Course synthesis and exam preparation
The Social Psychology of Democracies in Transition
Overview of the lecture
This final session synthesises the material covered across the fifteen weeks of the course and provides the structured basis for exam preparation. The handout does not add new empirical content; it re-organises what has already been covered so that the course’s single sustained argument is visible, and it identifies the concepts, studies, and cases that you should be able to deploy under exam conditions. The first section lays out the signature claim of the course and maps the fourteen lectures onto it. The second section summarises the core social-psychological theories that have reappeared across the course, showing how each can be used on both the pro-social and anti-social sides of the dual-nature argument. The third section provides a compact reference for the key empirical anchors (studies, surveys, cases) that you should be able to describe and apply. The fourth section addresses the exam itself — format, scope, and worked examples that illustrate how the concepts fit together. The handout closes with some reflections on what the course was really about and what it hopes to have left you with.
Part 1: the course arc
The signature claim
The course has been organised around a single sustained claim. The claim is that the same social-psychological mechanisms produce both pro-democratic and anti-democratic political outcomes in Central and Eastern Europe. What differs is not the underlying psychology but the framing, the targets, and the institutional channels through which the psychology is expressed. CEE is not a region with a unique psychology that predestines it to either triumph or decline; it is a region in which a compressed natural experiment has made visible the channelling process by which shared psychological mechanisms produce divergent political outcomes. This claim should be your default framework for interpreting any specific CEE case: when you encounter a political outcome in the region, ask what mechanisms are active, what the moderators are, how the outcome is framed, and what counterfactuals the framework suggests.
The fourteen lectures
The fourteen lectures divide into two halves. The first half (Lectures 1–7) establishes the historical, institutional, and psychological foundations of the transition: what communism left behind, how transition unfolded, what frameworks travel to CEE, how the self is reconstructed under rapidly changing institutional conditions, and what beliefs and attitudes CEE populations hold. The second half (Lectures 8–14) applies the framework to specific domains: anti-social behaviour (anomie, aggression), pro-social behaviour (helping, altruism, the 2022 Ukrainian response), groups and their dynamics, prejudice and its reduction, cultural exchange through migration, and the psychological prerequisites of democracy itself.
| # | Subtitle | Signature question |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction | What does it mean to study democracies in transition psychologically? |
| 2 | Transition to (and from?) democracy | How did 1989 reshape CEE, and what is happening now? |
| 3 | Legacies of communism | What did 45 years of communism leave behind, psychologically? |
| 4 | Theories and communist legacies | Which social-psychological frameworks travel to CEE? |
| 5 | The self under / after communism | How did transition reshape individual identity? |
| 6 | Attitudes, values, orientations | What do CEE populations believe? |
| 7 | Social influence and social norms | How are beliefs and behaviours transmitted? |
| 8 | Anti-social behaviour: anomie and aggression | Why do some CEE citizens respond to transition with aggression and withdrawal? |
| 9 | Pro-social behaviour: helping and altruism | Why have others responded with helping and altruism? |
| 10 | Groups and group dynamics | How do individuals combine into political groups? |
| 11 | Prejudice (1): the nature of post-communist prejudice | Why does prejudice persist without contact? |
| 12 | Prejudice (2): reducing prejudice | What can be done about it? |
| 13 | Cultural social psychology: intercultural relations | How does exposure across cultures change values? |
| 14 | Psychological underpinnings of democracy and backsliding | What psychological foundations does democracy require, and are they present in CEE? |
Three unifying threads
Three unifying threads run through the course. The first is the dual nature of transition: the same psychology produces both pro-social and anti-social outcomes. Solidarity and ethno-nationalism, WOŚP and the Smolensk conspiracy theory, the 2022 Ukrainian helping response and the 2015 Syrian rejection, Polish 2023 democratic re-mobilisation and Hungarian Fidesz consolidation — all of these are produced by populations with recognisably similar underlying psychologies, differently channelled.
The second thread is that framing matters more than disposition. The individual-level psychology of a Polish voter in 2015 and the same voter in 2022 did not change meaningfully in the seven years between the two moments. What changed was the framing of the target group (Syrian men vs Ukrainian women and children), the framing of the threat (Islamic invasion vs Russian aggression), and the institutional response (government refusal vs government facilitation). The same psychology, different framing, opposite outcomes.
The third thread is that institutions channel psychology. Letki’s finding that former communist party members are more politically involved in democracies is an application of this thread: the skills CP membership cultivated were available to be channelled either into the old system (had it survived) or into the new system (which it did). The backsliding literature applies the thread in reverse: democratic institutions that stop functioning stop channelling the underlying psychology democratically, and the same psychology becomes available for exclusion and authoritarianism. But the reversal is not permanent: the Polish 2023 and Hungarian 2026 electoral reversals show that these channels can be re-democratised. The specific institutional design of CEE’s post-1989 and post-2010 political systems has shaped which outcomes the psychology produces.
Part 2: the theoretical toolkit
The course has used a dozen social-psychological frameworks repeatedly — the set introduced systematically in Lecture 4, plus cultural trauma. Each framework has pro-social and anti-social applications, and the exam will expect you to be able to deploy the frameworks on both sides.
The core frameworks
Cultural trauma (Sztompka): institutions outrun socialisation; the internalised culture of communism loses effectiveness under post-1989 conditions; the newly demanded culture appears alien and coercive; objective trauma (measurable material costs) is filtered through subjective trauma (comparisons with Western prosperity, with pre-1989 expectations, with privileged insiders). The framework structures Lectures 2–4, and it returns in Lectures 8 and 14.
Relative deprivation: the feeling of having less than one deserves, relative to a chosen comparison group, rather than absolute material condition. Three reference points in post-1989 CEE shift simultaneously: temporal (pre-1989 expectations), spatial (Western living standards now visible), intra-society (former insiders becoming wealthy). The framework explains anti-elite aggression (Lecture 8), collective action (including Solidarity-style mobilisations), and populist support (Ferwerda, Zhirnov studies).
Social identity theory (Tajfel): self-esteem from group membership; in-group bias and out-group homogeneity; ethnic and national identity as substitutes for class identity after communism’s fall. The framework is central to Lectures 10–13 and explains the same-psychology-different-outcomes pattern of in-group helping vs out-group exclusion.
Social learning theory (Bandura): behaviours are acquired by observation and imitation, especially of models who are seen to gain from them. In CEE, the framework explains both the spread of helping cascades (WOŚP, 2022 Ukrainian response) and the spread of illiberal rhetoric (Fidesz, PiS). Media’s role is the signature application.
System justification theory (Jost): people defend the system they live under, even when it disadvantages them, to satisfy a need for predictability. The framework explains why former CP members channelled their skills into the new democracy rather than resisting it (Letki), why some post-communist nostalgia persists, and why some CEE pro-social initiatives serve preservation as much as change.
Learned helplessness (Seligman): repeated exposure to uncontrollable situations produces generalised passivity and the belief that action is futile. The communist-era legacy produced widespread learned helplessness that was gradually overcome in some CEE countries (Czechia, Estonia) more than others (Russia, Belarus), and that post-2010 backsliding has partially re-created in the affected countries.
Contact theory (Allport): intergroup contact under four conditions (equal status, common goals, cooperation, institutional support) reduces prejudice. The framework is central to Lecture 12 and to Pickel and Öztürk’s study of “Islamophobia without Muslims”. It is also key to Lecture 9’s account of why Polish 2022 mobilisation produced attitudinal change toward Ukrainians.
Terror management theory (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, Solomon): existential anxiety is buffered by engagement with worldviews (national, religious, familial) that transcend the self. The framework explains why religious and national institutions retained salience during the existential shock of the 1990s, and why nationalism served as compensatory identity.
Collective memory and ontological security: nations require stable narratives about their pasts to sustain identity. Crises disrupt these narratives, and new narratives have to be constructed. The framework is central to Subotić’s analysis of post-communist Holocaust memory (Lecture 11) and to the Polish 2022 mobilisation, which drew on Baltic Way and Solidarity templates.
Social capital (Putnam; Letki): trust, norms, and networks that enable collective action and civic participation. The framework underpins Letki’s finding that associational membership predicts political involvement, and it returns in Lecture 14’s account of how interpersonal trust makes a loyal opposition credible. Where social capital is thin — the “sociological void” — public life feels alien and corruption is normalised.
Cognitive dissonance: the discomfort of holding inconsistent beliefs, or acting against one’s beliefs, drives rationalisation and attitude change. In CEE the framework explains how citizens reconcile communist-era socialisation with post-1989 demands, and how the “losers” of transition rationalise their position.
Social influence and conformity: behaviour is shaped by real or imagined social pressure, producing public compliance that may or may not reflect private acceptance. The framework is central to Lecture 7’s treatment of social norms, and it explains both the rapid spread of new democratic norms and the private persistence of old ones.
Just-world theory: the need to believe that people get what they deserve drives victim-blaming and the defence of existing hierarchies. In CEE the framework explains hostility toward the “losers” of transition and toward stigmatised minorities such as the Roma.
Mapping theory to phenomenon
| Theory | Pro-social / democratic | Anti-social / backsliding |
|---|---|---|
| Cultural trauma | Shared transformation experience → solidarity | Trauma → nostalgia, backlash |
| Relative deprivation | → collective action for redistribution | → anti-elite aggression, scapegoating |
| Social identity | In-group solidarity (WOŚP, 2022 Ukraine) | Out-group exclusion (Syria 2015, Roma) |
| Social learning | Modelling democratic practices | Modelling illiberal rhetoric |
| System justification | Defending valued practices (Czech schools) | Defending unequal hierarchies |
| Learned helplessness | Overcome by civic mobilisation | Reinforced by authoritarian rule |
| Contact | Reduces prejudice (Polish-German reconciliation) | Absent → “Islamophobia without Muslims” |
| Terror management | Continuity narrative enables engagement | Defence of in-group through exclusion |
| Collective memory | Baltic Way, Solidarity templates | Holocaust memory distortion |
| Social capital | Associational membership → participation (Letki) | “Sociological void”; corruption normalised |
| Cognitive dissonance | Reconciling old and new identities | Rationalising lost certainties |
| Just-world | Effort rewarded → engagement | Blaming transition’s “losers” |
Illustrative, not exhaustive.
Batson’s empathy-altruism hypothesis
A specific addition to the toolkit, covered in Lecture 9: empathic concern for identifiable, similar, present others produces altruistic helping, while empathic distress produces escape rather than helping. The framework explains why the Polish 2022 response to Ukrainian women and children was so large (high identifiable-victim effect, cultural similarity, clear channels for constructive action) and why the Polish 2015 response to Syrian men was so small (low identifiable-victim effect, cultural distance, framed as threat rather than opportunity for help). The 2025 meta-analytic synthesis confirms the Batson framework’s core claims while identifying the moderators (similarity, identifiability, concern vs distress) that determine magnitude.
CEE-specific moderators
Several moderators are specific to the CEE context and distinguish CEE outcomes from the general social-psychological pattern. The communist legacy of thin civil society and personalised informal networks (Letki) shapes the infrastructure through which psychology operates. The post-1989 economic shock produced visible winners and losers in a way that is rare in stable democracies. The post-2004 EU opening produced mass migration flows that operate as social-remittance engines (Grabowska and Garapich). The post-2010 rise of illiberal populism produced backsliding environments that shift applied tolerance. The 2022 war in Ukraine produced a new geopolitical frame that restructures identity politics across the region.
Part 3: empirical anchors
The studies and cases below are the empirical anchors of the course. Each should be reconstructable in 2–3 sentences covering who, what, the finding, and the implication. Be prepared to match each study to the theoretical framework(s) it activates and to the CEE phenomena it illuminates.
1. Sztompka on cultural trauma (Lectures 2–4)
Piotr Sztompka’s framework treats post-1989 CEE as a case of cultural trauma: the mismatch between newly-installed institutions and the socialised culture of the population. Objective trauma (material hardship, unemployment, inflation) is filtered through subjective trauma (gap between expectations and reality, demonstration effect of Western prosperity, betrayal narratives). Two additional layers are the trauma of political elites (corruption, cronyism, nepotism) and the trauma of backlash (populist backlash to prior traumas, producing polarisation and potentially violence). Sztompka’s 2000 prediction that the trauma of backlash might spill into violence has been empirically confirmed by subsequent political-violence data. The framework structures the course’s first half and returns in Lectures 8 and 14.
2. Ådnanes (2007) on Bulgarian youth anomie
Morten Ådnanes’s study of 560 Bulgarian students uses the Middleton nine-item scale to identify three distinct dimensions of anomie. Normlessness (the sense that rules have become unreliable) was very high (94% endorsement of the lead item), psychological anomie (personal disorientation in decision-making) was moderate, and nostalgic anomie (longing for the certainty of the past) was low (21% endorsement). The gender pattern was pronounced: women reported significantly higher anomie than men. Regression analysis identified distinct factor structures for each dimension. The finding complicates the common interpretation of post-communist anomie as mere nostalgia: what Bulgarian youth were experiencing was primarily a crisis of normative orientation in the present, not a longing for communism. Anomie is a family of related states with different causes, and policies addressing one dimension may not address the others.
3. Ferwerda, Gest and Reny (2025) on nostalgic deprivation
The 2025 European Journal of Political Research article uses IPSOS survey data from 19 European countries (N = 19,296) to develop the concept of nostalgic deprivation: the gap between citizens’ perception of their current status and the status “people like you” held 25 years ago, measured on paired 0–10 sliders across three dimensions (economic, social, power). The three dimensions are correlated but empirically distinct. The central finding is that nostalgic deprivation is sociotropic: nearly orthogonal to objective socio-demographic characteristics. People feel deprived independently of their actual income, education, or occupation. Nostalgic deprivation robustly predicts populist voting and attitudes, with large effect sizes in Western Europe (57 percentage-point swing from minimum to maximum deprivation) and smaller effect sizes in Eastern Europe (17 percentage points). The Eastern European weakness is explained by the incumbency paradox: where populists govern (Poland, Hungary), the usual deprivation-populism link breaks down or reverses.
4. Zhirnov, Antonucci et al. (2024) on precarity and populism
The 2024 European Sociological Review article decomposes precarity into three dimensions: financial precarity (inability to cover unexpected expenses), precarity of tenure (fear of losing one’s job), and precarity at work (low autonomy, poor work-life balance, inadequate pay). The central finding is that precarity of tenure — the dimension most prior voting research has focused on — has the weakest effect on populist voting. Its main effect is negligible once the other dimensions are controlled. Financial precarity and precarity at work are the consistent drivers. The reframing is substantial: populist support is not primarily about job loss; it is about “can I live with dignity on what I earn” and “do I have control over how I work”. The study covers 10 European countries including Hungary, Poland, and Romania, and it confirms the incumbency paradox at the Polish and Hungarian cases: under populist incumbents, precarity predicts lower (not higher) vote for the incumbent populist right.
5. Polish 2022 Ukrainian refugee response
On 24 February 2022 Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine. By mid-2022, over 1.5 million Ukrainians remained in Poland alone, and millions more were absorbed across CEE. Polish survey data (CBOS) from April 2022 show 91% support for accepting refugees, 63% personal offers of help, 70–80% participation in collection or support activities, with hundreds of thousands housed in private Polish homes. The response combined several mechanisms: social identity (Ukrainians framed as “our” people), existential threat (Russian aggression activating 1939 and 1944-45 memories), reciprocity framing (Ukrainian labour in Poland since 2014), empathy-altruism (women and children as identifiable victims), institutional readiness (Caritas, PAH, pre-existing networks). Koc, Szczepanska and colleagues (2024) identify the determinants of sustained helping: higher dispositional empathy, higher moral identity, pre-existing Ukrainian ties, lower right-wing authoritarianism, and — most importantly — lower collective narcissism. Ordinary national identification promoted helping; collective narcissism (inflated, fragile group self-regard) predicted belief in Russian narratives and reduced helping. Szczepanska et al. (2024) document the decline over 2022–23: attitudinal support fell from 91% to 69%, behavioural engagement from 63% to 28%, and all group-based emotions except guilt declined.
6. Letki (2004) on trust, membership, and democratisation
Natalia Letki’s 2004 Political Research Quarterly article uses 1993–94 World Values Survey data from ten CEE countries to test what predicts political involvement in the first post-1989 decade. The central findings: community-association membership has the strongest effect on political involvement (twice the effect of professional or labour associations); interpersonal trust has a weaker effect than Putnam-style theory predicts; former communist-party members are significantly more politically involved in the new democracies than non-members; country-level democratic experience is a strong positive predictor; and the effect of membership and trust is independent of the country’s level of democracy. The former-CP finding is the most consequential: it overturns the expectation that prior regime participation should have disqualified people for democratic engagement, and it suggests that participation in non-democratic organisations can produce positive social capital for democracy through skills-transfer and socialisation-for-participation mechanisms.
7. Subotić (2019) Yellow Star, Red Star
Jelena Subotić’s 2019 Cornell University Press book analyses post-communist Holocaust remembrance through three case studies (Serbia, Croatia, Lithuania). The theoretical concept is ontological security: states need stable narratives about their pasts to sustain identity. The 1989–91 collapse of communism produced acute ontological insecurity, and new histories had to be constructed. Subotić identifies three patterns of post-communist Holocaust memory: memory inversion (Serbia, where Holocaust memory is used to remember communism’s crimes), memory divergence (Croatia, where the Holocaust is made an exclusively Nazi problem absolving the ethnic majority), and memory conflation (Lithuania, where the Holocaust is combined with communist atrocities into a “double genocide” framework). All three patterns solve the same problem: how to acknowledge the Holocaust enough to belong to the liberal European community while protecting majority self-image and avoiding complicity questions. The framework explains why anti-Semitism persists in CEE societies that have virtually no Jewish populations — the prejudice serves identity-protective functions.
8. Pickel and Öztürk (2018) Islamophobia Without Muslims?
The 2018 Journal of Nationalism, Memory and Language Politics article tests the contact hypothesis at the country level across 21 European countries (18 EU members plus Switzerland, Norway, Israel). The data are from the 2014 European Social Survey. The puzzle: Islamophobia is more widespread in Eastern Europe than in Western Europe even though Muslim communities are virtually nonexistent in most Eastern European societies. The central findings: at the individual level, contact with migrants (not specifically Muslims) reduces Muslim-ban support in all CEE countries except Hungary; at the societal level, the absence of Muslim communities leads to fewer contacts, fewer friendships with immigrants, and more sceptical perceptions of intergroup contact. Less contact is the core driver of “Islamophobia without Muslims” in CEE. Threat perception and ethnocentrism matter but diminish substantially when contact is controlled. Contact with migrants functions as an “antivenom” to Islamophobic attitudes, but most CEE citizens have no opportunity to acquire it.
10. Marquart-Pyatt and Paxton (2007) on democratic learning
Sandra Marquart-Pyatt and Pamela Paxton’s 2007 Political Behavior article analyses applied political tolerance across 14 countries (5 Western European, 8 Eastern European, US) using 1995–97 World Values Survey data. The central findings: espoused support for democracy is similar across regions, but applied tolerance (support for civil liberties of the respondent’s least-liked group) is much lower in Eastern Europe than in the West. In EE, cohort analysis supports the democratic-learning hypothesis: respondents educated under democracy are more tolerant than those educated under “thawed” communism, who are in turn more tolerant than those educated under repressive communism. In Western Europe and the US, no cohort effect exists because all living cohorts were educated under democracy. The effect sizes of individual-level predictors are weaker in CEE than in the US, possibly due to institutional uncertainty: citizens are unwilling to extend tolerance if they fear others will not reciprocate (the tolerance-coordination problem).
11. Pop-Eleches and Tucker (Communism’s Shadow, 2017)
Grigore Pop-Eleches and Joshua Tucker’s Communism’s Shadow (Princeton University Press, 2017) asks whether post-communist attitudes are best explained by living through communism (the cumulative socialising effect of exposure to the regime) or by living in a post-communist country (current contextual conditions). Using cross-national survey data, they decompose communist legacies into the two channels and show that both operate, with exposure effects moderated by intensity and resistance. The framework is foundational to Lectures 3, 4, and 10, and it supplies the course’s vocabulary for distinguishing legacy mechanisms from contemporary conditions.
12. The Lecture 14 backsliding scholarship
Lecture 14’s account of applied tolerance and backsliding rests on four works you should be able to cite. Gibson (1992) showed that in the former Soviet Union espoused democratic norms coexisted with low applied tolerance, with perceived threat the strongest predictor of intolerance. Gessler and Wunsch (2025, European Journal of Political Research) reverse the usual arrow, showing that sustained backsliding itself generates affective polarisation organised around a “new regime divide” that unites an ideologically diverse opposition in defence of democracy. Sadowski (2024) documents rising diffuse support for democracy in Poland across 1995–2021, even through PiS-era erosion. Guasti and Michal (2025) find that in Central Europe polarisation has mobilised citizens for democracy more strongly than for autocracy.
Four other reference points
The exam may also reference these films and cases. Birthplace (Paweł Łoziński, 1992) accompanies Henryk Grynberg in his Polish village to investigate his father’s 1942 murder; the village scene illustrates fear, shame, and moral-credentialling in post-Holocaust memory. WOŚP (the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity, founded 1993 by Jerzy Owsiak) is Poland’s annual mass-participation charity, illustrating episodic identity-based pro-sociality. The Baltic Way (1989) is the 2-million-person human chain across Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, a template for collective-memory-based mobilisation. The 2022 Ukrainian refugee response is the natural experiment in identity-extension and mobilisation fatigue that has shaped the course’s treatment of pro-social behaviour.
Contemporary backsliding cases
Hungary under Fidesz (2010–2026) was the most developed backsliding case — memory politics, media capture, judicial restructuring, anti-migrant framing — but it was reversed at the ballot box in April 2026, when Péter Magyar’s Tisza party unseated Orbán with a two-thirds majority. Poland under PiS (2015–2023) saw a 2023 electoral reversal, but the reconstruction has stalled: PiS-backed Karol Nawrocki won the 2025 presidency, and his veto power combined with the absence of a government supermajority has produced gridlock rather than full re-democratisation. Slovakia under Fico (2024–) is the active case: the government has abolished the NAKA anti-corruption police, passed a public-broadcasting media law, and moved against NGOs and the right to protest, met by sustained civil-society opposition (the “Chalk Revolution” of November 2025). Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechia are cases where the illiberal model has remained contested or failed to consolidate. The overall pattern is that backsliding is not one-directional: 2023–2026 shows it can be reversed where the opposition coalesces around the defence of democracy.
Part 4: the exam
Format and coverage
The exam is a written test consisting principally of multiple-choice questions drawn from across all fourteen lectures. Every lecture is in scope. The course readings, slides, handouts, and speaker notes are all primary sources, and the questions may draw on any of them. The emphasis is on understanding of the core concepts, the named empirical studies, and the central analytical framework of the course.
How to prepare
Begin with the synthesis. Re-read this Lecture 15 handout carefully. If you can articulate the signature claim and apply it to a new case, you have the scaffolding that will let you answer most questions quickly.
Work through the empirical anchors. Each should be reconstructable in 2–3 sentences covering who (author, date, journal), what (method, sample), the central finding, and the theoretical implication. A useful way to prepare is to write these summaries out on flashcards or in a notebook, one study per page, and to quiz yourself until they are automatic.
Know the core theoretical frameworks. Be able to match each to the phenomena in CEE on both the pro-social and anti-social sides. The matrix in Part 2 of this handout is a useful starting point; you should be able to reproduce it from memory.
Connect theory to case. For each major CEE case (transition trauma, Ukrainian refugees, anti-Roma prejudice, Islamophobia, diaspora voting, backsliding), identify which theories are activated and how they combine. The exam questions often take the form of asking which theory or which mechanism best explains a specific outcome, and connecting theory to case is the central analytical skill the course has been cultivating.
Worked example 1
Q: What legacy did observers expect the “homo Sovieticus” syndrome to have for societies in the post-communist era?
- Societies would be characterised by pathological forms of behaviour and status anxiety regarding the impact of the new changes.
- Societies would quickly and decisively reject the norms and values of the previous regime.
- Societies would reject democracy and demand a return to the communist system.
- Societies would be paralysed by indecision about what kind of regime to replace communism with.
The answer is (a). Homo Sovieticus is the alleged psychological product of communist socialisation — passive, risk-averse, dependent on the state, distrustful of authorities, reluctant to take initiative. Observers expected this psychology to produce pathological behaviour and anxiety when exposed to market and democratic conditions that demanded the opposite dispositions. The framework connects to Sztompka’s cultural trauma and to the general question of whether communist-era psychology transferred positively or negatively to the new system. Letki’s finding that former CP members are more politically active than non-members complicates the homo Sovieticus thesis by showing that communist-era participation produced positive transferable skills.
Worked example 2
Q: According to Subotić, why was the Holocaust a source of prejudice in post-communist societies?
- As it had been a taboo topic under communism, people now felt “free to hate”.
- The state of Israel started making greater demands for financial restitution after the end of communism.
- Levels of antisemitism rose after the end of communism.
- The idea that people in these countries might have benefited from the Holocaust clashed with their self-identity as victims of communism, leading to resentment against the Jews.
The answer is (d). The key concept is ontological security: post-communist national identity in CEE was built on narratives of victimhood (under Nazism and under communism). Acknowledging complicity in the Holocaust threatens this identity, because it introduces the identity-discordant idea that CEE populations might have been beneficiaries as well as victims. The threat is defended by turning against the minority whose victimhood raises the question.
Worked example 3
Q: What is meant by the term “sociological void”?
- Under communism, societies were poorly studied.
- During communism, individuals had a strong attachment to their families and to the national community, but not to intermediary institutions.
- There were no institutions linking the individual with broader society.
- During communism, the concept of social class was eliminated.
The answer is (b). The sociological void describes a pattern (Nowak’s analysis of Polish society) in which attachment is strong at the micro level (family) and the macro level (nation) but very weak at the middle level (voluntary associations, professional organisations, civic institutions). This pattern is one reason Letki’s finding that associational membership predicts political involvement was so consequential: building the middle level of associational life is precisely what post-1989 CEE needed.
Worked example 4
Q: What reason do Pickel and Öztürk give for greater levels of Islamophobia in Central and Eastern Europe?
- There are greater general levels of racism in CEE countries.
- People in CEE countries are more religious, which increases religion-based stereotyping and prejudice.
- People in CEE countries have fewer opportunities to adjust their negative stereotypes about Muslims through face-to-face contact.
- There are more Muslims in CEE, which means more chances for prejudice-laden contact.
The answer is (c). This is a direct application of the contact hypothesis at the country level. Muslim populations are very small in most CEE countries, so citizens cannot use direct contact to update stereotypes. Media and elite framing are free to produce stereotypes without empirical challenge from lived experience. The finding is counterintuitive in terms of realistic-conflict theory (which would predict more prejudice where there are more Muslims to compete with) but consistent with the contact hypothesis (which predicts more prejudice where contact is absent).
Worked example 5
Q: In the immediate post-communist era, which of the following individuals would be LEAST likely to participate in political activity?
- A citizen of Slovakia who was previously a member of the communist party.
- A citizen of Slovakia who was not previously a member of the communist party.
- A citizen of Russia who was not previously a member of the communist party.
- A citizen of Russia who was previously a member of the communist party.
The answer is (c). Letki’s findings provide the framework: two positive predictors of political involvement are country-level democratic experience (higher in Slovakia than in Russia in 1993–94) and former CP membership. The individual with neither advantage — Russian, non-former-CP — has the lowest predicted involvement.
Part 5: closing thoughts
What the course was really about
The post-1989 CEE experience is a natural experiment in the social psychology of democracy. The evidence that has accumulated over 35 years allows us to trace causal chains from structural shock to individual psychology to collective action to political outcomes, at a level of detail that the stable democracies of Western Europe and North America do not permit. The signature finding is not pessimistic. The mechanisms that produced illiberalism in some CEE countries are the same mechanisms that can produce liberal consolidation, differently channelled — Hungary’s 2026 reversal is the clearest recent proof. What matters is who is channelling the psychology, what targets they are framing, and which institutions are carrying the framing forward. The contest between these outcomes is live in contemporary CEE, and its resolution is not determined by any deep psychological deficit in the population but by political and institutional choices.