During the last two decades, scholars from a variety of disciplines have argued that civil society is structurally
deficient in post-communist countries. Yet why have the seemingly strong, active and mobilized civic movements
of the transition period become so weak after democracy was established? And why have there been diverging
political trajectories across the post-communist space if civil society structures were universally weak?
This paper uses a wide range of data from various available sources to show that civil societies in Central and
Eastern European countries are not as feeble as is commonly assumed. Some post-communist countries possess
vigorous public spheres, and active civil society organizations strongly connected to transnational civic networks
able to shape domestic policies. Following the calls by Anheier (2004) and Bernhard and Karakoç (2007)
we adopt a multidimensional approach to the measurement of civil society.
In a series of cross-section timeseries models, we show that our broader measures of civic and social institutions are able to predict the diverging transition paths among post-communist regimes, and in particular the growing gap between democratic East Central Europe and the increasingly authoritarian post-Soviet space
