Participation and Democracy: Dynamics, Causes ... - Jacobs University

There are a number of plausible reasons why this decline in elite-challenging activities
has taken place in these societies. When the communist regimes in Central and Eastern
Europe collapsed in a kind of snowballing effect, many people put high hopes into the
transition to democracy. But as Inglehart and Welzel (2005: 119) have argued, support
for a regime change, also displayed in massive protests such as demonstrations, does not
necessarily have to be intrinsically motivated.
Figure 5-10: Elite-Challenging Activities in Ex-Communist Post-Soviet Societies, in
%, WVS/EVS
70
60
50
Lithuania
Latvia
40
Estonia
30
20
Belarus*
Russia
10
0
1990 1999
* Belarus: Survey from 1997 (see chapter on methods and data for country selection). The decline in elitechallenging
activities between the 1990 and the 2000 survey shows an even steeper decline.
In particular, when people support democracy not because of its procedures but because
they associate material benefits and prosperity with it, these economic expectations are
open to disillusionment when the new regime cannot deliver. In the first years after the
transition, socio-economic conditions have worsened in almost all post-communist
countries. But whereas the more Western-oriented, Central European countries could
recover, the post-soviet societies have suffered from economic and social hardship in an
almost unprecedented manner. As a consequence of deteriorating social and health
services, living standards dropped sharply in the early 1990ies, and fertility rate and life
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