The Changing Status of Protest Participation
The Changing Status of Protest Participation

Summary/Abstract: One of the main evolutions entailed by the fall of the communist regimes in Central and South-Eastern Europe is the raise of a functional civil society aimed at influencing and holding the new political leadership accountable. The focus of this paper is on the citizen participation as a mean of interaction with the political system, and especially on the changing boundary between conventional and unconventional participation and on providing arguments in favour of separating the protest participation from the classical unconventional typology. My analysis is exploring the main characteristics of citizen participation in Romania as reflected in the types of associations and organizations the citizens adhere to, the activities they chose to develop within these social groups, the effective implication of the citizens in solving various problems and the perceived sense of efficacy attached to several ways of influencing the political system.

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