Moments of Political Contention and Democratic Participation: A cohort analysis of political generations and participation repertoires in post-Communist Europe

How does experience of critical political moments shape the protest and voting behaviour of citizens in post-Communist Europe? At the end of Communism, societies were expected to become increasingly democratic: as young people were socialised in more democratic contexts, they would develop more pro-democratic attitudes, which would gradually become established en masse. Yet, intergenerational differences suggest that, contrary to the logic of generational replacement, younger citizens may participate less than older compatriots. Moreover, there is important variation in democratic behaviours across post-communist Europe. This includes moments of high political contention: peaks of electoral turnout and waves of protest mobilisation, such as the “colour revolutions” of the early 2000s. These divergent patterns of political events and participation present different contexts for the socialisation of young citizens in post-Communist Europe. This paper suggests that, for younger citizens, in their ‘impressionable years’, critical political events such as critical elections or waves of mass protest, may have a formative impact at the individual level, which, en masse, contributes to patterns of behaviours. Drawing on the key mechanisms of political socialisation – fundamental belief formation, political learning, and mobilisation –this paper asks: in post-Communist Europe, do experiences of critical and contentious politics during the impressionable years have a lasting impact on individual propensity to turn out in elections, and participate in protest? I use repeated cross-sectional data from rounds 1-9 (2002-2020) of the European Social Survey from 12 post-Communist European countries, thus capturing individuals from the same cohort at different times and phases of the life cycle, and reducing the age, period cohort identification problem. Then, considering moments of mass mobilisation and the most competitive and important elections in each country as contexts of political socialisation, I use logistic regression to discern associations between individuals socialised during these contexts and subsequent participation in elections and protest. The results suggest that experiencing critical elections of high competitiveness and high importance during the impressionable years is associated with higher subsequent turnout propensity and lower protest behaviour. Meanwhile, mobilisations at the fall of Communism are associated with higher turnout, although contemporary mobilisations seem not to be.