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More than two decades ago, the authors of Political Action (Barnes et al. 1979) predicted that what was then called “unconventional political participation” would become more widespread throughout advanced industrial societies, because it was part of a deep-rooted intergenerational change. Time series data from the 1974 Political Action survey, together with data from four waves of the World Values Surveys demonstrates that this change has indeed taken place—to such an extent that petitions, boycotts, and other forms of direct action are no longer unconventional but have become more or less normal actions for a large part of the citizenry of post-industrial societies. This type of elite-challenging actions also played an important part in the Third Wave of democratization—but after the transition to democracy, most of the new democracies subsequently experienced a post-honeymoon phase of disillusionment with democracy, in which direct political action declined. This paper analyzes data from more than 70 countries containing more than 80 percent of the world’s population, interpreting the long-term dynamics of elite-challenging political participation in both established democracies and new democracies. Our interpretation implies that the current decline in direct political action in the new democracies is a “post-honeymoon” period effect; in the long run, we expect that elite-challenging activity will move on an upward trajectory in most of the new democracies, as has been the case in virtually all established democracies.

Discussions of political participation originally centered on cultural explanation, thus emphasizing the dynamics between cognitive and affective orientations of mass populations toward their polities and the role of the self in the political system (Gamson 1968; Easton 1965; Almond and Verba 1963; Dahl 1961; Campbell et al. 1960). Positive evaluations induce involvement, while negative attitudes hinder it. Despite “institutional” criticism, contemporary studies provide ample evidence for the validity of cultural explanations in comprehending protest behavior in post-industrial societies (Dalton 2001; Norris 1999; Klingemann 1999; Inglehart 1997; Jennings 1990). To understand involvement in elite-challenging activities in new democracies, however, the cultural premises should be re-specified. Not only the types, but also the referents of support, have had differentiated effects in citizens’ propensity to participate during the third wave of democratization. Specifically, I claim that support for the new political institutions positively affected participation, while assessments of incumbent authorities negatively impacted engagement after regime change in Latin American and Eastern and Central European nations. Probit estimations using data from the 1995-2001 World Values Surveys support this proposition while they also suggest that participation was mainly influenced by the strength of their orientations toward democracy at similar levels of governmental discontent between two individuals.

Los años 2010 y 2011 marcaron un ciclo político en argentina. tras la muerte del ex presidente néstor Kirchner sobrevino la consolidación de cristina Fernández de Kirchner como líder de cuño propio, desembocando en una victoria electoral abrumadora a fines del 2011. algunos cambios, operados a nivel institucional, podrían transformar el panorama político de largo plazo. este trabajo repasa la coyuntura política, económica y social de argentina durante estos dos años a la luz de las tendencias observadas en años anteriores y de determinantes de más largo plazo. se repasan los principales cambios institucionales y de políticas públicas, datos del proceso legislativo, tendencias de la opinión pública y resultados electorales.Palabras clave: reforma política, opinión pública, elecciones, presidencia, proceso legislativo. AbstrAct

The American literature has extensively studied the dynamics of early political socialization and its impact on intergenerational differences since the early 1950s (Mannheim, 1928; Jennings, Stoker and Stoker, 2004; Schuman, 2011)� A key finding is that the emergence of new political generations requires salient historical events that strongly affect socialization in early political life� The comparative literature has also emphasized the relevance of early experiences in the formation of political attitudes, and mostly focused on historical events which transformed industrialized societies, identifying systematic differences in intergenerational values between pre-war and post-war cohorts (Inglehart, 1997;Inglehart and Welzel, 2005)� However, the study of early political socialization in Third Wave nations and its impact on the political attitudes and behaviors of individuals born and raised under these new democratic regimes has been practically ignored (among the very few exceptions are