Zusammenfassung Wie schätzen die Menschen in Deutschland die Legitimität und Effektivität verschiedener Formen des politischen Protests ein? Wie stehen sie zu Aktionsformen wie Petitionen, Demonstrationen, Straßenblockaden, Hassbotschaften im Internet oder dem Bewerfen von Kunstwerken mit Lebensmitteln? Diese Fragen beantworten wir in diesem Kapitel anhand originärer Umfragedaten aus dem Jahr 2023. Zunächst identifizieren wir eine immer striktere Trennung zwischen konventionellen und unkonventionellen Protestformen: Die Menschen in Deutschland unterscheiden immer deutlicher zwischen Aktionen, die als legitim und effektiv gelten, und solchen, die als illegitim und ineffektiv eingestuft werden. Darauf aufbauend analysieren wir im zweiten Schritt, inwiefern Vertrauen in staatliche Institutionen und die Mitgliedschaft in politischen Vereinigungen Unterschiede in der Bewertung der Legitimität und Effektivität verschiedener Protestformen erklären können. Es zeigt sich unter anderem, dass Misstrauen in die Polizei zu einer höheren Zustimmung zu unkonventionellen, disruptiveren Protestformen führt. Außerdem bewerten Mitglieder politischer Vereinigungen Proteste insgesamt positiver. Die Studie leistet damit einen Beitrag zur Literatur über politisches Verhalten und öffentliche Meinung und beleuchtet die Faktoren, die die Bewertung von legitimem politischen Handeln in Deutschland beeinflussen. Durch die Untersuchung eines breiten Spektrums an Protestformen wird ein umfassendes Verständnis des Themas geschaffen, das eine Grundlage für politische Entscheidungen und die öffentliche Debatte über die Rolle der Bürger*innen bei der Mitgestaltung der Demokratie bieten kann.

To what extent do measures of the issue positions and salience of political parties differ when they are extracted from mass media debates and election manifestos? Answering this question, the paper serves a dual purpose within this special issue of Party Politics: (i) introducing the PolDem election dataset used throughout the issue, and (ii) analyzing its convergence with the widely used Manifesto Project data. The newly released PolDem dataset, based on a relational content analysis of newspaper articles published during national election campaigns, covers 15 European countries and 111 campaigns. Focusing on four broad issue domains (economic, cultural, European integration, and political issues) across countries from Northwestern, Southern, and Central-Eastern Europe, the results demonstrate strong convergence in issue positions, except for in political issues related to democracy and corruption. However, the datasets differ significantly in issue salience, especially for less salient, noneconomic issues, niche parties and in less polarized contexts.

Do people change climate-related opinions when they learn that thousands protested? Two survey field experiments tested how turnout at major climate demonstrations shaped politically interested individuals’ views in a German national election. Turnout significantly increased perceived movement efficacy, especially among more involved participants, and potentially increased internal political efficacy. Pro-environmental attitudes and vote intentions remained unchanged. Protest days appear to signal collective capacity rather than drive immediate attitude change.

Civic engagement is essential for responding to societal crises, yet only some people take action. This study investigates how personality is connected to who engages during a crisis and how they engage. We analyzed the reactions of German civil society to the war in Ukraine to examine how the Big Five traits and empathy relate to benevolent (e.g., volunteering or donating) and activist (e.g., protesting) engagement. To test the robustness of our effects, we analyzed immediate (within the first 3 months of the war), late (8-15 months after the beginning of the war), and sustained (both immediate and late) engagement. In a longitudinal sample (N > 700), hierarchical regressions showed that personality and empathy were associated with immediate, late, and sustained engagement. Extraversion, openness, and empathy positively predicted both benevolent and activist engagement; conscientiousness had negative effects on both engagement forms.

The article examines the impact of the recent crises - the Eurozone crisis, the refugee crisis, Brexit, COVID-19, and the war in Ukraine - on the structuration of party competition in six Northwestern European countries. Situating the multiple crises in a long-term perspective on the transformation of party systems, we emphasize their reinforcing effect on the structuring capacity of the new cultural divide. In some countries, this divide and its main driving forces have become so powerful in transforming the political space that we observe an emerging multi-polar pattern of party configurations. This pattern is characterized by a green new left opposed to the populist radical right on the new cultural dimension. In contrast, the center-left and the center-right, despite converging, still oppose each other on the economic dimension. Empirically, the article examines election campaigns in Austria, Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, drawing on the original PolDem relational content analysis of mass media coverage published before national elections from the 1970s up to 2022.

This study examines how different protest forms shape public opinion, distinguishing between support for protest tactics and policy goals. While protest is widely recognized as a legitimate mode of political participation, its forms vary in how they are perceived by the public. Drawing on two cross-sectional surveys and two survey experiments on climate protests in Germany, we focus on the distinction between demonstrative and confrontational protest forms. We find that demonstrative tactics are broadly perceived as legitimate. Being exposed to them leads to a stronger sympathy and more support for the movement compared to a control group. In contrast, confrontational tactics—such as blockades or symbolic art attacks—reduce these responses, particularly among left-leaning citizens, while leaving the already low support levels of right-leaning citizens unchanged. Crucially, we find null effects concerning policy support: the negative impact on attitudes toward protesters neither weakens nor strengthens support for their policy goals. Thus, confrontational protest may not substantively harm its broader political cause, at least in the short run. This finding contributes to the literature on social movement and protest effects by highlighting that loss of support for the movement does not automatically translate into changes in public support for the policy goals the movements advocate.

How do national referendums shape political contestation? This article explores this question by examining the politicization of European integration, a key “cleavage issue” restructuring political conflict across Europe. While national referendums are often assumed to intensify public contestation over European integration, systematic comparative evidence remains limited. This study contributes to the debate by analyzing 87 public debates on European integration across six Western European countries (Austria, Britain, France, Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland), including 12 debates with national referendums. The analysis draws on the PolDem dataset (Hutter et al., 2016), updated to include the Brexit referendum. Through comprehensive across-debate and within-debate analyses, the findings show that referendums are associated with heightened politicization, particularly by expanding actor participation and increasing issue salience. Civil society and other non-executive actors gain visibility in referendum contexts, reinforcing the view that referendums level the political playing field. Although referendums increase framing diversity, they do not consistently lead to more polarized or identity-focused debates involving radical parties, challenging the notion that referendums inherently drive cultural conflict. This study advances our understanding of how direct democracy shapes European integration debates and calls for further comparative research on institutional factors and endogenous conflict dynamics to better grasp the varied impacts of referendums on politicization.

The Covid-19 pandemic created a dual crisis for civil society organizations (CSOs): heightened demand for social support alongside restrictions that limited their capacity to mobilize people. This study investigates how volunteer-based CSOs fostered civic engagement amid these constraints, providing new empirical insights into their capabilities and limitations during times of crisis. Bridging research on both the demand and supply sides of civic engagement, we draw on three original studies - a comprehensive survey of CSOs, a large-scale population survey, and a survey experiment - to map responses to the crisis at both the individual and organizational levels. Our findings reveal persistent social inequalities in volunteering and mutual support, with CSOs primarily engaging men, highly educated individuals, affluent citizens, and those already active in organizations. Despite these pre-existing inequalities, CSO outreach significantly boosted engagement, particularly in more formal settings. This study contributes to ongoing debates about the role and transformation of civil society during periods of crisis, highlighting the challenges and opportunities that CSOs encountered as they navigated the pandemic.

Political parties in Europe are undergoing profound transformations, with many abandoning traditional brands. This study analyzes party names as indicators of ideological and organizational change, combining an original content analysis across 28 European countries (1945–2023) with two conjoint survey experiments. We find that “nonparty” names have become the majority, reflecting a shift away from ideology toward alternative forms of identification. While movement names appear in wavelike patterns linked to protest cycles, such as after the 2008 Great Recession, nonclassical names are especially prevalent among new, opposition, and right-wing parties. However, a paradox emerges: despite their growing adoption, nonclassical names do not easily yield the anticipated electoral benefits, as new parties seem to gain little from abandoning classical naming conventions. By tracing long-term naming trends and integrating survey-based experimental evidence, we advance debates on party transformation, political branding, and the evolving interplay between electoral and movement politics in contemporary democracies.

How does civil society shape the development of cleavages? While intermediary organisations, such as trade unions and churches, featured heavily in historical accounts, neo-cleavage theory tends to ignore the meso-level dynamics of the new 'transnational' divide beyond party politics. This agenda-setting article introduces a general framework for studying the relationship between civil society and cleavages, capable of facilitating comparisons across contexts. Specifically, the article identifies two mechanisms through which civil society - in different forms - can shape emerging cleavages: by structuring patterns of group-party linkage on the supply-side and by deepening social closure on the demand-side. The article develops hypotheses about how the changing structure of civil society in Western Europe affects its capacity to perform these functions. Empirical evidence from expert and population surveys, complemented by illustrative case studies, suggests that civil society continues to influence cleavage politics, albeit in more differentiated and volatile ways.

The pandemic did not bring protest politics to a halt. Instead, it sparked diverse and divergent forms of contention. This study compares the development and characteristics of anti-containment protests in Germany and Italy, offering three innovations. Conceptually, we introduce the notion of a protest script characterized by specific routinized dynamics and a contentious choreography, as well as frames expressed in slogans, banners, and speeches. Methodologically, we rely on video-enhanced protest event analysis (vPEA) to uncover these scripts, combining classical newspaper-based protest event data with video data analysis. Empirically, we show that the level of protest was higher in Germany than in Italy. Despite differences in the level and timing of protests, the study shows similarities and divergences in the countries' protest scripts. Driven by far right and esoteric New Age actors, the protest events in both countries exhibit an escalating dynamic in terms of their choreography and the prevalence of conspiratorial and anti-systemic claims.

The cost-of-living crisis, unfolding in the shadow of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, highlighted policy positions not traditionally represented in European party systems and protest politics. Our study asks why large-scale protests, widely anticipated during Germany's 'Hot Autumn' of 2022, did not materialize despite a severe cost-of-living crisis. Drawing on insights from social movement studies, we test the long-standing argument that successful mobilization depends on the presence of mobilizing agents that align programmatically with existing demand. We use an innovative multi-method design that combines individual-level survey data with protest event analysis to examine both protest potential and actual mobilization. The survey includes a conjoint experiment to identify factors influencing protest potential. Our findings show that despite strong public sympathy, the 'Hot Autumn' saw only moderate protest participation, as established trade unions and political parties from both the left and the right struggled to capitalize on the momentum. Instead, the left-nationalist B & uuml;ndnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) emerged as a new challenger, offering an economically left-wing, culturally nationalist platform that resonated with protest sympathizers. By analyzing how ideological (mis)alignment shapes protest dynamics, our study contributes to research on party-movement interactions and demonstrates how the two-dimensional structure of political conflict increasingly challenges traditional left-wing actors' ability to mobilize.

This paper investigates how two politicized issues - migration and climate change - mobilize citizens across European countries. Building on the concept of issue-specific mobilization potentials, we examine citizens' willingness to support petitions related to the two issues using an original behavioral measure embedded in the 2024 European Parliament Election Study. We document variation in political engagement and examine how opposing stances on issues owned by the left or the right mobilize citizens, how citizens' agreement with issue positions affects support, and whether grievances, participation cultures, politicization levels, and the ideology of the national government can explain national-level variation. Our results indicate substantial variation in petition support across countries and issues, with the right-wing petition on migration attracting the most support. However, our country-level measures do not explain this variation well. Overall, our findings highlight the need for more nuanced, issue-specific approaches to understanding cross-national patterns of political participation.

This introduction to the special issue argues that the succession of major crises in recent years has fundamentally transformed Europe's protest landscape. Rather than steady expansion, recent developments are marked by episodic surges in mobilisation and an overall decline in protest activity, alongside the normalisation of far-right protest actors and growing diversity of claims and participants. These shifts move protest beyond the classical image of routinised, left-libertarian, and institutionally anchored activism. We describe this complex pattern as 'new contentious politics' and call for more systematic engagement from both comparative politics and public policy scholars. The special issue empirically examines three dimensions: changes in protest levels, forms, and claims (protest supply); trends in the composition and motivations of participants (protest demand); and the responses of political elites and institutional outcomes (protest outcomes). Together, the contributions challenge established assumptions and point to a protest arena that is increasingly fragmented, volatile, and heterogeneous.

ABSTRACTObjectiveIn times of societal crises, it is pivotal to understand and share others' feelings. Yet, the role of empathy in fostering prosocial responses during societal crises has not gained enough attention. Our study uses the onset of Russia's war on Ukraine to examine three key questions: (1) Is empathy related to attitudes toward pro‐refugee policies? (2) Does empathy correlate with a higher tolerance for diverse opinions on refugee policies? (3) Is empathy linked to perceived interpersonal closeness toward social in‐ and outgroups, including refugees?Methods and ResultsUsing observational data from online surveys conducted with a largely representative quota sample from Germany (N = 1199–1631) during the initial months of the war, we found that empathy was associated with significantly higher support of pro‐refugee policies, driven primarily by empathic concern. Additionally, more empathetic individuals exhibited greater opinion diversity and showed smaller distinctions in perceived interpersonal closeness between in‐ and outgroups.ConclusionsThese findings underscore the critical role of empathy in fostering solidarity and social cohesion during societal crises.

Non-probability samples have become increasingly popular despite some criticism. This paper examines social media sampling as a tool for accessing hard-to-survey populations. Our study targeted individuals in Germany using ads on Facebook and X, yielding 4,590 respondents. We compared these samples with high-quality probability samples (SOEP, ESS) through measurement equivalence analysis of shared measures between samples. Results show that our social media sampling strategy yielded effective sample sizes for our target population that exceeded those from SOEP and ESS by ratios between 2:1 and 5:1. Our findings suggest that non-probability sampling can be a viable method for researchers examining relational patterns among variables in hard-to-survey populations. Because we observe varying levels of measurement equivalence, rigorous methodological strategies for post-hoc analyses are recommended. We propose measurement equivalence analysis as a post-hoc assessment strategy to quantify the analytical effectiveness of the employed sampling strategy.

Against the backdrop of political polarization and societal fragmentation, liberal democracy, more than ever, rests on social cohesion. Civil-society organizations (CSOs) are pivotal in fostering this cohesion by building social capital and serving as catalysts of social change. However, civil society is also a space of ambivalence where conflicting values and priorities are negotiated and, at times, contested. Integrating insights from social psychology, political sociology, and communication scholarship, this study seeks to better understand the extent and ways in which values are articulated in the external communication of CSOs, and how these values are linked to their public claims of fostering social cohesion. Combining organizational survey data of nearly 800 CSOs in Germany with a content analysis of their websites, this study finds clear tendencies toward communitarian (vs. individualistic), postmaterialist (vs. materialist), and secular-rational (vs. traditional) values in the CSOs' self-portrayals. CSOs that view themselves as agents of social change and, to some degree, politically active CSOs tend to invoke values more often, while those focused on sports/leisure and cultural activities were least likely to do so. Finally, for articulating organizational visions of socially cohesive communities, it does not matter much which value orientations in particular are invoked by CSOs as long as values are present in their external communication.

The article examines how social movements sustain interaction and survive beyond periods of heightened mobilization. Drawing on recent innovations in brokerage theory from organizational sociology, we explore the strategies employed by local brokers to create continued interaction opportunities. Our empirical analysis focuses on pro-refugee mobilization in Germany following the 2015-2016 refugee reception crisis, using 83 qualitative interviews conducted between 2020 and 2022. The interviews with volunteers, activists, and staff from the various collective actors involved in refugee support demonstrate the brokers' diversified approach to fostering interactions within pro-refugee communities. We identify three sets of interaction opportunities involving contentious and noncontentious actions related to maintaining the core work, policy advocacy, and broadening the issue scope. Trust building with other actors, particularly local state authorities, was crucial for facilitating these opportunities. Overall, the study identifies the mechanisms and conditions necessary for sustaining social interaction in social movements during the postmobilization phase.

The article examines varieties of trade union protest across industrial relations regimes, using protest event data for 27 European countries between 2000 and 2021. We present a large-n analysis of how the level and 'movement character' of union protest covaries with the strength and institutional settings of union movements across regimes. We show that unions remain important protest actors and that union protest in the public sphere notably outweighs workplace-related strikes. Furthermore, we find an inverse relationship between union institutionalization and the 'movement character' of union protest: While strong union movements in highly institutionalized regimes display a strike-heavy repertoire, weaker union movements in contexts of low institutionalization rely heavily on protest actions beyond the workplace strike. With these findings, we provide a novel empirical assessment of what unions do in the protest arena and how institutional settings can be conducive to strike-heavy versus protest-heavy union tactics.