EU member states are mostly united in their support for the broad European project. The EU gets largely favorable ratings, most say membership has been good for their countries, and most believe their countries have benefited economically from being a part of the EU, although positive reviews for the institution are hardly universal.
The most favorable ratings for the EU are found in former communist nations Poland and Lithuania, both of which became member states in As previous Pew Research Center studies have shown, Europeans tend to believe in the ideals of the EU, but they have complaints about how it functions.
Most have said the EU stands for peace, democracy and prosperity, but most also believe it is intrusive and inefficient and that Brussels does not understand the needs of average citizens.
The two former communist nations in the survey that have not joined the EU — Russia and Ukraine, both of which were part of the Soviet Union — look very different from the EU nations surveyed on a number of measures. They are less approving of the shifts to democracy and capitalism, less supportive of specific democratic principles and less satisfied with their lives. The survey covers a broad array of topics, including views about the transition to multiparty politics and free markets, democratic values, the EU, Germany, political leaders, life satisfaction, economic conditions, gender equality, minority groups and political parties.
The survey was conducted among 18, people from May 13 to Aug. This study builds upon two previous surveys by Pew Research Center and its predecessor. The second was a poll conducted by Pew Research Center from Aug. The survey took place prior to the dissolution of both Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union. Even though Czechoslovakia was a single country in , we show results for geographic areas that correspond to the present-day Czech Republic and Slovakia.
In Ukraine in , we do not survey in Crimea or areas under conflict in the eastern oblasts of Luhansk and Donetsk. For more information, see the Methodology. Across all 14 EU countries included in the study, as well Russia, Ukraine and the United States, there is broad support for specific democratic rights and institutions. Respondents were presented with nine different features of liberal democracy, then asked how important it is to have each one in their country.
Majorities in every nation polled said all of these nine factors are at least somewhat important, and in most countries, large majorities expressed this view. However, attitudes differ regarding whether these principles are very important. Large majorities typically consider having a fair judicial system and gender equality very important, but support for religious freedom and allowing civil society groups to operate freely is in some cases less enthusiastic.
And there are notable differences across countries. Western Europeans are generally more likely than Central and Eastern Europeans to rate these rights and institutions as very important.
Russians consistently express the lowest levels of support. Americans, meanwhile, are often especially likely to consider these principles very important. For instance, representative democracy is widely embraced, but significant shares of the public in many nations are open to nondemocratic forms of government as well.
People support free expression, but there are strong differences across nations regarding the appropriate boundaries of permissible speech.
And, as the current survey shows, fundamental democratic rights and institutions are widely embraced, but some give those principles a less than full-throated endorsement. There are also large cross-national differences on how people view the current state of democracy in their country. One factor driving dissatisfaction with the way democracy is working is frustration with political elites, who are often perceived as out of touch with average citizens.
In former Eastern Bloc nations, there is a widespread perception that politicians — and to a somewhat lesser extent, business people — have benefited greatly from the changes that have taken place since the end of the communist era. The belief that ordinary people have benefited is much less common, although the share of the public expressing this view has increased in many countries since Another sign of frustration with political elites and institutions is the poor ratings for most European political parties.
The survey asked respondents whether they have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of major parties in their country. In total, we asked about 59 parties across the 14 EU nations surveyed — but only six of these parties receive a favorable rating from half or more of the public.
Despite the misgivings many have about the way democracy is working, most still believe they can have an influence on the direction of their country. One of the most significant political developments of the past three decades has been the integration of many Central and Eastern European nations into the European Union.
Of course, another major development in recent years has been the rise of populist political parties and movements throughout Europe that have questioned the value of European integration and railed against Brussels on a variety of fronts.
The United Kingdom has gone so far as to vote to leave the EU. Overall, attitudes toward the EU are positive. Roughly half or more in every member state surveyed express a favorable opinion of the institution. In contrast, only half or fewer believe membership has been good in Italy, the UK and the Czech Republic. Publics are somewhat more lukewarm about the economic impact of EU membership. Overall, views about the general impact of EU membership, and the specific economic impact of membership, have improved in recent years as economic concerns have eased somewhat in many nations.
The improvement in several of the Central and Eastern European countries that have joined the EU is dramatic. However, improvements are not limited to the former Eastern Bloc. Even though their countries have experienced economic challenges in recent years, people in France and Spain are much more positive about their lives than they were almost three decades ago. The first prisoners were all communists. Later in the Nazis banned all political parties.
They intensified the targeting of Communists, Social Democrats, and trade unionists. As early as —before the Nazi regime had made any significant moves against Jews or the disabled—German Communists were detained in mass arrests and tortured. Once the war began, the Commissar Order demonstrated the depth of Nazi fear and hatred of communism.
Bergen, Doris. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, Evans, Richard J. The Coming of the Third Reich. New York: Penguin Books, Evans, Richard.
The Third Reich in Power, New York: Penguin, Hanebrink, Paul. Hayes, Peter. Explaining the Holocaust. New York: Norton, Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto. Elections in Europe: A Data Handbook. Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Weitz, Eric D. German History in Documents and Images. We would like to thank Crown Family Philanthropies and the Abe and Ida Cooper Foundation for supporting the ongoing work to create content and resources for the Holocaust Encyclopedia.
View the list of all donors. Trending keywords:. Featured Content. Tags Find topics of interest and explore encyclopedia content related to those topics. Browse A-Z Find articles, photos, maps, films, and more listed alphabetically. For Teachers Recommended resources and topics if you have limited time to teach about the Holocaust. Wise — International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. Our emails are made to shine in your inbox, with something fresh every morning, afternoon, and weekend.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were clearly sick of explaining that communism was not a synonym for evil or naivety, but a historical stage vital to the flourishing of all. But, more than a century and a half later, the jittery gossip about communism continues.
His work, however, is now barely taught in the West. We might have scant knowledge of Marx these days, but we do retain enormous confidence that his ideas crumbled into dust along with the Berlin Wall. That wall never contained communism.
And, heck, communism contains some ideas that are still very appealing, especially in times such as now when an economic downturn has been felt by so many. Communism is a system of social organization that has never been truly tried and, these days, never truly explained. Yet it inspires fear in some, derision in others, and an almost universal unconcern for what it is actually intended to convey.
You could read Marx for yourself, of course, and find that his communism is not made from dreary monsters but instead complex reasoning toward a future social evolution. Many of its features may even be acceptable to your conservative aunt, if only she read him, too.
First up, you need to suffer one of those tedious passages where we define some terms. Here we go: Socialism and communism and liberalism are not interchangeable words. The liberal, whether of a progressive or conservative sort, believes that social problems largely derive from poor individual morals. US presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, for example, said our moral intolerance of minorities is the great problem with America; US president Donald Trump said our moral privileging of minorities is the great problem with America.
The communist cannot agree with either proposition. Currently, that system is capitalism. Communism is the critique and the antidote to capitalism, with all its problems, including those of social and cultural division. A liberal believes that capitalism can be humanized. A socialist is skeptical about this.
In other words, liberals think a few bad apples spoil the supply. A communist thinks that the crate itself is rotten. A communist is a socialist, but a socialist is not necessarily a communist. A communist believes that socialism is a historical phase that precedes communism and follows capitalism. Socialism is that system where the state is the full or partial owner of all property.
Communism is the collective ownership of all property. A communist wants more.
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