Transactional and Participatory Activism in the Emerging European Polity

Abstract

In this article, the authors examine the potential for concerted collective action in the societies that emerged from state socialism in East-Central Europe after 1989. Although scholars have found strong individual-level evidence that protest potential is weaker here than in other parts of the world, the authors question whether individual-level data adequately tap all the dimensions of activism that are relevant to contentious politics. They propose a differentiated model of civil society consisting of (a) internal potential for citizen action and (b) relational aspects of social activism and argue that some forms of the latter-and in particularly, what they call "transactional activism"-are more robust than what evidence at the individual level suggests. They also examine some local and transnational-level data from the region and speculate about the capacities for collective action they find there and their potential for contributing to the construction of a transnational Europe.

Determinants of civil society influence: The case of international development and humanitarian NGOs in the Czech Republic and Hungary

“…In addition, CSOs have become more professional in dealing with the state (Petrova and Tarrow, 2007). Despite the new opportunities offered by EU accession, there seems to be an emerging consensus in the literature that its legacy has not been fully positive (Fagan, 2005;Börzel andBuzogány, 2010, Batory andCartwright, 2011).…”

Changing movements, evolving parties: the party-oriented structure of the Hungarian radical right and alternative movement

“…As a consequence professional advocacy groups and think tanks and not political parties or loosely organized social movement organizations turned out to be the major actors. The environmental groups of the '90s are the bearers of the so-called transactional activism (Petrova and Tarrow, 2007 The real change for the green, or in a broader sense for the radical left-libertarian movement, came with the new millennium. The protests in Seattle, Genoa, and Prague against the international economic regimes and neoliberal globalization made the global justice movement visible to the global public.…”

‘You can’t have one without the other’: the differential impact of civil society strength on the implementation of EU policy

“…Many studies have reported low levels of societal engagement in the post-communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) (Howard 2003). Conversely, other scholars have argued that low levels of civic participation are compensated by activism aimed at connecting with political actors (Foa and Ekiert 2017;Petrova and Tarrow 2006).…”