Paul
Goble
Staunton, May 15 – A new study prepared
by three scholars at the Higher School of Economics says that while rising
unemployment in Western Europe tends to lead to more protest, the same trend in
Russia and other East European countries has exactly the opposite effect,
driving down the number of people prepared to take part in opposition actions.
The study, “Unemployment as a
Predictor of Socio-Political Destabilization in the Countries of Western Europe
and Eastern Europe,” Ekonomicheskaya sotsiologiya, 19:2 (2018): 118-154 is
available at ecsoc.hse.ru/data/2018/04/01/1164751079/ecsoc_t19_n2.pdf#page=118).
It has been summarized today at iq.hse.ru/news/219158221.html.
The three authors looked at 24
countries in Western Europe and 21 post-communist countries in Eastern Europe
for the period between 1991 and 2014 and correlated the level of public protests
with the rate of unemployment. In Western Europe, there was a positive
correlation; in Eastern Europe, they found, there wasn’t.
The authors suggest that the pattern
in Eastern Europe generally and in Russia in particular reflects the fact that
those who lose their job are afraid to protest, they have to spend all their time
seeking new work, they do not want to fall into black lists, and they fear that
if they protest, those who are inclined to help them may turn away.
Another factor, the scholars say, is
that in Western Europe unemployment compensation is relatively high, allowing
those who have lost their jobs the time and opportunity to protest. In Eastern
Europe and Russia, on the other hand, such compensation is relatively low and thus
the unemployed have to look for work and don’t have the opportunity to protest.
Unless all of those factors change
in East European countries and in Russia, the three conclude, there is little
reason to expect an upsurge in protest activity even if unemployment rises
significantly.
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