Communist Legacies and Contemporary Attitudes to Socio-Cultural Issues

• In Event: Democratic Erosion in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

How do communist legacies shape contemporary views about socio-cultural issues in post-communist countries? While there is a burgeoning literature on the long-term impacts of socialization under communist regimes on a range of democratic, economic and left-right views, we know less about its impact on ordinary citizens’ views concerning socio-cultural issues such as immigration, gender equality and cultural liberalism. Building on insights from the communist legacies literature and political psychology research, I examine this question using individual-level attitudinal data from the World Values Survey and the European Values Study between 1990 and 2022, coupled with country-level information from the V-DEM dataset and the World Bank’s World Development Indicators. The results are consistent with a conservative-inducing effect of communist legacies on citizens’ attitudes on a range of socio-cultural issues after the fall of the regime. These findings contribute to our understanding of the long-term determinants of public opinion and contemporary politics in the post-communist countries of Eastern Europe.

Author

• Alina Vranceanu, Pompeu Fabra University