| Description: |
National context consists of institutions and conditions in a country, while individual differences are attributes of a person. Using New Europe Barometer multi-year trend survey data, this paper combines the two. It examines the determinants of support for new political and economic systems in twelve countries of Central and Eastern Europe over almost the whole of the 1990s. Past and current experience, together with future expectations, provide a framework for the classification of individual differences. The paper confirms the finding that support for new economic and political systems depends on specific outputs, particularly in providing economic welfare and the expectation of welfare. At national level, the paper investigates the influence of favourable institutional conditions prior to democratization, economic growth, inflation and freedom on support in different countries in different years. It finds that, controlling for differences between individuals, support for new economic systems is heavily dependent on initial institutional conditions, while support for new political systems is responsive to regime performance subsequent to democratization.
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