Electoral and Non-Electoral Participation in the Visegrad Countries: Complements or Substitutes?

The problem of low turnout at elections has become common in almost all post-communist countries. Given this weak participation in elections, some political scientists tend to see a crisis of emerging post-authoritarian political systems. Nevertheless, political participation, frequently considered to be the heart of democracy, should not be reduced to casting a ballot alone. This article makes an effort to discuss turnout more comprehensively. It aims at the association of this basic mode of civic engagement with less conventional political activities. Analysing European Social Survey data gathered in the Visegrad Four, the most advanced region in the former Eastern Bloc, it tries to address the issue of whether people who are active at a polling station simultaneously perform other activities in the broad repertoire of political participation. In other words, do active voters in the specific context of Central Europe also take part in different political actions, so that the relationship between participatory modes can be seen as tending to be complementary, or do voting and other forms of political action show little correlation?