Why do citizens in democratic states allow governments to monitor them? Studies note that consent to surveillance to a large extent depends on trust in public institutions. But how is surveillance legitimised in states where this kind of trust is low, as in most of the European postcommunist countries? Using data from three former communist states, this study investigates the role of trust in close social networks. The results show that so-called 'particular social trust' may work as a substitute for trust in institutions. Particular social trust may produce legitimacy for policy measures, in this case, surveillance.

This article presents the results of an interview study carried out with sixteen data-protection authorities in Central and Eastern Europe. The study focuses on the way that data protection authorities reason about the past. The theoretical argument advanced in the text is that data protection in a post-communist context bears a specific historical significance due to the recent experiences with the extensive, coercive state surveillance that was systematized under the communist regimes. The article focuses on the institutional role conceptions of data protection authorities-a theoretical concept that denotes perceptions of the role of an organization within the larger institutional environment. High-level officials from data protection authorities in sixteen countries were interviewed about change and continuity in surveillance. The results show that historical reflectivity is not a dominant feature of the leadership of contemporary data protection authorities and that different countries differ considerably. The respondents least able or willing to discuss the topics of change and continuity are in societies with recent high-level surveillance scandals, such as Bulgaria and North Macedonia.

This article seeks to explain public attitudes to secret surveillance. Secret surveillance, for example wiretapping by intelligence agencies, is a controversial activity that affects fundamental civil liberties in any democratic system. Several large research projects have recently attempted to explain how people form opinions about surveillance in general. Thereby privacy concerns and institutional trust are often highlighted. In this article, we argue that earlier research uses a too narrow definition of attitudes to surveillance and that secret surveillance is particularly sensitive due to its opaque character. We introduce a two-dimensional concept that focuses on rationalistic and emotional responses to surveillance. Drawing on new data from three post-communist societies – Estonia, Poland, and Serbia – we show how institutional trust is mainly responsible for explaining acceptance of secret surveillance, but not how one feels about it. Instead, it is the level of ontological insecurity and privacy concerns that explains this second dimension. The results are theorised and implications for future research are discussed.

This special issue is the result of a research initiative that began in 2013, just before the annexation of Crimea by Russia. We, the guest editors, together with Pawel Waszkiewicz at the University in Warsaw, wanted to fill a gap in research on surveillance, which had at that time not yet addressed post-communist societies to any great extent. Today the situation is slightly different, but the need for further research is still pressing. It is therefore with great pleasure that we present a collection of five research articles by both senior and early-stage researchers, as well as a postscript by Professor Emeritus Maria Los, who is one of the few researchers who has written extensively on surveillance-related issues from a post-communist perspective. Below we introduce the special issue with a conceptual overview of post-communist research and its connections to surveillance studies.

This edited collection reports the results of a comparative study of video surveillance/CCTV in Germany, Poland, and Sweden. It investigates how video surveillance as technologically mediated social control is affected by national characteristics, with a specific concern for recent political history. The book is motivated by asking what makes video surveillance "tick" in three very different cultural settings, two of which (Poland and Sweden) are virtually unexplored in the literature on surveillance. The selection of countries is motivated by an interest in societies with recent experiences of authoritarianism, and how they respond to the global trend towards intensified technical means of control. With thorough empirical studies, the book constitutes an important contribution to security studies, surveillance studies, and post-communist area studies.

This article reports on the results of a study on surveillance and plural policing in the Stockholm public transport system. More specifically, it analyses a SEK 500 million (EUR 55 million) investment called The Security Project, through which the Stockholm public transport authority seeks to address a perceived security deficit among its passengers. At its core, the Security Project was an investment in Sweden's largest CCTV system, and many other surveillance measures. The article describes how surveillance became central to addressing security concerns in the Stockholm public transport system. It applies a diachronic case study methodology and uses a framework that highlights centralisation of governance networks and normative cohesion as means to study plural policing and surveillance. The article addresses current debates on these topics, primarily Coaffee's and Duijnhoven's recent work on urban security. It aims to show how the roles of the police, private security and surveillance practices in general have been altered by the Security Project, and how the project produced contradictory effects through centralisation on the one hand, and a maintained (chaotic) diversity of policing on the other.

This article reports on the results of a study on surveillance and plural policing in the Stockholm public transport system. More specifically, it analyses a SEK 500 million (EUR 55 million) investment called The Security Project, through which the Stockholm public transport authority seeks to address a perceived security deficit among its passengers. At its core, the Security Project was an investment in Sweden's largest CCTV system, and many other surveillance measures. The article describes how surveillance became central to addressing security concerns in the Stockholm public transport system. It applies a diachronic case study methodology and uses a framework that highlights centralisation of governance networks and normative cohesion as means to study plural policing and surveillance. The article addresses current debates on these topics, primarily Coaffee's and Duijnhoven's recent work on urban security. It aims to show how the roles of the police, private security and surveillance practices in general have been altered by the Security Project, and how the project produced contradictory effects through centralisation on the one hand, and a maintained (chaotic) diversity of policing on the other.