Political Behavior in the Shadow of Socialism

CBEES Advanced Seminar with Zeth Isaksson, Max Weber Fellow, the European University Institute

Speaker: Zeth Isaksson, Max Weber Fellow, the European University Institute

Discussant: Steven Saxonberg, Professor of Sociology, Södertörn University

Chair: Adrienne Sörbom, Professor of Sociology and Research Leader at CBEES, Södertörn University

Abstract: More than three decades after the collapse of state socialism, political behavior in post-socialist Europe continues to differ in important ways from patterns observed in Western democracies. These differences raise questions about how experiences under socialism continue to influence political attitudes and behavior.

This talk presents findings from an ongoing research agenda examining how experiences under socialism continue to shape contemporary political behavior. I first synthesize key insights from existing research on political behavior, highlighting central debates about the relative importance of socialist socialization, and post-transition developments. Building on this literature, I argue that socialist legacies are neither uniform nor static. Instead, they are mediated by heterogeneous lived experiences under socialism, transformed by the trajectories of post-socialist transition, and refracted through contested memories of the past.

The second part of the talk presents new empirical results from ongoing work. Moving beyond aggregate measures of “socialist exposure,” the project adopts a micro-level perspective that links experiences under socialism, during the post-socialist transition, and in the contemporary period to long-term political trajectories. The findings illustrate how variation in socialist and post-socialist experiences continues to shape political attitudes and behavior, helping explain persistent differences both between post-socialist and Western Europe and within the post-socialist region itself.

Zeth Isaksson is a Max Weber Postdoctoral Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence and a recent PhD graduate from Stockholm University. His research focuses on comparative politics and political behavior, with particular attention to post-socialist Europe. His work on the region has been published in journals such as Electoral Studies, Party Politics, and Acta Politica, among others.