{"title":"Between Loyalty and Opposition","authors":"Oleksiy Bondarenko","doi":"10.1525/cpcs.2023.1996780","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1525/cpcs.2023.1996780","url":null,"abstract":"This article analyzes intra-party dynamics and the transformation of the role of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) within the Russian political system. Although the party is considered to be a member of the so-called “loyal” opposition, the increasing volatility of the party system and growing political instability have implications for future relations between the KPRF and the regime. The article argues that despite the organizational strength and demonstrated loyalty to the regime, the party is currently affected by the problem of “dual commitment,” epitomized by a growing center-regions cleavage and ideological incoherence. These two vectors of internal divide are shaped by the context emerging from different intra-system trends and by demographic trends affecting the interaction between the leadership and the rank-and-file of the KPRF. While in the wake of some surprising results from the 2021 legislative elections, the party still seems committed to demonstrating loyalty to the regime; in the long run, the growing intra-party cleavage is likely to affect the role of the KPRF within the party system, opening a new window of opportunity for opposition politics in Russian regions.","PeriodicalId":51623,"journal":{"name":"Communist and Post-Communist Studies","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134890131","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“Standby Youth”?","authors":"Maja Savić-Bojanić","doi":"10.1525/cpcs.2023.1976481","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1525/cpcs.2023.1976481","url":null,"abstract":"Approaches explaining the dynamics of informal youth participation during crisis typically examine youngsters’ political activity in light of the general understanding of political participation. In this article, I argue that such an approach falls short of understanding the motivations behind youth engagement during a crisis. Therefore, this qualitative study aims to investigate the motivations that triggered youth engagement in COVID-19–related protests and how they developed in response to government actions. It does so through 20 semi-structured interviews conducted across Bosnia and Herzegovina in the first six months of 2021 with 20 youth who had either no previous political participation experience or only voting engagement. The primary focus is on examining the motivations for two informal political activities—expression of opinion and protest. The findings reveal that the action-reaction patterns were not independent occurrences but evolved through three different stages each of which depended on distinctive motivations.","PeriodicalId":51623,"journal":{"name":"Communist and Post-Communist Studies","volume":"129 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135844619","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Targets and Resources","authors":"Petar Bankov","doi":"10.1525/cpcs.2023.1991328","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1525/cpcs.2023.1991328","url":null,"abstract":"Political parties in Central and Eastern Europe have become increasingly reliant on online tools to mobilize electoral support, a trend that seemed to have been further catalyzed by the COVID-19 pandemic. This article seeks to understand what factors determine the approaches parties took toward their online campaign. By looking into the online approaches of eight parliamentary-represented political parties in Bulgaria from the three parliamentary elections in 2021, the analysis shows that the type of online campaigns of parties depends, to a large extent, on the way parties use their resources, as well as their target audience. The basis for this conclusion is a qualitative analysis of media reports from the campaigns of the three elections. This finding suggests the need for a closer investigation on the interplay between party organization, use of online tools, and campaign appeals.","PeriodicalId":51623,"journal":{"name":"Communist and Post-Communist Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66886402","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Lukashenka’s Constitutional Plebiscite and the Polarization of Belarusian Society","authors":"Fabian Burkhardt, Jan Matti Dollbaum","doi":"10.1525/cpcs.2023.1990500","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1525/cpcs.2023.1990500","url":null,"abstract":"Aliaksandr Lukashenka pushed through an overhaul of Belarus’s constitution as a response to the protests against the official results of the 2020 presidential election. The goal was to address the desire for change among the population without reacting to the demand for snap elections. With the February 2022 constitutional plebiscite on the most far-ranging changes to Belarus’s constitution since 1994, Lukashenka further entrenched himself in power. The results of our online survey suggest that the constitutional changes do not meet the broad societal demand for political change and, in particular, for constraints on presidential power. Despite the persistence of the political conflict, we also show that Lukashenka’s supporters and opponents are not irreconcilably polarized in every policy domain. Finally, our results suggest that regime supporters have stronger anti-democratic preferences than opposition supporters when it comes to future political participation of the two camps, making the effects of affective polarization highly asymmetrical.","PeriodicalId":51623,"journal":{"name":"Communist and Post-Communist Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66885940","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Effects of COVID-19 Pandemic Perceptions on Voter Turnout in the Czech Republic","authors":"Petr Voda, Petra Vodová","doi":"10.1525/cpcs.2023.1986333","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1525/cpcs.2023.1986333","url":null,"abstract":"This article answers the question how the COVID-19 pandemic influenced voter turnout on the individual level in the Czech 2020 regional election. Several hypotheses connected to perceived danger caused by the pandemic on a voter’s decision to vote or not are tested. It is expected that perceived danger of the pandemic deters people from attending an election, and that such a constraint would be higher for those who know many infected people than for those who do not, for elderly people more than for younger people, and for women more than for men. The test of our hypotheses was executed by quasibinomial logistic regression with data on 866 respondents from a post-electoral survey. The direct effect of the perceived danger and effect of interaction between age and perceived danger was not found. The effect of perceived danger works for women but not for men. Finally, there is no effect of the perception of the danger of a pandemic when people do not know any infected people, but there is a strong negative impact in the case when they know a lot of them.","PeriodicalId":51623,"journal":{"name":"Communist and Post-Communist Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66885836","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Elections, Succession, and Legitimacy in Ukraine","authors":"Paul D’Anieri","doi":"10.1525/cpcs.2023.2001608","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1525/cpcs.2023.2001608","url":null,"abstract":"Of Ukraine’s six presidential transitions, only those in 2010 and 2019 proceeded entirely as envisioned in the constitution. In several cases, elections and transitions resulted from ad hoc arrangements made to address political crises. In one case, street protests forced the rerunning of elections seen as rigged, and in another street protests led to the departure of a president whose election had been seen as free and fair. In some cases, procedures that were entirely improvised were widely seen as legitimate, while in other cases established formal procedures were insufficient to legitimize a leader’s rule. This raises the question of how elections and legitimacy interact. Under what conditions are elections sufficient to legitimate rule, and in what cases are they insufficient? Under what circumstances do non-legal means of changing rulers gain popular legitimacy? By reviewing Ukraine’s seven presidential elections and six transitions of power, this article explores variation in the power of elections as a legitimating force.","PeriodicalId":51623,"journal":{"name":"Communist and Post-Communist Studies","volume":"114 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135102392","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Introduction to the Special Issue on Authoritarian Resilience of Communist Regimes in Asia","authors":"T. Vu","doi":"10.1525/cpcs.2022.1697966","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1525/cpcs.2022.1697966","url":null,"abstract":"This special issue focuses on the resilience of the communist regimes in Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and China. Three decades after the collapse of the Soviet Bloc, all four not only survived a hostile post-communist world dominated by liberal capitalism but have thrived economically. The five articles in this special issue hope to build on existing scholarship on authoritarian resilience while contributing in the following ways. First, by adopting a regional framework, we hope to offer a fuller examination of varieties in communist Asia. After all, this is the only world region with such a large concentration of surviving communist parties. Second, while highlighting the critical role of revolutionary origins, our approach corrects the tendency in scholarship on democratic transition that neglects the totalitarian legacies. Third, the articles support the institutionalist approach by showing how ruling parties in authoritarian regimes are critical; yet we also seek to balance between historical legacies and contemporary developments and to analyze the interactions among ideologies, organizations, and resources.","PeriodicalId":51623,"journal":{"name":"Communist and Post-Communist Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47771755","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Lilian Kolbila, Charles Ampong Adjei, Josephine M Kyei, Charles Agyemang-Prempeh, Peter Kwabena Fosu
{"title":"Perceived Supportive Care Needs of Adolescents With Chronic Hepatitis B in a Resource-limited Setting.","authors":"Lilian Kolbila, Charles Ampong Adjei, Josephine M Kyei, Charles Agyemang-Prempeh, Peter Kwabena Fosu","doi":"10.1177/23743735221106596","DOIUrl":"10.1177/23743735221106596","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In Ghana, adolescents are disproportionately affected by hepatitis B. However, studies into adolescents' supportive care needs are lacking. The purpose of this exploratory qualitative study was to explore the supportive care needs of 18 adolescents with chronic hepatitis B who were receiving care at a tertiary hospital in Ghana. The data were processed using QSR Nvivo version 11.0 and analyzed using the Braun and Clarke procedure for thematic data analysis. According to the findings, adolescents with chronic hepatitis B have unmet supportive care needs ranging from information to financial need, psychological support, and social support. Explicitly, participants reportedly had a dilemma as to whether to keep or terminate their pregnancy to prevent transmission of the virus to their newborns. Physicians and nurses were perceived to be preoccupied with medication prescription and laboratory request writing rather than giving pretest and posttest counseling following diagnosis. This study highlights the need to have a tailor-made liver care for adolescents. Pretest and posttest counseling for adolescents with hepatitis B are also required.</p>","PeriodicalId":51623,"journal":{"name":"Communist and Post-Communist Studies","volume":"53 1","pages":"23743735221106596"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9185008/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80482373","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Songs for Ordinary People","authors":"Ondřej Daniel","doi":"10.1525/j.postcomstud.2022.55.2.84","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1525/j.postcomstud.2022.55.2.84","url":null,"abstract":"This article aims to illuminate the links between culture and class in the post-socialist years in the Czech Republic. To this end, it considers the reception of two music acts—the country folk duo Bratři Nedvědi in the 1990s and the “nationalist rock” band Ortel in the 2010s—and discusses the labeling of their fans based on their social class profiles. My analysis draws on mainstream Czech media coverage of these acts, materials reflecting fans’ perspectives, and broader scholarly debates about the links between music consumption and social class. One similarity between these bands lay in their decision to forsake their original subcultural fans for a more mainstream audience. A second commonality relates to the dismissal of their mainstream fans by cultural elites, who saw them as backward and out of step with the norms of liberal democracy and Western capitalism. These critics often described these types of Czech music as lowbrow and regressive. Meanwhile, the two bands continued to insist that they were making songs for “ordinary people” rather than elites: their fan bases, while not homogenous, remained largely working class. This study considers key intersections between class, age, ethnicity, and gender in Czech post-socialist society. I argue that certain kinds of local musical taste reflect class differences, which are further shaped by age, gender, and political orientation.","PeriodicalId":51623,"journal":{"name":"Communist and Post-Communist Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46582874","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Social Class and Ethnocentric Worldviews","authors":"Tamara P. Trošt, D. Marinšek","doi":"10.1525/j.postcomstud.2022.55.2.39","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1525/j.postcomstud.2022.55.2.39","url":null,"abstract":"The link between socioeconomic status (SES) and ethnocentric worldviews is well established in the literature, with countless studies showing the effect of SES on a variety of attitudes, preferences, lifestyles, and behaviors. This literature has been revisited in recent studies on the resurgence of the Far Right, with claims of the rise of “working-class populism,” according to which the working class is more likely to identify with right-wing and populist claims. In the post-Yugoslav context, along with the turbulent socioeconomic and political transformation from socialism, research has also shown that “everyday” people’s understandings of themselves and of others are very much stratified by education, occupational status, urban/rural residence, and region, pointing to a marked effect of SES on civic/ethnic identification, attachment to Europe, ethnic exclusivism, and gender/sexual conservatism. Yet, the nature of the link between socioeconomic status and nationalist attitudes is still insufficiently understood. In this article, we go beyond the traditional focus on cultural explanations, instead relying on cross-sectional quantitative survey data to shed light on important class differences in worldviews of people living in Croatia and Serbia. We find that education remains the most robust predictor of nationalist attitudes, while age, gender, income, and religiosity matter to various degrees. We conclude with a discussion on the continuing importance of SES in understanding ethnocentric worldviews, from Brexit and Trump to the former Yugoslavia.","PeriodicalId":51623,"journal":{"name":"Communist and Post-Communist Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49354286","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}