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Attitudes toward the Market and Political Participation in the Postcommunist States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

David S. Mason
David S. Mason*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Butler University
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Extract

In the aftermath of the anti-communist revolutions of 1989-1991, the new governments in eastern Europe faced the herculean task of attempting simultaneously to build market economies and democratic political institutions. Though capitalism and democracy are often considered to be natural allies, in the cases of these new states they sometimes pull against each other. The costs of the economic transition, in terms of growing unemployment, inequality and inflation, may erode support for the new governments and lead to calls for a "strong" government or leadership to cope with economic dislocations.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 54 , Issue 2 , Summer 1995 , pp. 385 - 406
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1995

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References

This study is part of the International Social Justice Project (ISJP), a collaborative international survey research effort, which was supported in whole or in part by each of the following organizations: the National Council for Soviet and East European Research; the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX); the National Science Foundation; the Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan; OTKA (National Scientific Research Fund; Hungary); the Economic and Social Research Council (UK); the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Germany); Institute of Social Science, Chuo University (Japan); the Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs; the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences; the Grant Agency of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences; Saar Poll, Limited (Estonia); the Ministry of Science and Technology of the Republic of Slovenia; the State Committee for Scientific Research (Komitet Badari Naukowych, Poland); and the Russian Federation Ministry of Labor.

1. Dahl, Robert A., Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971), 2–3.Google Scholar

2. Barnes, Samuel H., Kaase, Max et al., Political Action: Mass Participation in Five Western Democracies (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1979 Google Scholar; Verba, Sidney, Nie, Norman H. and Kim, Jaeon, Participation and Political Equality: A Seven-Nation Comparison (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 1–2.Google Scholar

3. For example, Grey, Robert D., Jennish, Lauri A. and Tyler, A.S., “Soviet Public Opinion and the Gorbachev Reforms,” Slavic Review 49, no. 2 (Summer 1990): 261–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mason, David and Sydorenko, Svetlana, “Perestroyka, Social Justice, and Soviet Public Opinion,” Problems of Communism 39, no. 6 (November-December 1990): 34–43 Google Scholar; Shiller, Robert J., Boycko, Maxim and Korobov, Vladimir, “Popular Attitudes Toward Free Markets: the Soviet Union and the United States Compared,” American Economic Review 81 (1991): 385–400 Google Scholar; Finifter, Ada and Mickiewicz, Ellen, “Redefining the Political System of the USSR: Mass Support for Political Change,” American Political Science Review 86 (December 1992): 857–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nelson, Lynn D., Babaeva, Lilia V. and Babaev, Rufat O., “Perspectives on Entrepreneurship and Privatization in Russia: Policy and Public Opinion,” Slavic Review 51 (Summer 1992): 271–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gibson, James L., Duch, Raymond M. and Tedin, Kent L., “Democratic Values and the Transformation of the Soviet Union,” The Journal of Politics 54, no. 2 (May 1992): 329–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rose, Richard and Haerpfer, Christian, “Adapting to Transformation in Eastern Europe: New Democracies Barometer— II,” Studies in Public Policy, no. 212 (University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 1993)Google Scholar; Rose, Richard and Mishler, William T.E., “Reacting to Regime Change in Eastern Europe: Polarization or Leaders and Laggards,” Studies in Public Policy, no. 210 (University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 1993)Google Scholar; Mcintosh, Mary E., Maclver, Martha Abele, Abele, Daniel G. and Smeltz, Dina, “Publics Meet Market Democracy in Central and East Europe, 1991–1993,” Slavic Review 53 (Summer 1994): 483–512.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. For some exceptions, see Shiller, Boycko and Korobov; James L. Gibson, “Political and Economic Markets: Connecting Attitudes toward Political Democracy and a Market Economy within the Mass Culture of the USSR,” paper presented at the 1993 Annual Convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Honolulu; Arthur H. Miller, Vicki L. Hesli and William M. Reisinger, “Comparing Citizen and Elite Attitudes towards a Market Economy in Russia, Ukraine and Lithuania,” paper presented at the 1993 annual convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Honolulu.

5. As Estonia joined the project late, the survey was fielded there in spring 1992.

6. In this project, national teams in each of the twelve countries were responsible for obtaining a probability sample of the adult population, the cross-validation of the measuring instrument and the implementation of a national survey with a target sample of 1500 respondents in each country. More detailed information can be found in Duane Alwin, David Klingel and Merilynn Dielman, International Social Justice Project: Documentation and Codebook (Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, 1993).

7. See, for example, Bergson, Abram, Planning and Performance in Socialist Economies: The USSR and Eastern Europe (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989.Google Scholar

8. For data on Poland, see Mason, David S., Public Opinion and Political Change in Poland (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 62–66.Google Scholar

9. In another survey in which people in Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia were asked what sort of society they would like their country to emulate, the majority named Germany or Sweden. The US ranked third, with an average of 18% ( Rose, Richard, “Toward a Civil Economy,” Journal of Democracy 3, no. 2 [April 1992]: 16 CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

10. The variables in this index are listed in figure 2. The index was created by averaging the z scores of these six variables (since some of them used 5-point scales and some of them 4-point) and then subtracting that number from 1 in order to make high numbers indicate positive support for socialist principles. The items on this scale were entered into a principle components factor analysis and all items were found to load on only one factor, providing evidence of a unidimensional scale. Using the SPSS “reliability” procedure, the items in the index produced a reliability coefficient (Cronbach's Alpha) of .63. It should be noted that this “socialist principles” index does not include variables tapping support for state ownership of property or industry, an important component of socialism. While such questions were originally included in pretest versions of our questionnaire and were asked in some of our countries, they were excluded from the common core of questions in the cross-national survey. Thus, this index taps sentiment toward important elements of socialism but does not include all dimensions of that concept.

11. These differences are significant at the .01 level (Scheffe criterion) for most pairs of capitalist/postcommunist states. See the note to figure 1.

12. Similarly, James Gibson reports from a 1992 survey in the former Soviet Union that “the sort of market supported by most Soviet people is a far more benign and controlled market than is often thought of in the West (especially in the United States)” ( “Political and Economic Markets: Connecting Attitudes toward Political Democracy and a Market Economy Within the Mass Culture of the USSR,” paper presented at the 1993 annual convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Honolulu, 40).

13. In his 1992 survey in the former Soviet Union, Gibson also found stronger support for a democratic culture than for a market-based economic one ( “Political And Economic Markets “). For evidence of support for democratic principles, see also Finifter and Mickiewicz; and Rose and Haerpfer.

14. Barnes, Samuel H., Kaase, Max, et al., Political Action: Mass Participation in Five Western Democracies (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1979 Google Scholar. See the note to table 5 for the question wording and the ten forms of protest.

15. The Political Action study found similarly low levels of political inactivity in five western countries (Barnes and Kaase, 550).

16. Erikson, Robert, Luttbeg, Norman and Tedin, Kent L., American Public Opinion: Its Origins, Content and Impact, 4th ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1991), 8–9.Google Scholar

17. In “Society Transformed? Rethinking the Social Roots of Perestroika,” Donna Bahry has shown that in the Brezhnev-era Soviet Union, “People with higher status and more material benefits ranked among the most discontented,” Slavic Review 52 (Fall 1993): 517.

18. Sidney Verba, Norman H. Nie andjae-on Kim, Participation and Political Equality: A Seven Nation Comparison (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 5; and, for example, Verba, Sidney, Schlozman, Kay Lehman, Brady, Henry and Nie, Norman H., “Citizen Activity: Who Participates? What Do They Say?” American Political Science Review 87, no. 2 (June 1993): 303–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19. Verba, Schlozman, Brady and Nie, 314.

20. The same relationship holds for the direct question on support for socialism, “based on your experience in [country name] of socialism.” The percentage of those somewhat or totally against socialism rises from 39% of those with no political activity to 51% of those with minimal activity to 62% of those reporting substantial activity (4 or more types of political action).

21. While the present study compares the values of the politically active with the politically inactive, Arthur Miller and his colleagues compared the values of political elites with those of the general population (in Russia, Ukraine and Lithuania) and found marked differences in the levels of support for the market between the two groups ( “Comparing Citizen and Elite Attitudes “).

22. Chi square (2 degrees of freedom) = 23.8; p < .001.

23. Those identified as “high” on the socialist principles index were those in the top third of that index and those “low” were in the bottom third. Some postcommunist states had a significantly higher cleavage on this dimension than others. As indicated in the text, in the pooled sample of postcommunist states, the difference in voting behavior between those high and low on the index was 5.6 percentage points (86.1%-80.5%). The individual country differences were as follows: Hungary, 6.9%; Poland, 6.2%; eastern Germany, 4.3%; Russia, 0.5%; Czechoslovakia, 0.2%. The countries with the higher figures are likely to experience more political divisions and instability.

24. A national representative sample survey of 2000 households conducted in May and June 1992 as part of the Polish General Social Survey of 1992 (Bogdan Cichomski, Director and Principle Investigator) (Polish General Social Survey, 1992: Codebook [Warsaw: Institute for Social Studies, University of Warsaw, 1992]).

25. Kent Jennings, M., “Thinking about Social Injustice,” Political Psychology 12, no. 2 (1991): 199.Google Scholar

26. An analysis of the Hungarian ISJP data finds Hungarians caught between the old “solidarity values” and the new “productivity ones” (György Csepeli, Tamás Kolosi, Mária Neményi and Antal Örkény, “Our Futureless Values: The Forms of Justice and Injustice Perception in Hungary in 1991,” Social Research 60, no. 4 [Winter 1993]: 892).

27. Polish General Social Surveys, 1992–1993: Cumulative Codebook (Warsaw: Institute for Social Studies, University of Warsaw, 1993).

28. There is a similar pattern in Hungary, with the 1992 ISSP survey showing three quarters of the population still agreeing with this proposition, but a much smaller percentage (50%, compared to 80% in 1991) strongly agreeing.

29. Rose, Richard, “Toward a Civil Economy,” Journal of Democracy 3 no. 2 (April 1992): 13–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30. “SLD zyskal˜ u wszystkich,” Rzeczpospolita, 21 September 1993.