Although some knowledge exists on how economic restriction and protests are related in “old” Western democracies, little is known about how economic situation and protest are related in new democracies. This context is different from the established democracies for several reasons. Citizens and social movements in these countries are pictured as apathetic towards politics, disengaged, politically passive, and protesting very little. Simultaneously, these new democracies have been dealing with severe economic and financial hardships already from the very beginning of their existence and have experienced several waves of austerity measures in the last 20 years. What are their levels of socioeconomic protest and what likely drives them? The study focuses on protests in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and Hungary from 1990 to 2010 to answer this question. In contrast to the general interpretation of a single post-communist path, the paper focuses on differentiated post-communist protest pathways.
