Scholars have long argued that political participation is determined by institutional context. Within the voter turnout literature, the impact of various institutional structures has been demonstrated in numerous studies. Curiously, a similar context-driven research agenda exploring the correlates of nonelectoral participation (NEP) has not received the same attention. This study addresses this lacuna by testing a political opportunity structure (POS) model of citizen activism across 24 old and new democracies using International Social Survey Programme 2004: Citizenship (ISSP 2004) data. Using a multilevel modeling approach, this study tests a competition versus consensus conception of how decentralized institutions determine NEP. This research demonstrates that states with more competitive veto points operating through systems of horizontal and territorial decentralization increase individual NEP. In addition, it interacts with social mobilization networks to promote greater citizen activism: Institutional context counts only when citizens are mobilized.

The goal of this paper is to analyse the impact the EU has had on Czech women’s groups since the1990s. Drawing on both Europeanization and social movement theories, the first section defines the theoretical framework of the paper. The second section is focused on the impact of changes in the funding of women’s groups which, since the end of the1990s, have relied more than before on European funding. The third section analyses the shift in the political context and the domestic political opportunity structure in the Czech Republic that has occurred in connection with the accession process. The fourth section analyzes transnational cooperation for which new opportunities have appeared with the EU’s eastward expansion. The paper concludes by summarizing its main findings.

Focusing on social movement organizations (SMOs) in the Czech Republic, this article explores the level of transnational activism of these actors. Although knowledge exists on domestic interest groups’ choice of European Union (EU) venues for lobbying, the influence of EU funding on protest and public campaigning by actors such as SMOs remains under-studied. We show what the level of transnationalization of SMOs is, what types of transnational strategies SMOs employ, and what explains these choices. Specifically, the article examines the effect the EU has had on Czech SMOs. We are interested in whether EU funding contributed to their de-radicalization and co-optation by the political elite, or rather empowered them to engage in transnational protest. The results of our analysis support the empowerment hypothesis.

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Contemporary democracies show considerable differences in the issue composition of their protest politics, which tends to remain relatively stable over time. In countries like Germany or the Czech Republic, the vast majority of protests have been mobilised around sociocultural issues, such as human rights, peace, nuclear power or the environment, and only a tiny portion of protest has focused on economic issues. At the opposite extreme, protest in France or Poland usually has a strongly economic character and voices demands relating to material redistribution and social policy. What lies behind the cross‐country differences in national protest agendas? In this article, the national protest agenda depends on what issues mainstream political parties are contesting: the content and strength of the master‐issue dimension. In reference to the literature on the multidimensional political space and niche political parties, one should expect that there is a substitutive effect; where the stronger a specific master‐issue dimension is in party politics, the less salient that issue dimension is in protest politics. This substitutive effect results from the tendency of electoral politics to reduce political conflict to a single‐dimension equilibrium, which decreases the importance of other issues and relegates the contest over secondary, niche issues to the realm of policy‐seeking strategies, with protest being a common type of this political strategy. In party systems where single‐dimension equilibrium does not exist and the master‐issue dimension is weaker, the same dynamics result in a more convergent relationship between party and protest politics and a greater similarity between the protest‐ and party‐system agendas. To investigate this theory, the national protest agendas in four countries are examined. The Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia show four combinations of two crucial factors that are not available in the old Western democracies: the content and the strength of the master‐issue dimension. The study draws on an original dataset of protest events organised in the four countries between 1993 and 2010, and on qualitative and quantitative data on issue dimensions of party politics obtained from studies on party politics and expert surveys. The results show that in the Czech Republic, where the master‐issue dimension has remained strongly economic, protest has been predominantly sociocultural. In Poland between 1993 and 2001 and Hungary between 1993 and 2006, the master‐issue dimensions are strongly sociocultural, while protest is predominantly economic. There is no single‐dimension equilibrium in party politics in Slovakia or in post‐2001 Poland and mainstream parties compete on both economic and sociocultural issues. Consequently, the substitutive dynamics between party and protest politics is weaker and the issue agendas in party and protest arenas are here more alike.