How do protest and its causes change after the transformation of communist regime to a democratic society? To answer this question it is argued that certain features of the transformation process have an impact on the immediate conditions for protest which prompt individuals directly to participate in protest action. These conditions are (political, social and economic) discontent, weighted by perceived personal political influence, a perceived obligation to participate (moral incentives) and integration in protest promoting networks (social incentives). The paper suggests propositions about changes of these factors before and after the transformation (i.e. for 1989 and later) and about changes after the transformation (i.e. between 1993 and 1998) focusing on the situation in East Germany. The propositions are tested with a four wave panel survey of 245 respondents from Leipzig (East Germany) who were interviewed in 1990 (referring to the situation under communist rule in 1989), 1993, 1996 and 1998. It was found, among other things, that discontent with the welfare state increased after unification, whereas economic and political discontent decreased. The felt obligation to protest was in general higher after communism. Social incentives to protest declined after communism. Protest declined continuously between 1989 and 1998. What was the differential impact of the incentives on protest in each year? It was found, e.g., that the effects of discontent on protest (in terms of the unstandardized regression coefficients) decreased strongly after 1989; the effect of involvement in protest promoting networks strongly increased after unification. The paper explores the question of how these effects, together with the changing average values of the incentives, brought about the steady decline of protest after unification.