This paper empirically tests whether populists in power or economic wellbeing influence civil society and civic culture. It conceptualizes civic culture broadly by focusing on citizen mobilization and evaluation of both national and supranational political institutions. The longer populists hold government positions, the stronger their control over civil society organizations, affecting participation in civil society initiatives. However, a higher GDP per capita is associated with increased participation in civic society initiatives. Both the duration of populist rule and economic factors shape civic culture across Central and Eastern Europe. On the country level, the length of governance under populist elites correlates with a decrease in individual social connectedness, growing dissatisfaction with democracy, and diminished interest in politics. Country-level economic development correlates with higher levels of institutional trust, social trust, social connectedness, and satisfaction with democracy but negatively with trust in the European Union, election turnout, interest in politics, and participation in trade unions. Higher levels of civic culture are most consistently driven by one’s income at individual level. Citizens appear to be evolving into allegiant citizens—those who maintain some level of trust in governmental institutions also support the principles and practices of democracy and exhibit a general increase in apathy toward politics. Evidence from the European Social Survey and the V-Dem database supports these conclusions.

中文翻译：

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掌权的民粹主义者或经济会影响公民文化吗？


本文实证检验了掌权的民粹主义者或经济福祉是否会影响公民社会和公民文化。它通过关注公民动员和对国家和超国家政治机构的评估，将公民文化广泛概念化。民粹主义者担任政府职务的时间越长，他们对公民社会组织的控制就越强，从而影响了公民社会倡议的参与。然而，更高的人均 GDP 与公民社会倡议的参与度增加有关。民粹主义统治的持续时间和经济因素都塑造了中欧和东欧的公民文化。在国家层面，民粹主义精英统治下的治理时间长短与个人社会联系的减少、对民主的不满增加以及对政治的兴趣减弱有关。国家层面的经济发展与更高水平的机构信任、社会信任、社会联系和对民主的满意度相关，但与对欧盟的信任、选举投票率、对政治的兴趣和对工会的参与呈负相关。更高水平的公民文化最一致地是由个人层面的收入驱动的。公民似乎正在演变成 Allegiant Citizen——那些对政府机构保持一定程度信任的人也支持民主的原则和实践，并表现出对政治的普遍冷漠。来自欧洲社会调查和 V-Dem 数据库的证据支持这些结论。