Abstract
In Communist regimes the party‐state used fear to make people say what the party wanted in public regardless of what they thought privately. To test for the incidence of fear distorting public opinion, the 2004/2005 round of the New Europe Barometer (NEB) survey in 13 post‐Communist countries, some free while others are not, asked whether respondents thought people are today afraid to say what they think. Overall, 51% indicated some fear, 45% did not and 4% replied don’t know. Five hypotheses are tested about why some people are afraid to voice opinions while others are not: the failure of all to account for differences implies a random distribution of fear. As a cross‐check on this finding, the paper then considers whether fearful people differ in their answers to political questions about partisanship and approval of the political system independent of their socio‐economic characteristics and attitudes. They do not. The conclusion considers the implications of publicly expressed opinions, whether freely expressed or not, for undemocratic as well as democratic political systems.
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