Political Participation of the Participants in the Protests Against Dictatorship

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to determine the extent to which participants in the Protests against Dictatorship were ready to engage in various forms of collective action over the past three years. In accordance with Pippa Norris' division of the repertoire of actions on those oriented towards the problems of citizens and directed towards decision-makers in the political sphere and repertoires oriented towards the broader social goals, and with corresponding distinction between the traditional and modern agencies of collective actions, we tried to test the hypothesis that participants in the Protests against Dictatorship show a relatively high degree of readiness to engage in both traditional and contemporary forms of collective engagement. In addition, we tried to examine the claim that contemporary repertoires of collective actions will be more strongly represented among the younger population, as well as the thesis that the level of engagement will be in a positive relation with the resources that participants in the protest posses (educational, material, organizational, social, etc.). Finally, we tested the hypothesis that readiness to participate in civic and political actions is growing with a degree of trust in the institutions of representative democracy, but also with an assessment of the importance of a democratic political order. The hypotheses were tested on empirical data obtained through a survey of protest participants conducted during April and May 2017.