explaining Citizen Participation in
Old and New European Democracies
Patrick Bernhagen (University of Aberdeen) and Michael Marsh (Trinity College
Dublin)
Forthcoming in Democratisation, late 2006.
This article analyzes the differences and similarities in citizen participation between
the new democracies of central and eastern Europe and the established democracies of
the west. Citizens in the post-communist countries participate less in politics than
their western neighbours. We ask why this is the case and find that no satisfactory
answers have been offered in the literature so far. Developing a set of propositions
about the factors that explain participation differences between old and new European
democracies we show that only a small part of the difference in political engagement
is due to regional variation in the sociodemographic, attitudinal, and mobilizationrelated characteristics of citizens. We also find that, while the factors explaining
election turnout have a largely similar impact in old and new democracies, the causes
of protest participation, in particular those relating to left-right semantics, are
significantly different between the two sets of countries. While many components of
tried-and-tested models of political participation work equally well in new and old
democracies, some of the differences in political engagement cannot be accounted for
without reference to contextual variables specific to the post-communist democracies,
in particular the different pre-democratic regime types and modes of the transition
process.
2
Key words: political participation, turnout, protest, new democracies, eastern Europe
Introduction
Mass participation in elections and other forms of political engagement has been
described as ‘the lifeblood of representative democracy’.1 Students of democratic
transitions have therefore stressed the importance of a free, lively and valued civil and
political society for the successful consolidation of democracy.2 As Kitschelt et al.
point out, ‘whether democracy becomes “the only game in town” depends on the
quality of democratic interactions and processes the consequences of which affect the
legitimacy of democracy in the eyes of citizens and political elites alike.3 A growing
body of literature is now concerned with analyzing citizens’ political behaviour and
participation in central and eastern Europe.4 A frequent finding is that citizens in the
eastern countries participate less than their neighbours in the west. Why is this so?
While many of the new democracies in central and eastern Europe resulted from an
elite-led transformation of the ancien régime, these transformations were often at least
accompanied, if not actually caused, by a wave of mass involvement that dramatically
rejected the past. What happened to the original high levels of citizen political
involvement in these countries?
A major obstacle to answering these questions is the fact that the analytical concepts
and explanatory models used in studies of political participation in central and eastern
Europe have been developed in the context of the established democracies in
advanced capitalist democracies. While much has been written about the
comparability or otherwise of processes of democratization and consolidation in Latin
3
America, southern Europe and central and eastern Europe, crucial questions remain
regarding the comparability of political behaviour old and new democracies. 5 There
is also now a considerable body of systematic research on the limits of analyzing postcommunist party systems using the theories and concepts devised in the west.6 Yet to
date no systematic analysis has been conducted on the comparability of citizen
political participation in new democracies of central and eastern Europe on the one
hand and the established democracies of the west on the other. To remedy this
situation, this paper aims to explain differences in election turnout and protest participation between east and west European democracies. Can the explanations
commonly advanced in the west over the past half a century or so be gainfully applied
to the east. Do our explanations require modification, or can we say that eastern
Europe is not fundamentally different from western Europe in respect to what prompts
and what inhibits democratic participation?
We attempt to answer these questions by applying standard models of citizen
participation in established democracies to explain participation in western Europe
and in central and eastern Europe, and to account for the differences between the two
regions. We will also examine whether aspects of the historical context, in particular
those relating to different modes of communist rule and alternative strategic pathways
of regime transition, add to our understanding of citizen participation in the new
European democracies. Following Kitschelt et al. we aim to explain as much variation
in east-west participation differences as possible by reference to nomological
statements about causal linkages while trying to minimize our reliance on historical
particularities and contingencies that can be reconstructed only by a historical
narrative.7 We will follow the same approach for voting and protesting. After an
4
exploratory overview of the different participation patterns and trends within and
between east and west, we briefly review different explanations of east-west
differences that have been advanced in the literature. We then develop and test
general models of individual-level political participation in order to determine
whether central and eastern European societies exhibit similar mechanisms
connecting individual and contextual factors to political action as does the west or
whether, alternatively, political behaviour in the post-communist world marches to a
different beat.
Development of Citizen Participation in Eastern and Western Europe in the
1990s
The terms ‘western Europe’ and ‘central and eastern Europe’ are not without
problems.8 In order to exclude unstable democracies and ensure country-level
comparability, we concentrate here on the 15 countries constituting the ‘old’ EU, plus
Iceland, Norway and Switzerland, and the eleven countries in the 2004 and 2007
waves of EU enlargement (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia,
Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia). By political participation
we mean the activities of citizens intended to influence state structures, authorities,
and the making of collectively binding decisions and allocation of public goods by
means of voting or protesting.9 Thus, we apply a unified view of political participation, perceiving protest activity as an extension of or complement to more
institutionalized channels of political engagement.10 Official turnout data is compiled
from various issues of the Political Data Yearbook of the European Journal of
Political Research, amended by information from official election results. Individuallevel data for the analysis of voter turnout is from the Comparative Study of Electoral
5
Systems project (CSES). The study comprises data from national election studies in
25 of the countries we are interested in. The surveys were conducted at a functionally
equivalent point in time: when a national election was taking place. For
uninstitutionalized participation, we use the 1990 and 1999 waves of the European
Values Study (EVS). The sets of countries for which data is available on the two
forms of political participation are not identical. No data is available for the time
points we analyze here for protest participation in Norway and Switzerland;, the
election data sets do not include elections in Austria, Finland, Greece, Italy and
Luxembourg for the west or in Estonia, Latvia, and Slovakia for the eastern set of
countries. No individual-level data is available for Cyprus on either form of
participation. Nonetheless, we avail of a reasonable overlap of countries representing
the two regions. Our calculations of voter turnout are based on those voting as a
proportion of registered voters. Our measure of uninstitutionalized participation is
based on reported actual behaviour, such as signing a petition, joining a boycott,
attending a lawful demonstration, joining an unofficial strike, or occupying a building.
{Insert Table 1 about here}
Table 1 shows average official voter turnout for various countries since 1989. These
are aggregated by country, region (eastern or western Europe), and time (1989-95 and
1996-2002).11 The first point to note is that the difference between east and west is
relatively small, with eastern turnout seven percent below that in the west across the
1990s. It is also apparent that the gap is getting wider: it was three percent in the
1989-1995 period and grew to ten percent in 1996-2002. The widening of the gap is to
some extent due to untypically high turnout in the first elections in the eastern
6
countries after the collapse of communism. In all east European countries, the
founding elections saw the highest turnout of the whole period, but even when this
‘shock’ is discounted the difference is still growing. Turnout has fallen by ten percent
over the two six-year periods in the east (six percent if we discount the first election)
and by only three percent in the west.
The observation of an overall east-west difference should not lead us to ignore the
differences within both sets of countries. In the east the averages range from 50
percent in Poland to 81 percent in Slovakia. In the west the range is even greater,
ranging from 44 percent in Switzerland to 96 percent in Malta.12 Despite the variation
within each region, the east-west difference is clearly visible: eight of the 19 western
countries have higher turnout on average than Slovakia. Furthermore, turnout dropped
more sharply in the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Estonia and Slovenia than it
did in the UK, which has seen the sharpest decline amongst the western countries.
And during the 1996-2002 period, the east-west difference exceeds the standard
deviation of 9.1 percent for turnout at post-communist elections.
{Insert Table 2 about here}
Turning to uninstitutionalized participation, a steady rise in protest activities reported
in earlier studies for western Europe (Gundelach 1996, Dalton 1996) clearly continues
throughout the 1990s (Table 2). While an average of 50 percent of respondents across
western European countries reported in 1990 that they had signed a petition, this
figure rose to 56 percent by 1999. Similarly, while 22 percent had attended a
demonstration by 1990, by 1999 27 percent of respondents reported that they had
7
participated in this form of protest.13 The picture looks remarkably different in central
and eastern Europe. Here, protest levels have on average declined throughout the
1990s across the region, by as much as nine percent for demonstrations and ten
percent for the signing of petitions.14
{Insert Table 3 about here}
To summarize protest participation into a variable more readily comparable to voting
and display country levels and trends without bewildering levels of detail, we
construct a dichotomous summary measure of protest participation. Table 3 reports
percentages of respondents who said they have engaged in at least one of four types of
protest action: signing a petition, joining a boycott, attending a lawful demonstration
or joining an unofficial strike. The selection of these four activities for the summary
measure of protest political participation is informed by a Mokken scale analysis.15
Between 1990 and 1999, the proportion of people who said they took part in
uninstitutionalized political action rose by seven percent in the west, but fell by nine
percent in the east. This overall trend is reproduced within single countries, with
protest activity cut to half its 1990 levels in the Baltic countries by the end of the
decade. The drop in protest activities in the east should not surprise when we take into
account that the first of the two surveys was carried out in the immediate aftermath of
the demise of the Stalinist regimes. After the popular mobilizations in the context of
regime transitions, spontaneous and dramatic cases of protest in the early days of the
new democracies, such as the mass protests in Budapest against oil price hikes or the
government-inspired coal miner protests in Romania in 1990, have remained rare.
Overall, participation levels remained higher during the 1990s in countries where
8
popular action played an important part in bringing down the communist regime
(Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and Poland) and was lower in countries where the
transition processes were predominantly elite-driven (e.g., Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, and Slovenia). As with election turnout, however,
the global picture is clear: participation levels have been lower in the new
democracies than in their established western neighbours, and the gap has widened
significantly in the course of the 1990s. By 1999, the east-west difference is over one
and half times the size of the standard deviation for either subset of countries.
Explaining East-West Differences in Participation
Why have the central and east European countries witnessed such a marked decline in
levels of citizen participation during the decade while protest participation has risen
and voter turnout declined only marginally in the west? Rose notes that part of the
legacy of the artificially high voter mobilization in the Stalinist systems is that in postcommunist societies ‘people now appreciate the freedom not to participate in party
politics’.16 However, we might conversely expect increased incentives to participate
now that elections are genuinely competitive and democratic. Moreover, while
citizens in post-communist societies might enjoy a newly won freedom from
obligatory mobilization, this does not explain why participation levels continued to
drop beyond the first post-communist elections. With respect to protest participation,
Pickvance (1999) suggests that the particularly high levels of social movement
activity during the early stages of liberalization cannot be sustained once more
‘normal’ conditions apply.17 While this argument might explain the observed decline
in participation, it does not account for the fact that participation levels in the east
have been markedly below western ones as early as 1990.
9
Others have sought to explain the east European decline in citizen participation by
reference to the transition effects of structural reform of the former centrally planned
economies. According to Lewis, the impact of economic-structural change on civil
society has led to the dissolution of institutions and the disengagement of people from
political activity, as individuals reviewed their material situation and reassessed their
personal priorities.18 This interpretation assumes a logic implied by theories of secular
modernization, according to which people in affluent industrialized societies engage
in politics because they avail of the skills and resources required to develop and
nurture political interest and translate it into action.19 This view competes head-on
with the behavioural implications of theories of relative deprivation, viz. that the very
social and economic degradation resulting from economic reform should mobilize
people to protest against who or what they perceive to be responsible for their social
and economic malaise.20 Until the implications of these conflicting claims are tested
simultaneously we have no reasons to assume that one is more relevant to the
situation in post-communist countries than the other.
Instead of blaming the negative effects on civil society of post-communist economic
reform, Berglund et al. blame the lack of a broad, traditional middle class, either as a
result of, or even predating the inception of communist rule, for the weakness of civil
society in the post-communist countries. This historical factor, they propose, is related
to a lack in perceived efficacy and trust in political institutions on the part of
citizens.21 They expect, however, that cohort effects may eventually lead to a rise in
political participation of different forms. According to Berglund et al., it is above all
10
older respondents (50+), ‘who have been subjects rather than citizens for most of their
lives’, who feel that they are unable to affect political outcomes.22
While we do not have the data needed to track cohort effects on election turnout, we
do have such information with respect to protest participation. Table 4 shows levels of
protest activity for 10-year birth cohorts for the 1990 and 1999 European Values
Studies respectively. While there is an identifiable cut-off point in each row that
separates those born before 1936 from the younger cohorts with respect to their
participation levels, the pattern is weak at best. Moreover, the row for the 1999 survey
shows that those born after 1965 are again markedly less likely to engage in any form
of protest activity, with those born after 1975 – the generation of ‘hope’ for
Berglund’s et al. projections – being little more active than their grandparents. In fact,
the intra-cohort decline in participation between the two time points is largest for the
post 1965 cohorts. Furthermore, although almost a decade elapsed between the two
waves of surveys, the fact that participation levels within the three most active
cohorts, those born between 1946 and 1975, have declined by more than ten
percentage points does not support explanations based on cohort effects.
{Insert Table 4 about here}
The explanations brought forward so far for participatory decline in the postcommunist countries employ a diverse array of explanatory factors, pertaining to
political resources, deprivation, political culture, and the state of civil society. None of
these factors in isolation appears to account for the different levels and trends in postcommunist political participation compared to the west. In order to obtain a better
11
understanding of these developments, we propose to look directly and simultaneously
at the various causal factors that are generally claimed to drive the participatory
behaviour of individuals. More specifically, we propose three alternative sources of
explanation for the different levels and trends between east and west.
Firstly, research on citizen participation in advanced industrialized democracies has
identified a number of factors that boost individual-level turnout and protest
participation. These include, above all, high levels of education, party identification,
concern for the environment, interest in politics, perceptions of political efficacy,
trade union membership, civic activism, trust in fellow citizens, and postmaterialist
value orientations.23 East-west differences in citizen participation might simply be
caused by the fact that the post-communist countries are less endowed with these
features. Indeed, while levels of third-level education, party identification, concern for
the environment, discussing politics with friends, and a belief that voting matters do
not differ much between old and new European democracies, the levels of other
variables diverge significantly between the two sets of countries. East-west
differences in trade union membership, civic activism, generalized trust, and
postmaterialist value orientations range from nine percentage points in the case of
union membership to 23 percentage points for civic activism. Similarly, while 26
percent of westerners expressed dissatisfaction with the democratic process, 57
percent of respondents in eastern Europe said they were not satisfied with how
democracy works in their country. We hypothesize, therefore, that a general model of
participation in the west would itself predict lower participation in the east because
the variables that account for variations in participation simply have relatively low
values. If this is the case, we would see no differences between east and west in the
12
separate estimates of the effects of such variables. Furthermore, when estimating a
model for eastern and western countries combined, we would expect no difference
between the two groups in the levels of participation once controls for the levels of
such independent variables have been included. In more technical terms, the
intercepts from regression analysis for the two groups of countries would be similar,
and so a dichotomous variable indicating east or west would not be significant.
A second source of explanation is that the determinants of participation in established
democracies have different causal effects in new democracies. In this account, the
same model is applicable to each region but the effects of the various elements are
different. For example, the link between class and turnout, for example, has long been
recognized as an important explanatory factor of participation in the west.24 Variation
between countries is commonly attributed to different institutions for working class
mobilization, which have been weaker in some countries than in others.25 Thus, we
might expect post-communist countries to show bigger effects for variables like
income and education on the basis that organizations to mobilize the less well off are
weaker there. Furthermore, given the dramatic change following the introduction of
electoral democracy, age might not show the correlation with electoral turnout that
has been so typical in the west. Lastly, political orientation as expressed in left-right
semantics might have different effects in post-communist societies because the terms
have different meanings here than in the west.
A third source of explanation would be that east-west differences stem from factors
not considered in models of participation in the west. For example, it is possible that
the legacies of different types of communist rule or alternative strategic pathways of
13
regime transition account for the differences in participation. The link between modes
of transition and quality of the democratic outcomes has been frequently
hypothesized.26 More recently, an indirect link between authoritarian regime form and
quality of democracy via the mode of democratic transition has been suggested.27 If
these historical factors affect the logic of citizen political engagement in new
democracies, we would find that even if the individual effects of each element in a
standard model of participation do not differ across the two regions, there is still a
significant contrast between east and west European countries with regard to the
difference between the observed levels of participation and those predicted by our
model. Furthermore, a cumulative test of the east-west difference of the effects of all
variables combined would be positive. Finally, variables capturing types of
communist rule and mode of democratic transition would have significant effects.
In order to assess the merits of the three alternative explanations, we estimate
conventional models of participation for three sets of countries: eastern Europe,
western Europe, and east and west combined. We then compare the results paying
particular attention to (1) the significance of the east-west variable when the countries
of the east and west are included together, (2) the difference (or similarity) between
separate estimates of the determinants of participation in east and west respectively,
and (3) the cumulative difference of the estimated effects of these variables between
the two regions in conjunction with the effects of historical context variables. But
first, we have to identify the specific factors, social characteristics and attitudinal
orientations that lead some individuals, but not others, to participate in politics. We
should stress here that we do not seek to ascertain the explanatory value of any
specific set of variables vis-à-vis others – say socioeconomic resources versus
14
indicators of social capital. What we outline over the following paragraphs is a
comprehensive set of factors that have been found in the literature to contribute to
explanations of citizen political engagement. The list of variables will therefore
inevitably seem eclectic.
Numerous studies have shown that people who participate in political activities tend
to be middle-aged males of comfortable socio-economic status, i.e. people with higher
income and better and longer education, as well as those who are also active in
political or non-political, civic organizations of any kind.28 According to Brady,
Verba and Schlozman, others take part in politics less frequently for three principle
reasons: ‘Because they can’t, because they don’t want to, or because nobody asked’.29
This threefold answer refers to (1) a paucity of sociodemographic resources, (2) the
absence of psychological engagement with politics, as reflected in people’s values
and attitudes, and (3), isolation from the mobilizing contexts that provide people with
the impetus to become politically active. In addition (4), a number of contextual
variables have been found important in explaining variations in electoral turnout over
time and across countries on account of the relative competitive nature of the
elections.30 These include, inter alia, the lead of the strongest party or the degree to
which the executive is responsive to change in the legislature. Finally, we add (5) a
set of variables capturing different types of communist rule and alternative modes of
transition to account for the historically specific environments in which political
participation takes place.
(1) Sociodemographic resources: The sociodemographic factors and resource
differences accounting for individual-level variation in participation are largely the
15
same for voting and protesting: age, education, social class, and gender, although
reverse effects are expected for some of these factors. Higher income and education
should yield positive effects on individuals’ proneness to participate in politics
generally. Women tend to participate slightly less. With increasing age, people
become more likely to turn out the vote but less willing to engage in protest
activities.31
(2) Values and attitudes: According to theories of secular societal modernization,
increases in personal skills and shifts in value orientations from material concerns to
postmaterialist attitudes forge increased demands for more participation – in particular
for protest participation that better serves the expressive needs and expectations
associated with postmaterialist value orientations.32 Thus, we include dichotomous
variables for materialist and postmaterialist value orientation, expecting materialism
to have a positive impact on turnout, and postmaterialism to increase the number of
protest items named by respondents. Similarly, environmentalist attitudes have
repeatedly been shown to go hand in hand with elite-challenging forms of political
action such as protests or boycotts.33 Thus, high levels of concern for the environment
should increase people’s propensity to protest. We expect this to hold for the new as
much as the old democracies, in particular as the environment movement assumed a
significant role in the ‘peaceful revolutions’ in Czechoslovakia and East Germany, as
well as in the Hungarian, Bulgarian and Baltic transition processes.
Theories of relative deprivation or ‘anti-system radicalism’, on the other hand,
suggest that protesters are primarily drawn from the rank of the socially and economically disadvantaged who are hostile toward formal political institutions which
16
they perceive as unresponsive to their demands.34 This suggests protest activity is
more common among members of lower social classes, who are dissatisfied with what
the political system has to offer them. Thus, protesters would be expected to find little
use in participating through the more established channels of preference aggregation
such as voting or party activism, and generally show low levels of system support. We
expect protesters to display low levels of traditional participation such as voting, as
well as low levels of trust in the major government institutions. Conversely, we
expect voters to be fairly satisfied overall with the democratic system, believing that
their vote makes a difference to who is in power, and that who is in power makes a
real difference for policy and their lives. In a similar vein, adherents of extreme left or
extreme right positions and ideologies should be more inclined toward engaging in
uninstitutionalized political action, either because they question the legitimacy of the
institutions per se, or because they see the dominant political institutions working
against their preferences. We therefore expect protesters to cluster around the extreme
ends of the left-right ideological spectrum. Conversely, we expect voters to be
positioned more moderately on that dimension.
(3) Strategic resources, mobilizing contexts, and social capital: Civic skills and
organizational and communications resources make it easier to get involved and
enhance an individual’s effectiveness as a participant. Furthermore, people will be
mobilized through affiliation to political organizations, where they might be asked by
others to take part. Gray and Caul have shown that links to parties and social groups
are important predictors of turnout, while Norris has established the importance of
these factors for protest participation.35 Thus, we expect that protesters will be more
likely to vote, and that both protesters and voters will tend to be more active in
17
political parties and trade unions than those who abstain. According to Letki, this
should apply equally to the post-communist countries: past experiences of
membership even in non-democratic organizations such as the communist parties of
Soviet-style systems can serve as a type of ‘socialization for participation’ through
which people acquire the skills and attitudes conducive to active citizenship and
political and organizational involvement.36
Theories of social capital, furthermore, emphasize the importance of non-political
civic engagement for vigorous political participation. According to Putnam,
widespread activism in all sorts of organizations associated with ‘civil society’ exerts
positive externalities for political participation. It is in these contexts that people
develop their social skills, reinforce trust in one another, and acquire the
organizational and other capacities beneficial to political participation as well as
widening their cognitive capacities, scope of interest, and nurturing general civic
virtues.37 Thus, we expect more participation among people who are active in non-political, civil society organizations and who display higher levels of generalized trust.
From early studies of political preference formation, furthermore, we know that the
general social environment can have an impact on individual behaviour.38 Van Deth
suggests that interpersonal networks or discussion networks established or initiated
with family members, friends or neighbours exerts strong mobilizing effects on
individuals’ propensity to become politically active.39 Thus, we expect people to
become ‘activated’ by discussing politics with friends. Finally, those who express an
interest in politics or follow politics in the media should display higher levels of
engagement in both protesting and voting.
18
(4) Context of elections: Studies of voter turnout have repeatedly emphasized the
importance of institutional factors that facilitate mobilization, as well as factors
influencing the pay-off individuals may get – or perceive to get – from voting.
Jackman stresses the responsiveness of electoral institutions.40 Franklin argues that
what matters in turnout are the characteristics of the elections themselves and how
likely it is that small changes in voting patterns can make a difference to who governs
and what governments do.41 Thus, we include contextual variables that say something
about the elections themselves, such as whether voting is compulsory and the extent
to which an election is competitive, measured by the size of the largest party and the
gap between the leading two parties. We also include how likely an election is to have
a predictable consequence for government formation, measured by how responsive
the executive is to change in the legislature (although in effect this just separates
Switzerland from other countries). Finally, we include the size of the electorate,
arguably a factor inhibiting mobilization42, and a measure of potential election
fatigue: time since the previous election.
(5) Historical context: According to Kitschelt et al., the economic, political and social
legacies of the pre-communist and communist regimes affect the quality of
contemporary democratic politics in central and east-European countries. In their
words, material ‘endowments and cognitive orientations that civic actors had acquired
and handed down to subsequent generations … shape the political mobilization and
rational bargaining during the transition to democracy.’43 To the extent that these
legacies influence the levels of variables affecting democratic participation, their
effects will be picked up in the standard predictors of citizen political action outlined
above (1-3). However, the pre-democratic legacy may also impact on the causal
19
mechanisms by which socioeconomic, attitudinal and cognitive factors are linked to
political action. For example, Kitschelt et al. claim that the meaning of left-right
semantics in post-communist countries is contingent upon the type of the communist
regime. According to their work on post-communist party systems, a history of
bureaucratic-authoritarian communism such as prevailed in east Germany and
Czechoslovakia facilitates the straightforward use of left-right semantics in economic
policy terms.44 By contrast, the national-accommodative communism of Hungary or
Slovenia leads voters to associate the meaning of left-right semantics less with
economic policy than with socio-cultural issues.45 Different again, the patrimonial
communism characteristic of the Bulgarian and Romanian systems led to postcommunist discursive contexts in which ‘left’ is associated with more traditional
socio-cultural conceptions of moral order and collectivist conformity, while ‘right’
has come to stand for more individualistic morality and universalist ethno-cultural
politics.46 Pre-democratic regime types and contemporary political landscapes are
linked via alternative modes of democratic transition. Following Kitschelt et al. we
distinguish transition by implosion of the old order (e.g., Czech republic, East
Germany) from transition by negotiation between hard-liners and reformers (e.g.,
Poland, Hungary, the Baltic countries) and transition by preemptive reform initiated
by the incumbent elite (Bulgaria, Romania).47 To control for these different legacies,
we include variables indicating the three types of communist rule and the three
alternative modes of transition in the general models of participation.
{Insert Table 5 about here}
20
Analysis and Results
Table 5 shows logit estimates of the effects on reported turnout of various social
characteristics, attitudes, and political affiliations and attachments.48 We have also
included an east-west dummy variable (coded east=1), which will tell us whether or
not we have accounted for the variation between old and new democracies via
variations in the other independent variables: if turnout is lower because the
electorates are less educated, or younger, or more disaffected, the east-west variable
should not be significantly different from zero. As the first three columns of Table 5
make clear, the east-west variable on its own does not account for turnout differences.
As hypothesized, this variable is also insignificant in the presence of the individual
level variables (columns four and five). Moreover, when these factors are included,
the percentage difference in predicted turnout between the two sets of countries drops
from five to two percent.49 This suggests that more than half of the difference between
the two regions is accounted for by the values of individual-level independent
variables. However, the inclusion of variables describing the nature of the election
(columns six and seven) actually increases the predicted east-west turnout percentage
difference back to the original five percent. Thus, when analyzed together, neither the
individual nor the electoral context variables ‘explain’ the lower turnout in eastern
countries.
{Insert Table 6 about here}
Table 6 shows similar models predicting the number of protest activities reported.
Estimation is by OLS.50 The east-west variable is significant in both models. But
while the coefficient for this variable remains sizable and significant in the presence
21
of the other explanatory variables, its magnitude is reduced by about 40 percent once
these variables are introduced (columns four and five). In other words, the set of
individual level variables explains about two fifths of the participation difference
between east and west European countries. At the same time, however, the presence
of these variables hardly reduces the original gap of 0.48 between number of
predicted protest items reported in east and west.
Thus, we can account only partially for different participation levels by reference to
the two regions’ relative endowments with the relevant socioeconomic and attitudinal
factors. Is this because the tried-and-tested predictors of citizen participation in
established democracies are less effective in the east, or because they exert effects of
a different nature and direction? Comparing the impact of the variables in the model
across old and new democracies, we see that neither is the case. This is shown for
turnout in Table 7.51 There is a remarkable similarity in the effects across the regions.
Of the eleven independent variables in the model, nine have about similar effects in
both regions. The exceptions are right-wing and left-wing ideology, which are each
significant in the west but not in the east, although the effects are in both cases small.
Figure 1 displays the impact on the probability of an individual turning out to vote of
each variable as it moves from its minimum to its maximum value, holding all other
factors at their mean. Effects for the post-communist countries are represented by
light-coloured bars, those for the established democracies by shaded bars. The greater
impact of ideology in the west can clearly be seen here, but the most obvious feature
of the graph is the relative similarity of all other effects across the two sets of
countries. This is confirmed by negative results of formal tests for east-west
differences.
22
We are also interested in whether the standard model of voter turnout as a whole
works equally well for old and new democracies. To answer this question, we
formally test whether the set of coefficients estimated over the western group of
countries is cumulatively equal to the set of coefficients estimated over the eastern
countries. The highly significant test statistic suggests that, even though individually
most coefficients do not differ significantly between east and west, when all are taken
together in a multivariate model, the model does not work equally well for both
regions. The inclusion of indicators of different legacies of the communist regime and
the nature of its demise, represented here by regime transition through negotiation and
preemptive reform, respectively, adds little to explaining turnout differences within
the post-communist countries.52
{Insert Table 7 about here}
{Insert Figure 1 about here}
Table 8 replicates this analysis for protest participation. A visual representation of the
effects of each variable is shown in Figure 2. Here, the dissimilarities of effects
between old and new democracies are more pronounced than is the case for voter
turnout. Almost half of the independent variables in the model (education, party and
union membership, generalized trust, discussing politics with family and friends,
postmaterialist value orientation and an expressed interest in politics) show significant
and substantive effects in both sets of countries. Another seven variables (age, class,
civic activism, concern for the environment, distrusting the government, left-wing
ideology and following politics in the media) have significant effects in the
23
established democracies only, while a materialist value orientation has a negative impact on protest participation only in the east. It is noteworthy that holding a right-wing
worldview has a significant effect on protest participation of roughly equal magnitude
in both regions, but in opposite directions: while being right-wing tends to reduce a
person’s protest activities in the west, it provides a slight boost to the number of
activities reported by respondents in the east. Likewise, while leftwing ideology
provides the single most important individual-level determinant of protest activity in
the west, it is unrelated to protest in the east. These differences are indicative of
differences in meaning and interpretation between the established versus the postcommunist democracies as to what left and right is all about.53
{Insert Table 8 about here}
{Insert Figure 2 about here}
Formal tests of the regional differences of each pair of coefficients reveal that six of
them (those for age, civic activism, left-wing and right-wing ideology, following
politics in the media, and discussing politics with friends) are significantly different.
With the exception of right-wing ideology, the effect is typically stronger in the west
than in the east. Being a civic activist enhances people’s propensity to protest in the
west, but no significant effect is discernible for the east. However, there is no
corresponding difference in the association with generalized trust, as suggested by
theories of social capital. This points to more fundamental east-west differences in the
functioning of civil society and its implications for political action. The effect of age
varies also between the regions. While protest is no longer the exclusive domain of
the young and disorderly, it is still slightly negatively associated with age in the west.
24
By contrast, in the east protest is not related to age, suggesting that here the newly
found freedom to protest independently from the party and state and without the fear
of suppression appeals to all age bands equally. Party and union membership have the
same impact on protest participation in old and new democracies. Likewise,
postmaterialism encourages protest participation in east and west equally; and the
uniformly positive impact of third-level education in both areas is notable. Concern
for the environment exerts a significant positive effect on people’s propensity to
protest in the west, but has no discernible impact for east Europeans. Bearing in mind
that environmental movements assumed a significant role in the early transition
processes in seven of our eleven post-Communist countries, this is somewhat
surprising.
In addition to these differences in the individual effects, a cumulative test of the
equality of coefficients across the two regions confirms that the set of coefficients for
the east is statistically different from that for the west. Compared with voter turnout,
the greater east-west differences of the causal mechanisms connecting individuallevel factors to protest participation corresponds to greater and more significant
effects of the communist legacy and modus of regime transition. A history of
patrimonial communism, transition by negotiation and transition by preemptive
reform are all negatively associated with citizens’ protest participation.
Conclusions
We have tested three propositions about the factors that underlie the observed and
increasing differences in political participation between the established west European
democracies and the newly democratized countries in central and eastern Europe. Our
25
findings are mixed. Firstly, only part of the differences is due to differential
characteristics – sociodemographic, attitudinal, and those relating to networks of
mobilization – between citizens in old and new democracies. Furthermore, our
capacity to predict voter turnout in new democracies using explanatory models of
participation in established democracies decreases once we take into account the
contextual variables that capture incentives to turnout the vote at a particular election,
such as competitiveness of the election and grounds for perceiving that voting
matters. The weak performance of these variables suggests that individual-level,
rational incentives to turn out the vote develop over time as part of a learning process
during which citizens gradually come to absorb the formal and informal rules of the
game.
Secondly, we find that the individual-level causes of voter turnout are roughly the
same in east and west. East European citizens’ decisions to turn out the vote are
driven by the same socioeconomic resources, attitudes and patterns of civic
engagement that determine voter turnout in the west. In the case of protest
participation, by contrast, the causal mechanism connecting citizens’ characteristics
with their propensity to protest are quite different in the east, compared to the west. In
particular, a rightwing ideological position has opposite effects in each region.
Thirdly, while the individual components of multivariate models of political
participation work often equally well in old and new democracies, the models as a
whole clearly differ in their ability to explain political engagement in the two sets of
countries. Contextual variables specific to post-communist democracies, in particular
the type of the transition process, continue to account for some of the difference in
26
protest participation between east and west. However, given the numerous highly
significant differences in the effects of the individual-level factors, the difference
between east wand west is more noteworthy than the differences between communist
regime and transition legacies. Moreover, these latter factors are insignificant for
election turnout.
Future research should analyze in greater detail how the effects of individual-level
predictors of protest participation interact with the pre-democratic legacy and the
nature of the transition process. Furthermore, the fact that western models of political
participation work relatively well for election turnout in new democracies but perform
significantly poorer in analyzing protest calls for further investigation of the
relationship between the two modes of participation. Finally, students of protest
participation in western countries have found that a key factor in explaining variations
in protest involvement lies in the characteristics of the protests themselves.54 These
variables do not lie in individual-level characteristics but relate to the immediate
context in which political action takes place – a complex of explanatory factors not
included in the present analysis.
27
FIGURE 1
MAXIMUM EFFECTS ON TURNOUT IN EAST AND
WEST
Right
Left
Efficacy: voting
Efficacy: power
Satisfied with democracy
Union member
Party ID
Class
Education
Age (x10)
Female
-0.1
-0.05
0
0.05
0.1
West
0.15
East
0.2
0.25
0.3
28
FIGURE 2
MAXIMUM EFFECTS ON PROTEST
PARTICIPATION IN EAST AND WEST
Follow politics in media
Discuss politics
Politics important
Right wing
Left wing
Distrust government
Environmentalist
Postmaterialist
Materialist
Trust others
Civic activist
Union mbr
Party mbr
Voter
Class
Education
Age (x10)
Female
-0.2
-0.1
0
0.1
West
0.2
East
0.3
0.4
0.5
29
TABLE 1
TURNOUT IN WESTERN AND EASTERN EUROPE SINCE 1989
Average
1989-2002
Average
1989-1995
Average
1996-2002
Trend
Western Europe
Malta
Belgium
Luxembourg
Iceland
Austria
Denmark
Italy
Sweden
Greece
Germany
Norway
Netherlands
Spain
UK
Finland
Ireland
France
Portugal
Switzerland
96
92
87
86
85
85
84
84
80
80
78
78
74
70
67
67
66
65
44
96
92
88
88
85
84
87
88
83
79
80
80
74
78
69
69
69
67
44
96
91
87
84
80
87
82
81
76
81
77
76
74
66
65
65
64
62
43
Average
Standard deviation
78
12.07
79
11.88
76
12.49
Eastern Europe
Slovakia
Latvia
Czech Republic
Slovenia
Romania
Bulgaria
Hungary
Estonia
Lithuania
Poland
81
79
78
77
73
71
69
68
62
50
85
81
91
86
76
80
73
72
75
52
76
72
69
72
71
63
66
57
56
47
-9
-9
-21
-14
-6
-17
-7
-15
-20
-5
Average
Standard deviation
71
9.35
76
10.73
66
9.10
-10
0
-1
-1
-4
-5
3
-5
-7
-8
2
-3
-4
0
-13
-4
-5
-5
-5
-1
-3
East-west difference
7
3
10
Total average
73
77
69
-8
Sources: Political Data Yearbook of the European Journal of Political Research, various issues;
amended by official election results.
30
TABLE 2
DEVELOPMENT IN PROTEST ACTIVITY, 1990-1999
Western Europe†
Sign petition
Join boycott
Attend lawful demonstration
Join unofficial strike
Occupy building
1990
1999
50
10
22
6
3
56
14
27
7
4
Trend
1990-99
6
4
5
1
1
Eastern Europe‡
Sign petition
41
31
-10
Join boycott
5
5
0
Attend lawful demonstration
26
17
-9
Join unofficial strike
5
3
-2
Occupy building
1
1
0
Note: †France, Britain, West Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium,
Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Greece, Luxembourg (1990 data do not
include Greece and Luxembourg); ‡East Germany, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech
Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia (1990 data do not include Romania).
Sources: European Values Studies 1990, 1999. Interviews for the 1990 survey were carried out in
1990, with the exception of the Polish survey, which was completed in December 1989. The 1999
survey was carried out in 1999, with the exceptions of Great Britain (October 1999 to November
2000), Ireland October 1999 to February 2000), Finland (September and October 2000) and Sweden
(November 1999 to January 2000).
31
TABLE 3
DEVELOPMENT IN SUMMARISED PROTEST ACTIVITY, 1990-1999
Western Europe
France
Britain
West Germany
Austria
Italy
Spain
Portugal
Netherlands
Belgium
Denmark
Sweden
Finland
N. Ireland
Ireland
Greece
Luxembourg
Weighted Average (west)
Standard deviation
N
Eastern Europe
East Germany
Estonia
Latvia
Lithuania
Poland
Czech
Slovakia
Hungary
Romania
Bulgaria
Slovenia
Weighted Average (east)
Standard deviation
N
1990
1999
57
77
58
49
56
33
39
54
50
59
75
49
64
46
72
80
52
59
63
37
29
68
75
70
89
52
62
64
51
60
55
12.13
16,314
62
15.21
17,660
76
49
61
66
32
56
46
19
25
29
66
25
34
30
27
63
58
16
21
21
37
45
19.12
8,612
36
17.90
10,322
Trend
1990-99
15
3
-6
10
7
5
-10
14
25
11
14
3
-2
18
7
-10
-24
-27
-36
-5
7
12
-3
-4
8
-9
East-west difference
10
26
Note: Cell entries in columns 1, 2 and 3 are percentages of respondents who said they have done at
least one of the following: signing a petition, joining a boycott, attending a lawful demonstration or
joining an unofficial strike.
Sources: 1990 and 1999 European Values Studies.
32
TABLE 4
PROTEST ACTIVITY IN EASTERN EUROPE, BY 1990 AND 1999
COHORTS
50
45
46
8,599
39
42
38
29
36
10,313
1976-85
52
1966-75
50
1956-65
Weighted
Mean
%
report1990 24
31
35
47
ing at
least
1999 18
22
31
38
one
protest
activity
Sources: European Values Studies 1990, 1999.
N
1946-55
1936-45
1926-35
1916-25
pre 1916
Year of Birth
33
TABLE 5
ESTIMATED MODELS OF INDIVIDUAL TURNOUT WITH SEPARATE
INTERCEPTS FOR EAST AND WEST
b
b
-0.13
robust
s.e.
0.33
-0.30
robust
s.e.
0.28
SES
Female
Age/10
3rd level education
Household income
-0.08
0.21***
0.55***
0.12***
0.06
0.02
0.13
0.02
-0.07
0.22***
0.53***
0.12***
0.05
0.02
0.12
0.02
Strategic resources and
mobilizing contexts
Party identification
Union member
0.98***
0.41***
0.13
0.11
0.87***
0.39***
0.09
0.09
0.16*
0.08
0.20**
0.08
0.18***
0.04
0.20***
0.03
0.14*
0.06
0.17**
0.06
0.20**
-0.18*
0.07
0.11
0.16*
-0.16*
0.07
0.09
-0.01
-0.21
0.00
-0.02
1.36*
1.69**
0.01
0.08
0.19
0.03
0.0
0.63
0.50
0.01
18.46
156.92
East-west (east=1)
-0.28
robust
s.e.
0.31
Values, and attitudes
Dissatisfaction with democratic
process
Who is in power makes a
difference
Who people vote for makes a
difference
Left vs. centre
Right vs. centre
b
Context
Year of election
Time since previous election
Majority status
1st – 2nd party gap
Compulsory voting
Executive responsiveness
Size of electorate
Constant
1.21***
N
Wald _2
Log pseudo-likelihood
McFadden’s R2
25908
0.86
-14540.95
0.00
0.22***
-1.93
0.41
25908
907.40***
-12985.67
0.11
Predicted probability of turnout:
West
0.77
0.80
East
0.72
0.78
Note: Estimation by logit. * p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001.
Source: Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES), modules 1 and 2.
25908
-12484.30
0.14
0.81
0.76
34
TABLE 6
ESTIMATED MODEL OF PROTEST PARTICIPATION WITH SEPARATE
INTERCEPTS FOR EAST AND WEST
b
-0.29*
s.e.
0.11
SES
Female
Age/10
Education
Class
-0.02
-0.02*
0.21***
0.02**
0.02
0.01
0.05
0.01
Strategic resources and
mobilizing contexts
Voted
Party member
Union member
Civic activist
Trust others
Discuss politics
Follow politics in media
0.01
0.16*
0.23**
0.17***
0.14**
0.21***
0.13***
0.03
0.07
0.06
0.04
0.05
0.02
0.03
Values and attitudes
Materialist
Postmaterialist
Environmental concern
Politics is important
Distrust government
Left vs. centre
Right vs. centre
-0.08*
0.28***
0.17*
0.21***
0.10*
0.35***
0.03
0.03
0.04
0.07
0.02
0.04
0.05
0.06
0.37**
0.23
11199
0.11
East-west (east=1)
Constant
R2
N
b
-0.48**
1.11***
0.06
11199
s.e.
0.15
0.11
Predicted average protest items:
West
1.11
1.10
East
0.63
0.65
Note: Estimation by OLS. * p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001. Dependent variable is the 5point protest activism scale, ranging from zero for someone who has no experience of any of
the protest acts to four for respondents who had actually participated in all four of the
activities. A frequency table of the scale is shown in Appendix A. Source: 1999 European
Values Study.
35
TABLE 7
POOLED MODELS OF INDIVIDUAL TURNOUT, WEST AND EAST
b
robust s.e.
Effect of
min ->max
_2 test of
E-W diff.
WEST
SES
Female
Age/10
3rd level education
Household income
-0.02
0.23***
0.36**
0.13***
0.08
0.04
0.12
0.03
0.00
0.28
0.05
0.13
0.60
0.26
2.91
0.01
Strategic resources and mobilizing
contexts
Party identification
Union member
0.90***
0.23**
0.12
0.07
0.13
0.04
0.21
0.78
Values and attitudes
Satisfaction with democracy
Who is in power makes a diff.
Who people vote for makes a diff.
Left vs. centre
Right vs. centre
0.32***
0.18***
0.15*
0.26**
-0.28**
0.08
0.03
0.07
0.09
0.09
0.05
0.14
0.12
0.04
-0.05
0.15
0.65
0.14
2.24
1.34
EAST
SES
Female
Age/10
3rd level education
Household income
-0.09
0.21***
0.74***
0.12***
0.05
0.02
0.18
0.03
-0.02
0.23
0.10
0.12
Strategic resources and mobilizing
contexts
Party identification
Union member
0.97***
0.37**
0.10
0.14
0.13
0.05
Values and attitudes
Satisfaction with democracy
Who is in power makes a diff.
Who people vote for makes a diff.
Left vs. centre
Right vs. centre
0.29***
0.23***
0.19*
0.10
-0.09
0.05
0.05
0.08
0.05
0.14
0.04
0.16
0.14
0.02
-0.02
Mode of transition
Negotiation
Preemptive reform
0.02
0.77
0.48
0.54
0.00
0.10
Accum. _2 test of E-W difference
51.47***
Constant
-2.26***
0.43
N
25736
Log pseudo-likelihood
-11914.59
McFadden’s R2
0.18
Note: Estimation by logit. * p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001. 17 country-election dummies
(Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, East Germany, West Germany, Hungary 1998,
36
Ireland, Norway, Poland 1997, Poland 2001, Portugal, Spain 1996, Spain 2000, Switzerland,
Netherlands, and Sweden) included but not shown.
Source: Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES), modules 1 and 2.
37
TABLE 8
POOLED MODELS OF PROTEST PARTICIPATION, WEST AND EAST
b
robust s.e.
F-test of EW diff.
WEST
SES
Female
Age/10
Education
Class
-0.03
-0.04***
0.28***
-0.02*
0.03
0.01
0.05
0.01
0.34
7.01*
1.59
0.63
Strategic resources and mobilizing
contexts
Voter
Party member
Union member
Civic activist
Trust others
Discuss politics
Follow politics in media
0.01
0.21**
0.18**
0.15**
0.10**
0.24***
0.16***
0.04
0.07
0.05
0.04
0.04
0.03
0.02
0.47
0.40
0.27
6.25*
0.00
9.17**
5.45*
Values and attitudes
Materialist
Postmaterialist
Environmentalist
Politics important
Distrust government
Left wing
Right wing
-0.04
0.25***
0.22**
0.16***
-0.11***
0.46***
-0.12*
0.05
0.04
0.08
0.04
0.02
0.04
0.05
1.00
0.93
2.72
1.08
0.18
32.49***
19.29***
EAST
SES
Female
Age/10
Education
Class
-0.05
-0.01
0.20***
0.01
0.03
0.01
0.03
0.01
Strategic resources and mobilizing
contexts
Voter
Party member
Union member
Civic activist
Trust others
Discuss politics
Follow politics in media
0.05
0.16**
0.22**
0.03
0.10*
0.10**
0.05
0.04
0.04
0.06
0.03
0.04
0.03
0.04
Values and attitudes
Materialist
Postmaterialist
Environmentalist
Politics important
Distrust government
-0.10**
0.20***
0.01
0.11**
-0.08
0.03
0.04
0.10
0.03
0.06
38
Left wing
Right wing
0.08
0.14**
0.05
0.03
Communist regime type and mode
of transition
Patrimonial communism
Negotiation
Preemptive reform
-0.27*
-0.35***
-0.48***
0.11
0.02
0.02
Accum. _2 test of E-W difference
Constant
19.3*
0.82***
0.06
Weighted N
11,199
R2
0.29
Note: * p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001. Dependent variable is the 5-point protest activism
scale, ranging from zero for someone who has no experience of any of the protest acts to 4 for
respondents who said they actually participated in all four of the activities. A frequency table of
the scale is shown in appendix A. 17 country dummies included but not shown in table.
Source: European Values Study 1999.
39
APPENDIX A
ADDITIVE SCALE OF UNINSTITUTIONALIZED POLITICAL
PARTICIPATION, 1999
Number of protest activities reported
Western Europe
France
Britain
West Germany
Austria
Italy
Spain
Portugal
Netherlands
Belgium
Denmark
Sweden
Finland
N. Ireland
Ireland
Greece
Luxembourg
Average (West)
N
Eastern Europe
East Germany
Estonia
Latvia
Lithuania
Poland
Czech
Slovakia
Hungary
Romania
Bulgaria
Slovenia
Done at
least one
act
0
1
2
3
4
28
20
48
41
37
63
71
32
25
30
11
48
38
36
49
40
34
55
30
39
34
18
17
31
36
30
41
32
36
40
28
33
21
15
15
14
20
11
9
21
26
21
25
12
14
15
17
18
13
7
7
5
8
5
2
14
10
13
19
7
8
7
4
7
4
0
0
1
2
3
1
2
3
6
3
0
4
2
1
1
72
80
52
59
63
37
29
68
75
70
89
52
62
64
51
60
38
34
17
9
2
62
17,660
34
75
66
70
73
37
42
84
79
79
63
25
18
24
22
18
35
44
11
15
12
25
35
6
8
4
7
18
10
3
5
5
7
5
1
2
2
2
8
3
2
1
3
4
0
0
0
1
1
2
1
0
0
0
1
66
25
34
30
27
63
58
16
21
21
37
Average (East)
64
23
10
3
1
36
N
10,322
Note: The selection of four activities (signing a petition, joining a boycott, attending a lawful
demonstration or joining an unofficial strike) for the summary measure of uninstitutionalized
political participation is informed by a Mokken scalability analysis showing that these four
activities measure a single underlying dimension of political activity. Source: 1999 European
Values Studies.
APPENDIX B
CODINGS OF VARIABLES
I. Electoral turnout
Turnout
Sociodemographic status
Female
Voted at the last election
0 = no
1 = yes
0 = male
1 = female
Age/10
Age divided by 10
Third-level education
0 = no
1 = yes
Household income
Income quintiles
1 = lowest,
[…]
5 = highest
Strategic resources and mobilizing
contexts
Party identification
Union membership
Values and attitudes
Satisfaction with the democratic process
‘Are you close to any political party?’
0 = no
1 = yes
0 = no
1 = yes
0 = not very/not at all satisfied
1 = rather/very satisfied
Who is in power makes a difference
1 = it doesn’t make a difference
[…]
5 = it makes a difference
Who people vote for makes a difference
1 = it won’t make a difference
[…]
5 = it can make a difference
Left vs. centre
0 = centre
1 = left
Right vs. centre
0 = centre
1 = right
Contextual–systemic factors
Year of the election
Year
Time since previous election
3, 4 or 5 years
41
Majority status
Percent
Gap between 1st and 2nd party
Percent
Compulsory voting
0 = no
1 = yes
Executive responsiveness
0 = no
1 = yes
Size of the electorate
(million) registered voters
II. Uninstitutionalized participation
Additive protest activism scale
Dichotomous protest activism variable
Sociodemographic status
Female
Additive five-point (0 to 4) scale counting
the reported incidence of four possible
protest activities: signing a petition, joining
a boycott, attending a lawful demonstration
or joining an unofficial strike.
Based on the additive five-point scale
1 if respondent had done any of the four
acts, 0 if otherwise.
0 = male
1 = female
Age/10
Age divided by 10
Third-level education
0 = no
1 = yes
Class: Occupation based ten-point measure
of social class
10 = Employer/manager of establishment
with 10 or more employees
9 = Employer/manager of establishment
with less then 10 employees
8 = Professional worker (lawyer, accountant,
teacher etc.),
7 = Middle level non-manual - office worker
etc.
6 = junior level non-manual - office worker
etc.
5 = Foreman and supervisor
4 = Farmer: employer, manager on own
account
3 = Skilled manual worker
2 = Semi-skilled manual worker
1 = Unskilled manual worker agricultural
worker
Strategic resources and mobilizing
contexts
Voted
‘If there was a general election tomorrow,
which party would you vote for?’
0 = ‘Would not vote’ / ‘Would cast a blank
ballot’
42
1 = named any party
Party membership
0 = no
1 = yes
Union membership
0 = no
1 = yes
(Includes professional associations)
Belongs to and/or does unpaid work for at
least one of the following
organizations/groups: Social welfare
services for elderly, handicapped or deprived
people; Religious or church organizations;
education, arts, music or cultural activities;
local community action on issues like
poverty, employment, housing, racial
equality; third world development or human
rights; youth work (e.g. scouts, guides, youth
clubs etc.); sports or recreation; women's
groups; peace movement; voluntary
organizations concerned with health.
Civic activism
Trust in others
1 = ‘Most people can be trusted’
0 = ‘You can’t be too careful in dealing with
people.’
Discuss politics with friends
0 = never
1 = frequently or occasionally
Follow politics in the media
0 = less than once a week
1 = at least once or twice a weak
Values and attitudes
Materialist value orientation
Coded 1 if respondent named ‘maintaining
order in the nation’ and ‘fighting rising
prices’ as the first or second most important
aim of the country for the next ten years; 0 if
otherwise.
Postmaterialist value orientation
Coded 1 if respondent named ‘giving people
more say in important government
decisions’ and ‘protecting freedom of
speech’ as the first or second most important
aim of the country for the next ten years; 0 if
otherwise.
Concern for the environment
1 = membership or active in conservation,
environment, ecology, or animal rights
group,
0 = otherwise
Politics is important
0 = ‘not’ or ‘not at all’ important
1 = ‘Very’ and ‘quite’ important
Distrust government
Coded 1 if at least four of the following
institutions items enjoy ‘a great deal’ and
‘quite a lot’ of trust: the armed forces, the
education system, the police, parliament, the
civil service, the justice system; 0 if less
than that.
43
than that.
Left vs. centre
0 = centre
1 = left
Right vs. centre
0 = centre
1 = left
III. Historical context
Type of communist rule (baseline category:
bureaucratic-authoritarian communism;
mixed types are coded twice)
National accommodative communism
Patrimonial communism
Mode of transition (baseline category:
transition by implosion of the old order)
Negotiation between hard-liners and
reformers
Preemptive reform by the incumbent elite
0 = no
1 = yes
0 = no
1 = yes
0 = no
1 = yes
0 = no
1 = yes
44
NOTES
1
Pippa Norris, Democratic Phoenix: Reinventing Political Activism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2002), p.5.
2
Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation (Baltimore, MD: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp.7-10.
3
Herbert Kitschelt, Zdenka Mansfeldova, Radoslaw Markoswski and Gábor Tóka, Post-communist Party
Systems: Competition, representation and inter-party cooperation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1999), p.1, original emphasis.
4
Andrew T. Green, ‘Comparative Development of Post-communist Civil Societies’, Europe-Asia Studies,
Vol.54, No.3 (2002), pp.455-471; Marc Morjé Howard, The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist
Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Tatiana Kostadinova, ‘Voter Turnout Dynamics in
Post-Communist Europe’, European Journal of Political Research, Vol.42, No.6 (2003), pp.741-760; Natalia
Letki, ‘Socialization for Participation? Trust, Membership, and Democratization in East-Central Europe’,
Political Research Quarterly, Vol.57, No.3 (2004), pp.273-91; Richard Rose, ‘Mobilizing Demobilized Voters
in Post-Communist Societies’ (Studies in Public Policy Number 246, Glasgow: Centre for the Study of Public
Policy. University of Strathclyde, 1995); Jacques Thomassen and Jan van Deth, ‘Political Involvement and
Democratic Attitudes’, in Samuel H. Barnes and János Simon (eds.), The Postcommunist Citizen (Budapest:
Alfadat Press, 1998), pp.139-163; Kieran Williams, ’Proportional Representation in Post-Communist Eastern
Europe: The First Decade’, Representation, Vol. 40, No. 1 (2003), pp.44-54.
5
See for example Valerie Bunce, ‘Regional Differences in Democratization: The East versus the West’, Post-
Soviet Affairs Vol.14, No.3 (1998), pp.187-211; Valerie Bunce, ‘Comparative Democratization: Big and
Bounded Generalizations’, Comparative Political Studies Vol.33, No. 6/7 (2000), p.703-734.
6
Kitschelt et al., op. cit. ; Peter Mair, What is Different About Post-communist Party Systems? (Studies in Public
Policy Number 259, Glasgow: Centre for the Study of Public Policy. University of Strathclyde, 1996).
7
Kitschelt et al., op. cit., pp.19-21.
8
See Joseph Rothschild and Nancy M. Wingfield, Return to Diversity: A political history of East Central
Europe since World War II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 3rd ed., 2000), pp.1-22.
9
Sidney Verba, Norman H. Nie, and Jae-On Kim, Participation and Political Equality: A seven-nation
comparison (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), p.1.
45
10
Sidney Verba, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Henry E. Brady, Voice and Equality: Civic voluntarism in
American politics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995).
11
While Germany as a whole appears among the western countries in Table 1, separate data on reported turnout
for East and West Germany will be used in the analysis that follows, with East Germany coded as a postcommunist country.
12
Switzerland is something of an outlier: the next lowest western country is Portugal where turnout averages 65
percent.
13
Exceptions to the general trend in western Europe are Portugal and West Germany (although here also a mild
increase from 20 to 23 percent has occurred for those who said they attended a lawful demonstration).
14
Exceptions include Slovenia, where modest increases have occurred with respect to all forms of protest
activity, as well as the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Although the latter two countries to some degree share the
decline – though not the precipitate drop – in demonstration activity that characterizes the rest of the region,
they differ remarkably from the other Central and East European countries in that both have witnessed an
increase in all other protest activities. While they start from different levels in the early 1990s, the patterns of
increase in protest activities in the two parts of the former CSSR are quite similar.
15
This test is based on a non-parametric item response model appropriate for the current situation in which the
popularity of the different protest variables varies considerably. Constructing the protest participation scale with
these four activities satisfies Mokken’s assumption of double monotonicity and yields a high coefficient of scale
homogeneity (H = 0.59), which shows that it is a strong scale measuring a single underlying trait of political
activity; see Wijbrandt H. van Schuur, ‘Mokken Scale Analysis: Between the Guttman Scale and Parametric
Item Response Theory’, Political Analysis, Vol.11, No.2 (2003), pp.139-163. Previous studies of protest
participation have employed similar summary variables, but differ slightly in their selection of the protest items
included; see for example Paul Dekker, Ruud Koopmans, and Andries van den Broek, ‘Voluntary Associations,
Social Movements and Individual Political Behaviour in Western Europe’, in Jan Willem Van Deth (ed.),
Private Groups and Public Life: Social Participation, Voluntary Associations and Political Involvement in
Representative Democracies (London: Routledge, 1997); Edeltraud Roller and Bernhard Wessels, ‘Contexts of
Political Protest in Western Democracies: Political Organization and Modernity’, in Frederick D. Weil (ed.),
Extremism, Protest, Social Movements and Democracy (Greenwich: JAI Press, 1996); Richard Topf, ‘Beyond
Electoral Participation’, in Hans-Dieter Klingemann and Dieter Fuchs (ed.), Citizens and the State (Oxford:
46
Oxford University Press, 1995), pp.52-91; Peter Gundelach, ‘Grass-Roots Activity’, in Jan W. van Deth and
Elinor Scarbrough (eds.), The Impact of Values (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).
16
Rose, op. cit., p.3, original emphasis.
17
Christopher G. Pickvance, ‘Democratization and the Decline of Social Movements: The Effects of Regime
Change on Collective Action in Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, and Latin America’, Sociology, Vol.33, No.2
(1999), pp.353-372.
18
Cf. Paul Lewis, ‘Political Participation in Postcommunist Democracies’, in David Potter et al. (eds.), De-
mocratization (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1997), p.459.
19
Dieter Fuchs and Dieter Rucht, ‘Support for New Social Movements in Five Western European Countries’, in
C. Rootes and H. Davis (eds.), A New Europe? Social Change and Political Transformation (London:
University College London Press, 1994).
20
Ted Robert Gurr, Why Men Rebel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970).
21
Sten Berglund, Frank Aarebrot, Henri Vogt, and Georgi Karasimeonov, Challenges to Democracy
(Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2001), pp.148-51.
22
Ibid., p.158.
23
See Norris, op. cit., for a summary overview of the literature.
24
Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man (London: Mercury Books, 1963).
25
Mark Gray and Miki Caul, ‘Declining voter turnout in advanced industrial democracies’, Comparative
Political Studies, Vol.33, No. 9 (2000), pp.1091-1122; Verba, Nie and Kim, op. cit.
26
See for example Guillermo O’Donnell and Philippe C. Schmitter (eds), Transitions From Authoritarian Rule:
Some Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1986).
27
Kitschelt et al., op. cit.
28
Max Kaase and Alan Marsh, ‘Political Action: A Theoretical Perspective’, in Samuel H. Barnes, Max Kaase,
et al. (eds.), Political Action: Mass participation in five Western democracies (London: Sage, 1979), p.45;
Lipset, op. cit., pp.182-3; Verba, Nie and Kim, op. cit.
29
Brady, Verba and Schlozman, op. cit., p.271.
30
Mark N. Franklin, Voter Turnout and the Dynamics of Electoral Competition in Established Democracies
since 1945, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
31
Norris, op. cit.
47
32
Ronald Inglehart, Modernization and Postmodernization (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997).
According to Abramson and Inglehart, the materialist-postmaterialist dichotomy has similar meaning across
cultures around the world; see Paul R. Abramson and Ronald Inglehart, Value Change in Global Perspective
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995).
33
Aie-Rie Lee and James A. Norris, ‘Attitudes toward environmental issues in East Europe’, International
Journal of Public Opinion Research, Vol.12, No. 2 (2000), pp.372-397, 372-6.
34
Gurr, op. cit.; Michel Crozier, Samuel P. Huntington, and Joji Watanuki, The Crisis of Democracy: Report on
the Governability of Democracies to the Trilateral Commission (New York: New York University Press, 1975).
35
Gray and Caul, op. cit.; Norris, op. cit.
36
Letki, op. cit.
37
Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 2000).
38
Bernard B. Berelson, Paul F. Lazarsfeld, and William McPhee, Voting: A Study of Opinion Formation in a
Presidential Campaign (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954), p.128.
39
Jan W. van Deth, ‘Introduction: Social involvement and democratic politics’, in Jan W. van Deth (ed.) Private
Groups and Public Life: Social participation, voluntary associations and political involvement in representative
democracies (London: Routledge, 1997), p.9.
40
Robert Jackman, ‘Political Institutions and Voter Turnout in the Industrial Democracies’, American Political
Science Review, Vol.81 (1987), pp.405-423.
41
Franklin, op. cit.
42
André Blais and Agnieszka Dobrzynska, ‘Turnout in Electoral Democracies’, European Journal of Political
Research, Vol.33 (1998), pp.239-261.
43
Kitschelt et al., op. cit., p.14.
44
Ibid., pp.385-386.
45
Ibid., p.386.
46
Ibid., p.388.
47
Ibid., pp.28-31.
48
Throughout the analysis, estimates are weighted by actual turnout levels at the respective elections to correct
for over reporting.
48
49
Predicted turnout [0] is defined as the predicted probability of a respondent turning out the vote in east and
west, respectively, given the estimated logit coefficients and mean values of all other independent variables.
50
Given the discrete property of the dependent variable, we also estimated these models using the more
appropriate ordinal logit estimator. The results confirmed those arrived at by OLS estimation reported in table 6.
51
This time we also include country dummies since we are now interested in the properly specified effects of
each independent variable.
52
Because the indicators for communist regime type and mode of transition summarize groups of countries that
are already included in the equation as country dummies, some of the regime and transition indicators had to be
excluded from the equation in order to avoid perfect collinearity.
53
In order to isolate attitudes toward market capitalism, social and economic equality, and western
individualism, we estimated an alternative specification that included a summary scale of those attitudes (not
reported here). This variable had only a weak and insignificant effect both when included in addition to the leftright dummies and when specified as an alternative to ideological self-placement. The effects of left-right selfplacement, where included, and those of all other variables remained unaltered.
54
Franklin, op. cit.; Pippa Norris, Stefaan Walgrave, and Peter Van Aelst, ‘Who Demonstrates? Anti-State
Rebels, Conventional participants, or Everyone?’ Paper presented at the 61st Annual National Conference of the
Midwest Political Science Association, April 3-6, 2003, Chicago.