Civic activities in Eastern Europe: links with democratic political culture

ABSTRACT

This article analyses civic activities in East European countries using data from the European Values Study (2008–2010), which reveals the linkage between civic activities and democratic political culture at the country level. The analysis looks at the elements of democratic political culture which could promote or prevent the rise of civic engagement in Eastern Europe, namely trust towards political institutions, interest in politics, and satisfaction with democracy. Whilst it is too early to apply the concept of “critical citizen” to a civic activist in the area – it is suggested that the concept “dispassionate, but interested” be used.

KEYWORDS:

• Civic activities
• Eastern Europe
• political culture
• democracy

Acknowledgements

I thank organisers and participants of “(Dis)Satisfaction with Democracy and Citizens' Involvement in Post-Communist Europe” workshop conducted in CBEES (Södertörn University, Sweden) in October 2014 for valuable comments and questions, special thanks to Sergiu Gherghina and Olena Podolian for reviewing the article on its different stages. The idea of the article appeared and was realised within the framework of a subsidy granted to the HSE by the Government of the RF for the implementation of the Global Competitiveness Program.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributors

Alla Marchenko is Associate Professor of the Chair of Methodology and Methods of Sociological Research, Faculty of Sociology, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine. She is also Associate Researcher of the Laboratory for Comparative Social Research, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Russian Federation.

Her recent publications include the following:

• 2014. “Hasidic Pilgrimage as a Cultural Performance: The Case of Contemporary Ukraine.” Judaica Ukrainica (3): 60–80.

• (co-authored with Mykola Borovyk) 2014. “Biographical Research in Ukraine: A New Field in a New Country. Biography and Society.” ISA Newsletter of RC 38: 6–12.

• (co-authored with Sergiy Kurbatov) 2013. “Diversification of the “Late Soviet”: Attitudes to Mikhail Gorbachev in the Mirrors of History Textbooks.” The Ideology and Politics Journal, Post-Soviet Order between the Tradition and Modernity Issue 2(4): 4–28.

Notes

*. Present Address: Laboratory for Comparative Social Research, National Research University, Higher School of Economics, St. Petersburg, Russia

1. Welzel also substantiated the possibility to include elite-changing actions in the framework of civic engagement, not only through political activities (Welzel, Inglehart, and Deutsch 2005).

2. The European Values Study is a large-scale, cross-national, and longitudinal survey research programme which is repeated every nine years in an increasing number of countries. The fourth wave in 2008–2010 covered 47 European countries and approximately 70,000 people were interviewed. The data is representative both at country and individual levels. All the data and details of project are available at www.europeanvaluesstudy.eu

3. I selected cases Azerbaijan, Albania, Armenia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Croatia, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovenia, Slovak Republic, and Ukraine, since they are usually labelled by the umbrella terms “Eastern Europe” or “post-socialist space” (e.g., Hann 2002; Kűrtis & Skalnik 2009). More accurately, these countries belong to “Central and Southeastern Europe” (e.g., in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development or United Nations Economic Commission of Europe reports). East Germany and Kosovo, though present in datasets, were excluded from the analysis for methodological reasons.

4. NATO is much less associated with democracy than security in the region, especially in comparison to the European Union, though it is difficult to differentiate its symbolic meaning of “being democratic” and “being secure”.

5. More on this issue may be found in (Welzel, Inglehart, and Deutsch 2005; Voicu, 2005; Marchenko, 2014).

6. The mean of non-violent elite-changing actions (on a scale from 1 to 4) was 1.31 for Belarus, 1.34 for Romania, and 1.36 for the Russian Federation.

7. There is a United Nations Resolution on the issue of Kosovo, the full text of which is available and can be retrieved on http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/371562.stm

8. For instance, the beginning of Euromaidan is described here: http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/euromaidan-rallies-in-ukraine-nov-21-23-coverage-332423.html

9. Only 3% of Russia's population has a positive attitude towards the European Union and NATO, according to the Levada Centre poll conducted in September 2014 – Information from http://www.levada.ru – Official webpage of “Levada-Centre”