Civil Society and Extreme-Right Collective Action in Poland 1990–2013

Civil Society and Extreme-Right Collective Action in Poland 1990–2013

Civil society is considered an important element of the modern demo- cratic order and is expected to fill the space between the state, the market and the private sphere. However, there are social movements that try to occupy this particular sphere, yet deviate from the ideal of civic-minded organisa...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Revue d'études comparatives est-ouest 2016-12, Vol.47 (4), p.117-146
Main Authors: Platek, Daniel, Plucienniczak, Piotr
Format: Article
Language:eng
Subjects:
Behavior
Civil society
Collective action
Egalitarianism
Ethnic groups
Homophobia
LGBTQ people
Minority groups
Modern society
Private sphere
Rhetoric
Right wing politics
Social movement theory
Social movements
Time periods
Violence
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Civil society is considered an important element of the modern demo- cratic order and is expected to fill the space between the state, the market and the private sphere. However, there are social movements that try to occupy this particular sphere, yet deviate from the ideal of civic-minded organisations that support and sustain the democratic order. The main feature of such movements is the acceptance of violence as a means of political struggle and an anti-state and anti-egalitarian ideology. Since the beginning of the 1990s in Poland, aggressive homophobic rhetoric has escalated and the number of attacks on ethnic minorities, LGBT communities and leftists has increased greatly. Nevertheless, only a few such incidents aroused interest and action at the highest political level. Drawing on social movement theory and the methodology of protest event analysis, which uses information gleaned from national newspapers, we propose a way to conceptualise the specific repertoires and targets of the Polish extreme right from 1990 to 2013 with a special emphasis on two kinds of repertoire: confrontational (violent) and conventional. Our general task is to show variations over time and analyse the three distinct time periods of this phenomenon: 1990-2000, 2001-2007 and 2008-2013. Our particular task is to test aspects of the mechanism of movement formalisation responsible for changes in the proportions of confrontational and conventional acts, actors responsible for such behaviour and targets related to these actions over time.
ISSN:0338-0599