Suchergebnisse

The article reconstructs and explains the patterns of collective protest in four Central European countries: former East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia during the early phases of democratic consolidation (1989–93). The method of event analysis of protest behavior is employed. Content analysis of six major newspapers in each country provides empirical evidence. The examination of data reveals striking contrasts in the magnitude and forms of protests. In each country the policies of the new democratic regimes were contested by different groups and organizations, employing different repertoires of contention. The authors consider propositions derived from four theoretical traditions—relative deprivation, instrumental institutionalism, historical- cultural institutionalism, and resource mobilization theory—to determine which provides the best explanation for the patterns observed in the data set. Three main conclusions are reached. First, the levels of "objective" or "subjective" deprivation are unrelated to the magnitude and various features of protest, which are best explained by a combination of institutional and resource mobilization theories. Second, democratic consolidation is not necessarily threatened by a high magnitude of protest, since the two seem to be unrelated. Third, if the demands of collective protest are moderate and the methods routinized, then protest may contribute to the robustness of a new democracy.

The authors' original research project provides new evidence that collective protest constituted a significant part of Polish political life during the first years of post-communist transformations. The paper demonstrates that the magnitude of protest increased from 1989 to 1993. Major features of protest politics are described: participants' social backgrounds, organizations sponsoring or leading protest, repertoire of contention, demands, targets of protest actions, and finally state responses and protest effectiveness. The main conclusion is that although protest was intense and politically significant, it was at the same time highly institutionalized. The concept of institutionalized contentiousness captures this phenomenon.

Die Verfasser legen Ergebnisse einer inhaltsanalytischen Untersuchung von zwei polnischen Tages- und vier Wochenzeitungen aus den Jahren 1989 bis 1993 vor. Berichtet wird über Formen, Ziele, Verlauf, Organisation und Akzeptanz von Protestaktionen im Untersuchungszeitraum, über die gesellschaftliche Basis solcher Aktionen sowie über die Reaktion des Staates. Die Untersuchung zeigt, daß kollektiver Protest eine wichtige Rolle in den ersten Jahren der postkommunistischen Transformation in Polen spielt, wobei im Untersuchungszeitraum eine Zunahme von Protestaktivitäten zu konstatieren ist. Darüberhinaus wird deutlich, daß die Protestaktivitäten durch ein hohes Maß an Routinisierung und Institutionalisierung gekennzeichnet sind. Protestverhalten etablierte sich in Polen als anerkannter Konfliktlösungsmechanismus und Interaktionsmodus zwischen Staat und Gesellschaft. Die Verfasser charakterisieren diesen Aspekt der politischen Kultur des sich demokratisierenden Polens als institutionalisierte Streitkultur. (BIOst-Wpt)

View that post-communist transformations confirm the cyclical nature of collective protest.

Explores democratic consolidation through a comparative study of collective protest, its incidence, magnitude, characteristics, causes, and effects.

AbstractDuring the last two decades, scholars from a variety of disciplines have argued that civil society is structurally deficient in postcommunist countries. Yet why have the seemingly strong, active and mobilised civic movements of the transition period become so weak after democracy was established? And why have there been diverging political trajectories across the postcommunist space if civil society structures were universally weak? This article uses a new, broader range of data to show that civil societies in Central and Eastern European countries are not as feeble as commonly assumed. Many postcommunist countries possess vigorous public spheres and active civil society organisations strongly connected to transnational civic networks able to shape domestic policies. In a series of time‐series cross‐section models, the article shows that broader measures of civic and social institutions are able to predict the diverging transition paths among postcommunist regimes, and in particular the growing gap between democratic East Central Europe and the increasingly authoritarian post‐Soviet space.