POLITICAL PARTICIPATION AND THE PROBLEMS OF CONSOLIDATION OF “NEW DEMOCRACIES” IN POST-COMMUNIST COUNTRIES OF EUROPE

The article deals with the comparative research of the political participation trends in post-communist countries of Europe which greatly contribute to the consolidation of “new democracies”. Disappointment in government policy that did not answer expectations for increasing living standard and expanding personal freedom under the democratic regime brought about a significant decline of political participation level in all the countries of “the third wave” democratization. However in post-communist countries this kind of public mood resulted in mass political apathy as well as in a downfall of voter turnout. The situation turned out differently in post-authoritarian countries where political activity did not lower considerably and the level of electoral participation remained rather high. European post-communist “new democracies” also fell behind post-authoritarian ones as far as various types of non-electoral participation is concerned. The author concludes that the survival values prevailing in the culture of post-communist European countries which keep up utilitarian attitude towards democracy restrained public political activity as a whole and blocked citizens in exceeding the limits of elite-directed political participation. In the “new democracies” citizens’ choice of the forms and types of political participation also depends on what kind of character public activity has acquired in the course of liberalization of dictatorship regimes and subsequent democratization process. By the beginning of the liberalization phase in post-communist countries of Europe there had not existed any public movements that were capable to become influential partners in a dialogue with the reformers from the dominating party. That is why here civil activity amounted but to short-term mass protest actions which could not encourage the consolidation of democracy.

political participation, electoral participation, non-electoral participation, the transition to democracy, post-communist “new democracies”, post-authoritarian “new democracies”, the consolidation of democracy, civil society

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