Power and Protest in Central and Eastern Europe

This chapter studies the democratic transition in Albania, examining the development of this country’s protest culture and its impact on formal institutions and processes. Initially, I will present an overview of Albanian contentious and institutionalised politics, social cleavages, and civic mobilisations. Subsequently, I describe the pivotal protest events, including protests, rallies, and boycotts, alongside the socio-political background that triggered them. Through the analysis, I emphasise the uneasy relationship between institutionalised power actors and activist groups, whose interests intersected yet also diverged.

This chapter examines the interplay between civil resistance and state repression in Belarus, one of the most repressive political regimes in contemporary Europe. Despite systematic violations of political rights and civil liberties under Aliaksandr Lukashenka’s rule, opposition political parties, civic organisations, labour unions, and youth movements deployed nonviolent methods of resistance to challenge the status quo. Focusing on several cases of mass mobilisation between 2006 and 2022, the chapter demonstrates how regime opponents wrestled with such issues as the quality of elections, historical memory, environmental protection, and anti-war activism. The level of civil resistance reached enormous proportions in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election and excessive police violence against participants in peaceful post-election protests. Another escalation in state repression transpired during Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. This study identifies several political, socioeconomic, and cultural factors that shaped contentious politics in the country. The chapter makes an empirical contribution to contentious politics literature by tracing the contestation of dominant power relations in a repressive political regime.

This chapter contributes to the broader literature on political change in East-Central European democracies by tracing the main mechanisms through which protests and movements transform electoral and party politics. Our analysis has shown that in today’s democracy, protest cycles and protest movements have a significant impact on political developments. The recent mass protest waves and seven consecutive parliamentary elections in Bulgaria provide ample empirical material. The findings show that protest waves and movements can increase electoral instability by leading to a sharp decrease in public trust in the national governments and parliaments, or in extreme cases, to the overthrow of the cabinet. By provoking electoral instability and declining trust in traditional parties, protest mobilisations open political opportunities for new political parties, such as protest parties and movement parties. Protests can provoke new and resurrect old political cleavages. To situate the recent developments within a broader context, we start with a historical overview of the Bulgarian party system dynamics and the building of capitalism since the beginning of the transformation. Then, we continue with mapping the tradition of protest mobilisations after the fall of communism. Next, the chapter describes the new protest waves and movements in the period since 2008. Finally, we explore the six mechanisms through which protests and movements induce change in the party system.

The Czech Republic has been known for low levels of people’s political participation and weak civil society. During the 20 years after the 1989 democratic revolution, social movements mostly faced closed political opportunities: self-contained, corrupt and non-accountable politics, and strong anti-protest discourse. Combined with the tradition of civic ethos framing that pictures protest as a tool “above politics”, the movements were not able to face the adversarial environment. The single-dimensional constellation of mainstream politics around economic issues pacified the potential for economic protest and left room only for new social movement issues. As a result, a strong stream of transactional new social movements developed in the country. After 2010, Czech politics went through turbulent times: first the right-wing government opened the possibility to mobilise around the alleged economic crisis and later a large restructuring of the mainstream political landscape took place bringing a populist Movement ANO to power. In response to these events, the country experienced unexpected mass protests “Stop the Government” (2012) and the movement “Million Moments for the Sake of Democracy” (2017–2020). Though protest in general remains rather an exceptional tool used in times of crises, these mobilisations show that post-communist countries can mobilise in large numbers when the conditions are right.

The present chapter discusses the rise of informal governance and its impact on governmental decisions in Georgia within the last decade. It shows how the ruling party is controlled by an oligarch occasionally reemerging on the political front stage or retreating to the political backstage. The oligarch’s influence on the government’s strategic decisions is exemplified based on large-scale environmental projects as well as choices related to the country’s foreign policy course. It is these backstage decisions and their harmful effect on the country’s democratic development that are resisted by the civil society and citizens in Georgia, the most recent case of which is represented by public protest against the so-called Foreign Agents law. The paper follows the developments that affect a shift from policy-oriented activism to the political one and shows how the state reacts to various occasions of public protest, as well as how civic activists and citizens resist the authorities’ attempts to challenge their actions.

In this chapter, we discuss the interaction between the changing political context, protest issues, and the strength of organisational fields in Hungarian civil society. Protests, social movements, and participation in civil society are strictly connected to the social integration functions of civil society. We argue that through the changing organisational landscape, the transforming political context influences the forms of political participation and interest representation, along with issues of contention, which leads to the transformation of social integration roles of civil society. In particular, we focus on processes after the authoritarian turn in 2010, and on the hostile environment for CSOs and civil society in general. We have classified protest movements into four major categories: democracy, education, mobilisations focused on labour and pro-governmental activities, presenting an especially detailed analysis of mobilisations related to education. We examine the changes in organised civil society using data from the Central Statistical Office (KSH) between 2003 and 2020, and by reviewing the existing literature and public records of main protest events. Based on these, we contend that the changes in the political context after 2010 led to structural changes within organised civil society and social movements.

This chapter looks at several larger protests between 2014 marked with the offspring of the student protests and the mobilisation against the so-called French Proposal in 2022, i.e. the country’s framework for starting negotiations with the European Union. Following a theoretical approach mostly based on Political Opportunity Structure (POS), this work looks into the complex relations between social movements, political parties and state institutions, and how social movement outcomes in Macedonia are largely dependent on this entangled relationship. Combining social movement literature (Bieber, 2018; della Porta & Diani in Social movements: An introduction. Wiley, 2020; Tilly and Tarrow in Contentious politics, 2015, etc.) with works on (de)democratisation (Huntington in Journal of Democracy 2:12, 1991; Levitsky and Way in Journal of Democracy 13:51–65, 2002; Zakaria in Foreign Affairs 76:22–43, 1997, etc.), this work analyses the oscillation of democratic processes and the plead for a better society for all. At the core of this analysis lay the interactions between contentious actors and their friends and foes. The central part of this work provides a holistic presentation of the key actors and events from several protest waves between 2014 and 2022, looking at critical junctures which triggered and/or shaped the outcomes of these mobilisations. All crucial actors, relationships, main grievances, developments and outcomes will be traced, analysed in detail and analytically explained. The common denominator of all analysed mobilisations is their anti-governmental character, amid their profound ideological differences.

This chapter provides an overview of the socio-political transformations in Poland from the fall of communism in 1989 to the present, with a special focus on key protest movements and their impact. It begins with the pivotal role of the Solidarity movement in the collapse of the communist regime and its emergence as a political actor, setting the stage for Poland’s early systemic transformation. While the economic reforms and hardships of the early 1990s sparked widespread protest mobilisations, primarily led by trade unions, economic stabilisation brought a change in protest patterns, with a shift towards identity politics and right-wing mobilisations from the late 1990s onwards. Increasing polarisation between two political parties—PO and PiS—has reinforced this trend. Focusing on protests over the past 15 years, key case studies include the Independence March, which became a major far-right mobilisation event; the Smoleńsk commemorations, which highlighted deep societal divisions and were co-opted by PiS; and the All-Poland Women’s Strike, a significant grassroots movement challenging restrictive abortion laws. Analysed through the lens of political opportunity structures, these case studies illustrate how varying degrees of political openness, elite alignments, and state repression have shaped protest dynamics in Poland and how these movements have impacted the political landscape.

The chapter explores the complex dynamics between protest and politics in post-2010 Romania and the relationship between the evolution of civil society and the transformations at the political level. Following the chronology of protest events, the chapter’s main goal is to examine the outcomes of political contestation, social movements, and political participation along two dimensions—intended/unintended and immediate/gradual outcomes. It uses a mixed-theoretical framework, integrating the political opportunity structures approach and social movement impact theory to study five of the most significant protest movements from 2011 until 2018. It seeks to make a contribution to the underdeveloped literature on the outcomes of protest movements in Central and Eastern Europe by focusing on the Romanian case. The chapter reveals that the outcomes of the five waves of demonstrations can be included in four categories—immediate-intended outcomes, gradual-intended outcomes, immediate-unintended outcomes, and gradual-unintended outcomes—which shape the intricate relationship between participants’ claims and their impacts on social and political levels.

Russia is an exemplary case of strengthening authoritarianism with increasing repression of civil society and restrictions of political freedoms. Drawing on social movement theories, the chapter will examine how the changing political environment and availability of resources have affected protest dynamics in Russia. The chapter will focus on political street protests that oppose the regime and demand democratic changes. The chapter intends to show that, despite Putin’s intentions to stifle citizen activism, there is still a mobilising potential among the Russians, which can be utilised in case of the opening of political opportunity structures and available resources to do so.

This chapter examines two major contentious episodes in post-transition Ukraine: the 2004 Orange Revolution and the 2013–2014 Euromaidan/Revolution of Dignity. I illustrate the interplay between power structures and protest dynamics by focusing on increased salience and transformation of a geopolitical orientation cleavage. Using a toolkit developed by the fields conceptual framework, I show how collective incumbents, challengers, and governance units interacted to alter the power balance within the broader Ukrainian political field. Following the fields approach, the analysis accounts for various collective actors, including activist initiatives and NGOs, counter-protesters, financial-industrial groups, law enforcement agencies, local self-governments, and courts. Among these, political parties deserve special attention, as they added street protests to their usual repertoire early on in Ukraine’s history and often assumed an identity of contentious actors since. This analysis also accounts for the role played by actors in proximate fields in influencing domestic contention. I underline the impact of exogenous shocks on the dynamics of domestic politics by outlining post-Euromaidan political developments, the emergence of a powerful volunteer movement and civic resistance, as Ukraine was hit by the 2014 Russian aggression, which escalated into a full-scale invasion in 2022.

This concluding chapter provides an in-depth analysis of the role of social movements in and after the democratisation processes of Central and Eastern Europe. It highlights how traditional social movement theories, primarily developed in Western contexts, can be adapted to understand the dynamics in these regions. It highlights the contribution of the individual chapters to theoretical discussions on political process theory and resource mobilisation frameworks, on the impact of political opportunities on the repertoire of actions, collective framing, and organisational structures of social movements. The chapter discusses the effects of hybrid regimes and democratic backsliding on contentious politics, emphasising the persistent low quality of democracy and the role of pro-regime counter-mobilisations. It highlights the historical and socio-economic challenges faced during the transitions to democracy, such as market reforms and neoliberal policies, which have often sparked protests. The chapter insists on the importance of civil society and grassroots mobilisations in resisting democratic backsliding and promoting inclusive democratic participation. Della Porta concludes that despite varying degrees of democratic quality, social movements remain pivotal in advocating for accountability, democracy, and social justice across the region, demonstrating the resilience of civic activism even in the face of increasing authoritarianism.

Since the end of the Cold War, political and social trajectories of new nominal democracies, including some new states, have played out very differently. Here, reviewing the other chapters, we argue that the diverse case histories can be helpfully explained with reference to political opportunity theory, and that the collection as a whole offers help in sharpening existing theory on social movements. Particularly, we urge attention to state capacity and international institutions as important variables that shape contentious politics.

The chapter examines the declining momentum of liberal civil society in Central and Eastern Europe, a region historically marked by protest and political upheaval. Following the fall of communism, civil society played a crucial role in the emergence of new democratic regimes. However, two decades after the region transitions to democracy, civil society faces increasing challenges, including political repression, ideological shifts towards illiberalism, and the erosion of democratic values. The analysis highlights the historical continuity between pre-communism, communism, and post-communism, showing how past authoritarian structures influence current political dynamics. The definition and the rise of illiberalism, notably in Hungary, is linked to a broader geopolitical reconfiguration and a growing disconnect from Western liberal norms pursued by states such as Russia, engaged in full-aggressive attempts to regain its former imperial control and influence. This drift towards authoritarianism is supported by populist movements and uncivil segments’ manipulation of civil society, leading to a weakened public sphere and diminished democratic engagement. The chapter underscores the importance of understanding these historical and geopolitical factors to grasp the complexities of civil society's current challenges in the region.

Since the end of the Cold War, political and social trajectories of new nominal democracies, including some new states, have played out very differently. Here, reviewing the other chapters, I note contingencies in historical development since. I argue that the diverse case histories can be helpfully explained with reference to political opportunity theory, and that the collection as a whole offers help in sharpening existing theory on social movements. Particularly, I urge attention to state capacity and international institutions as important variables that shape contentious politics.