Electoral and Non-Electoral Participation in the Visegrad Countries

Abstract

The problem of low turnout at elections has become common in almost all post-communist countries. Given this weak participation in elections, some political scientists tend to see a crisis of emerging post-authoritarian political systems. Nevertheless, political participation, frequently considered to be the heart of democracy, should not be reduced to casting a ballot alone. This article makes an effort to discuss turnout more comprehensively. It aims at the association of this basic mode of civic engagement with less conventional political activities. Analysing European Social Survey data gathered in the Visegrad Four, the most advanced region in the former Eastern Bloc, it tries to address the issue of whether people who are active at a polling station simultaneously perform other activities in the broad repertoire of political participation. In other words, do active voters in the specific context of Central Europe also take part in different political actions, so that the relationship between participatory modes can be seen as tending to be complementary, or do voting and other forms of political action show little correlation?

The Generational and Institutional Sources of the Global Decline in Voter Turnout

“…At the same time, protesting and other elite-challenging activities presumably do not compensate for the decline in voting. The existing research shows that at the individual level, protesting is positively associated with voting, and that those who abstain typically do not protest (Strømsnes 2009;Nový 2014;van Deth 2020). 44 Armingeon and Schädel 2015; Dassonneville and Hooghe 2017.…”

It’s Not the Left: Ideology and Protest Participation in Old and New Democracies

“…Although citizens in postcommunist democracies are less involved, their protest participation resembles that of their Western counterparts in other respects. For example, protesting is positively correlated with support for democracy and tolerance (Ekiert & Kubik, 1998; Gurin, Petry, & Crte, 2004; Klingemann, Fuchs, & Zielonka, 2006, p. 10), and it is complementary (and not substitutive) to more elite-directed political and electoral participation (Nový, 2014; but see Tǎtar, 2015). Similarly, like in established democracies (Dalton, 2008), young citizens are more likely to prefer more direct and active “engaged forms of citizenship” to a more passive and conventional “duty-based” forms (Coffé & Lippe, 2010).…”