Contentious Politics in New Democracies: East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia, 1989–93

Abstract

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.

Understanding Enemy Images in Central and Eastern European Politics

“…Sociologists of social movements have proposed several explanations for the strange absence of mass mobilizations during the processes of economic transformation in post-socialist countries in the 1990s (Ekiert and Kubik, 1998;Greskovits, 1998;Vanhuysse, 2006). First, it was the legal framework and fragmentation of trade unions that ultimately led to the pacification of large conflictseven if the trade unions were one of the most important actors in the regime change before 1989 (Ekiert and Kubik, 1998).…”

“…First, it was the legal framework and fragmentation of trade unions that ultimately led to the pacification of large conflictseven if the trade unions were one of the most important actors in the regime change before 1989 (Ekiert and Kubik, 1998). Second, a more complex explanation builds on a comparison between Latin America in the late 1970s and Central and Eastern Europe in the 1990s -two regions undergoing a processes of radical socio-economic transition -, finding that the absence of significant mobilizations was a consequence of the relative lack of economic inequality, a lower level of urbanization and the absence of a tradition of violent struggles and preexisting forms of social protection (Greskovits, 1998: 85).…”

Social Movement Studies for East Central Europe? The Challenge of a Time-Space Bias on Postwar Western Societies

“…After 1990, the question of movements in ECE fit into the larger literature on post-socialist transition and democratization. Two main conflicts signaled in the literature were that between democratization and economic austerity (Przeworski, 1991;Ekiert and Kubik;1998, Greskovits, 1998, and low popular participation vs. the proliferation of civil society organizations (McMahon, 2001;Howard, 2003;Tarrow and Petrova, 2007). In the conceptualization of both conflicts, researchers worked with the assumption that Eastern European societies will develop in a linear scale defined by earlier Western models -or if do not, differences from core models will be described as a backdrop in normal development.…”

Civil Society, Institutional Change, and the Politics of Reform: The Great Transition

“…), cannot fully explain the observed divergence, and that differences in the institutional setups provide a better explanation (see, among others, Johnson, McMillan and Woodruff 1999;Hellman 1998;Ekiert and Kubik 1998;Møller 2009). However, how do we explain the differences in the institutional evolution in different countries?…”