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Electoral participation and satisfaction with democracy in Central and Eastern Europe
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2049-8470; 2049-8489
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Political science research and methods, 2025, OnlineFirst
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KOSTELKA, Filip, LINEK, Lukáš, ROVNY, Jan, ŠKVRŇÁK, Michael, Electoral participation and satisfaction with democracy in Central and Eastern Europe, Political science research and methods, 2025, OnlineFirst - https://hdl.handle.net/1814/92878
Abstract
Does democratic satisfaction drive voter turnout, or does voting increase satisfaction with democracy?This paper explores the satisfaction-participation nexus in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), where democratic dissatisfaction is prominent. It tests preregistered hypotheses using a five-wave panel survey from the Czech 2023 presidential election and a pooled dataset from five CEE countries. Unlike previous studies from Western Europe, it finds evidence for both mechanisms: pre-election satisfaction correlates with participation, but, simultaneously, voters experience a stronger election-related increase in satisfaction than abstainers. Further analyses reveal that the strong increases in satisfaction are driven by election winners and begin already during the election campaign. Our findings highlight the specificities of the satisfaction-participation link and elections’ legitimizing effects in newer democracies.
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Published online: 26 June 2025
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This article was published Open Access with the support from the EUI Library through the CRUI - CUP Transformative Agreement (2023-2025)