We frequently witness massive protests across various European countries, but when was the last time a European government actually fell because of them?
Following a turbulent transition, most Eastern European regimes now appear stabilized: economic and political elites have emerged, controlling sufficient national resources to the point where personal well-being depends on submission to the regime. Elections are materially conditioned by pervasive clientelism, while protests remain powerless as long as they cannot threaten the elite’s political control or economic interests.
Moreover, the ruling parties in many of these countries suppress, fragment, or co-opt the opposition, ensuring that even potential resistance lacks clear political direction. In Serbia, hundreds of thousands of citizens revolt against the government, yet no capable representative offers them an alternative to power. In our own country, various protest groups limit their demands to narrowly defined issues, avoiding direct confrontation with the government while actively distancing themselves from the opposition and politics in general.
Despite their grip on elections, the economy, and other levers of control, government leaders in these countries justify their authority by claiming they were democratically elected, and that no preferable alternative exists. And they may be right—after all, they consistently emerge victorious in popular votes.
Academic studies on political polarization over the past two or three decades (including an article I co-authored with two professors during my PhD in Atlanta) have observed a growing ideological divide among supporters of different parties in pluralistic societies. This widening gap is not only a result of stronger support for one’s own leaders but also of increasing opposition to those of rival factions. In other words, political preference today is not just about supporting who you like but also about rejecting who you don’t want in power.
In contemporary systems that do not provide alternative ways to express political dissent, this opposition manifests solely through voting for another candidate or party. A citizen whose strongest political sentiment is disapproval of a particular candidate or party is forced to express it indirectly—by voting for “the lesser evil.”
But it hasn’t always been this way. In ancient Athens, for nearly a century, citizens could vote to exile an individual from the city-state for ten years. This was a purely negative vote—it did not form a government or appoint anyone to office; it simply determined whether an individual, usually from the political elite, would be banished. It was not a trial; no evidence was assessed; no witnesses were summoned—just an expression of civic will aimed at preventing any one person from accumulating unchecked power that could threaten the state’s interests.
In nowadays’ conditions, where suffocated (strangled) majorities struggle to rally behind an alternative to those in power, perhaps implementing a similar mechanism of expulsion could be a goal worth pursuing. After all, in its absence, it is the governments that are expelling the majorities.
Among all the Eastern European leaders who repeatedly win elections as “the lesser evil,” how many would survive such a system?
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