Persistent breeze from the winds of change: Partisan alignments of protest participants after democratic transition

Abstract

By the early 1990s, millions across Central and Eastern Europe mobilized against socialist regimes. Despite their pivotal role in democratization, little is known about the long-term political trajectories of those who participated in these movements. Using three decades of intergenerational panel data from the former German Democratic Republic (GDR), I trace the partisan alignments of 1989 protest participants—over time and across generations. I find that former protesters are consistently less likely to support the successor party of the socialist regime (Die Linke) and more likely to support its historical opponent (CDU) as well as the protest-origin party (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen). Crucially, they do not show increased support for the far-right (AfD), despite the party's efforts to appropriate the legacy of 1989. They also display more right-leaning orientations, higher satisfaction with democracy, and substantially less nostalgia for the GDR. Among their children, patterns of partisan alignment—particularly rejection of Die Linke and support for the CDU—are evident only when parents are politically engaged, underscoring the conditional nature of intergenerational transmission. Together, these findings show that protest participants constitute an important segment of the electorate in societies that transitioned through non-violent means and are vital to analyze for understanding political behavior in post-authoritarian settings.