Social Movements in Post-Communist Europe and Russia

Kerstin Jacobsson, Steven Saxonberg

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781138784369
• eBook ISBN: 9781317665823
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This volume provides a much needed update on the state of civil society in post-communist Europe and Russia more than two decades after the fall of the communist regimes. The chapters offer new perspectives on social movement strategies in post-communist Central-Eastern Europe and Russia. The chapters illustrate how social movements develop particular repertoires of action and contention, which are better suited for their specific local contexts in the post-communist setting. In Russia and Poland, the most popular and effective choices are using domestic and transnational legal opportunities, judicial activism and litigation that complement the traditional lobbying and mass mobilization. Human rights framing has become important in Hungary and the Czech Republic. The chapters analyse various types of rights-based activism that operate in otherwise prohibitive social and political environments, thereby raising highly contentious issues, such as animal rights, environment and sustainability, human rights, women's rights, and gay rights activism. The contributions richly illustrate the often surprising and multiple ways in which transnational discourses and norm pressure are received, translated or resisted in the local contexts. Finally, the volume provides a novel reconceptualisation and offers new understandings of the relationships between the state and civil society in the post-communist context.

This book is based on a special issue of East European Politics.

Introduction: A new look at social movements and civil society in post-communist Europe and Russia

Kerstin Jacobsson^a and Steven Saxonberg^b

^a Department of Sociology and Work Science, University of Gothenburg, Sweden;^b Centre for Social and Economic Strategies, Charles University, Czech Republic and Dalarna University College, Sweden

More than two decades since the revolutions of 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the development of social movements and civil society activism in post-communist countries remains a matter of considerable scholarly debate. Whilst earlier research tended to emphasise low levels of protest events and the weak and non-participatory nature of post-communist civil society in general (Mendelson and Glenn 2002, Howard 2003), more recent research has begun to re-evaluate this picture by illustrating the extent to which movement actors develop particular repertoires of action and contention, which are more appropriate for the opportunity structures available within these still young post-communist democracies (e.g. the contributions in Fagan and Carmin 2010, Jacobsson and Saxonberg forthcoming). For instance, it may make better sense to use more apolitical methods of campaigning in a country with a more closed state, rather than engaging in classical contentious politics. It might also be more efficient to fight issues in the courts, rather than trying to influence politicians. Moreover, it has been argued that social movement organisations in post-communist Europe, while less able to mobilise people into traditional forms of participatory activism, have been quite effective in so-called ‘transactional activism’. In other words, movement actors manage to build productive relationships with institutional actors in some cases (Petrova and Tarrow 2007, also Cisar 2010 and forthcoming). This symposium explores the extent to which this is true for all types of movements in each of the countries under study. While the dependent variable here is issue and movement type, the particular domestic political opportunity structure and resource availability are also highlighted as intervening in the efficacy of campaigns and actions. It appears immediately evident that the openness of public authorities for such collaboration depends on the types of movements in question and their claims.

In terms of a contribution to our knowledge of movement politics across Central and Eastern Europe and the post-Soviet space, the first three articles are important insofar as they focus on movements and organisations that have received less scholarly attention in the discourse on the post-communist countries so far: the gay rights movement, the animal rights movement, and organisations for disabled people.¹ They represent three types of rights-based activism that all operate in inhospitable social and political environments that are not evidently open to their claims. The fourth article provides a valuable theoretical conceptualisation of civil society in relation to the state in a post-Soviet setting.

Conor O’Dwyer shows that backlash can sometimes provoke new openings for movement claims in his article on the gay rights movement in Poland, which illustrates the need to examine the dynamics between movements and counter-movements. The article identifies three phases that the Polish gay rights movement has undergone, characterised by different framings of movement claims and differing density and visibility of activist networks. O’Dwyer concludes that the Polish gay rights movement has recently gained in strength despite the inhospitable political environment. Contrary to the expectation expressed within the Europeanisation literature, this is not due entirely or directly to conditionality and legal pressure from the EU. Indeed, in legal terms, little has changed concerning gay rights during the post-accession phase. Instead, international pressure for greater tolerance for homosexuality and for non-discrimination led to a backlash for gay rights in Poland, which in turn spurred movement mobilisation and helped to widen its domestic support base. The EU, thus, affected the political opportunity structure in an indirect way, which leads O’Dwyer to suggest that the impact of Europe may need to be reconceptualised to take into account the variety of ways in which the EU can influence the member states.

The Europeanisation effect on animal protection in Poland seems very limited, both in terms of legal pressure actually exerted on Polish authorities and in terms of the EU as providing new opportunities for movement claims. Kerstin Jacobsson’s article on the animal rights movement in Poland shows that it is the domestic opportunity structures that almost solely determine movement activity. Her article shows, inter alia, that courtroom litigation can be a practicable strategy for social movements in a context where the political opportunity structure is less open for input of movement claims in policy formulation. Although the Polish animal rights’ activists do combine judicial activism with policy-oriented strategies, the different types of opportunity structure – political, legal, economic and cultural – combine to channel activists towards animal charity rather than disruptive protest or strategies for political change. Jacobsson’s case study is also illustrative of how current Polish opportunity structures, despite Europeanisation, reflect communist-era legacies, resulting in a fragmentation of the collective action space.

Christian Fröhlich, in his article on disability NGOs in Russia, illustrates how civic action can take place in an environment of overt hostility towards civil society, and how disability organisations manage to translate their claims in ways that enable productive work for social rights. Interestingly, the Soviet legacy of repressing autonomous civil society activity works not only as a constraint, but is also used as a resource by civil society groups. Fröhlich identifies three types of disability organisations (government affiliates, grassroots and parent organisations, and professionalized organisations), which all have their own particular strategies for gaining influence and improving the situation of their target group while adapting their frames and tactics to the Russian context. One of his conclusions is that contention in the Russian context is more effective when taken out of the streets and into such arenas as the courtrooms and offices of state bureaucrats and politicians.

The relationship between state and civil society in Russia is also the topic of Elena Chebankova’s article, in which she contrasts two theoretical and political traditions: one approach, immediately more applicable to post-communist countries undergoing regime change, sees civil society as antagonistic to the state, whilst the other, more characteristic of the Western, liberal tradition, conceives the relationship between the state and civil society as cooperative and in terms of a partnership. The former approach, she suggests, can be theorised in neo-Gramscian terms as an ongoing ‘war of position’ for cultural hegemony between the dominant group, which seeks to secure the consent of civil society, and new civic associations which seek to challenge this hegemony and ultimately replace the old forms of consent with new ones. Chebankova argues that both approaches are relevant for the case of contemporary Russia, where the old state-paternal paradigm faces ideological and structural difficulties but where a new liberal, democratic culture has not been fully developed and implemented. The partnership relationship is characteristic of, for instance, the state-sponsored charity and social service-providing organisations, which tend to be legally supported by the Russian state as well as widely supported by the Russian public opinion. This is illustrated by Fröhlich in his article on disability organisations. However, the Gramscian approach is also useful for analysing other types of state-sponsored civil society organisations and institutions in Russia, such as the Public Chambers and think-tanks. On the one hand, in a neo-Gramscian analysis, the encouragement of such organisations and institutions is a strategy for the ruling elites to maintain their political hegemony. However, a closer look at these institutions reveals some scope for subversive activity and the opportunity for actors to exert pressure on the state as well as disseminate liberal values. Chebankova thus concludes that civil society organisations may have close relations with the state whilst also contributing to the ‘war of position’, and to a gradual systemic transformation of the political superstructure. Her conceptualisation enables us to see the space for contestation that exists in what may, from the liberal perspective, be seen as mere cooptation.

The articles thus contribute to the theoretical discussion of the relationship between state and civil society within a post-communist setting, of how civil society actors manage to balance – or exploit – the clash between ‘foreign’ norms and domestic public perception, the role and conceptualisation of opportunity structures, and legal activism as a complement to other repertoires of contention, as well as providing an updated empirical account of various types of rights-based activism.

Note

1. The papers by Fröhlich, Jacobsson and O’Dwyer were originally presented at a conference on ‘Social Movements in Central and Eastern Europe: National Mobilization Strategies’, held at Södertörn University on 18–19 March 2011, and generously funded by CEEBS (Centre for Baltic and East European Studies) at Södertörn University. Additional contributions will by published in an edited book (Jacobs-son and Saxonberg forthcoming) as well as in the form of future articles in this journal.

Notes on contributors

Kerstin Jacobsson is Professor of Sociology at Södertörn University, Sweden.

Steven Saxonberg is Professor of Sociology at Masaryk University, Czech Republic.

References

Cisar, O., 2010. Externally sponsored contention: the channelling of environmental movement organisations in the Czech Republic after the fall of communism. Environmental Politics, 19 (5), 736–755.

Cisar, O., forthcoming. The diffusion of public interest mobilization: a historical sociology view on the advocates without members in the post-communist Czech Republic. East European Politics.

Fagan, A. and Carmin, J., eds., 2010. Green activism in post-socialist Europe and the former Soviet Union. London: Routledge.

Howard, M.M., 2003. The weakness of civil society in post-communist Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Jacobsson, K. and Saxonberg, S., eds., forthcoming. Beyond NGO-ization. The development of social movements in Central and Eastern Europe. Farnham: Ashgate.

Mendelson, S.E. and Glenn, J.K., eds., 2002. The power and limits of NGOs. A critical look at building democracy in Eastern Europe and Eurasia. New York: Columbia University Press.

Petrova, T. and Tarrow, S., 2007. Transactional and participatory activism in the emerging European polity: the puzzle of East Central Europe. Comparative Political Studies, 40 (1), 74–94.

Addendum
Introduction to the additional two articles

Kerstin Jacobsson^a and Steven Saxonberg^b

^a Department of Sociology and Work Science, University of Gothenburg, Sweden;^b Centre for Social and Economic Strategies, Charles University, Czech Republic and Dalarna University College, Sweden

The articles by Fábián and Císař deal with the impact that international funding and other sources of transnational influences have had on social movements and civil society activism in Hungary and the Czech Republic. Fábián discusses the influence of international organisations on the Hungarian women’s movement. She observes that in the early 1990s the women’s movement largely focused on welfare issues, such as opposition to raising the retirement age too quickly. However, since Western organisations were actively pushing for neo-liberal welfare reforms, it was difficult to get aid when they pursued a welfarist agenda. When they switched their focus to violence against women, which they framed as a human rights issue, it became much easier to get aid from Western organisations.

Fábián breaks the Hungarian women’s movement into two waves. The first wave took place from 1989 to 2000. In this period, they concentrated on welfare issues and received little aid from international organisations. The women’s movement was not so interested in human rights issues, with the exception of the abortion issue, as a debate about banning abortions arose in the first post-communist years. After the debate on reproductive rights, Hungarian women’s groups mobilised around welfare issues. After 1995 welfare issues became less salient in the national discourse and women’s groups began stagnating.

In 2000, the second wave began as Hungarian NGOs conducted a coordinated campaign to criminalise domestic violence. The most important organisation is NANE, which Fábián labels a ‘norm entrepreneur’. It has pushed for “norm congruence” between Hungarian and international laws in the area. This new wave was more transnational in character and NANE gets most of its funding from international organisations and did not receive any state aid until 2009.

Fábián points out that the campaign against domestic violence has brought about a ‘boomerang’ pattern. The women’s organisations initiate pressure on their government and then turn to the international community for support to continue lobbying for these issues in support of the Hungarian groups. In this sense, one can consider these dynamics to be a case of ‘transnational brokerage’ as the Hungarian organisations reach out to international organisations for moral and legal support. This causes a process of ‘diffusion’ in the sense that ideas get diffused through international mechanisms. A negative consequence of this brokerage, however, has been that Hungarian women’s groups have toned down or entirely eliminated more radical feminist claims addressing unequal power relations in society as well as welfare-oriented or economic demands, in favour of a liberal rights-based framing of gender-issues.

While Fábián focuses on the disciplining effects that international influence and funding has had on the Hungarian women’s movement, Císař’s article points to the enabling aspects of international funding. International patronage, Císař argues, has contributed to the development of capable policy advocates in the Czech Republic. He observes that Czech NGOs have become heavily dependent on international financing and therefore have oriented their activism toward transactional activism rather than on mobilisation. Transactional activism enables civil society organisations to engage the state and other collective actors through various types of interactions. This includes engaging in lobbying, coalition building, networking and various types of interactions with policymakers. Císař shows that in the first half of the 1990s, American and European state and non-state organisations provided the main source of support; however, in the late 1990s, EU funds became the dominant form of external financing. This change increased the pressure on civil society organisations to professionalise in order to become eligible for EU funding. This has also helped various rights groups that push for ‘post-materialist’ issues. Thus, Císař finds that the move toward transactional activism influences the types of issues that organisations pursue: transactional activists focus much more on post-materialist issues than participatory activists.

Císař points to three trends. First, there has been a large increase in the number of NGOs. Second, they have focussed on post-material issues, although international surveys show that Czechs do not score highly on having post-materialist values. Third, small, professionalised but highly capable advocacy groups dominate the scene.

The contributions of this volume richly illustrate how post-communist social movement actors negotiate domestic and transnational opportunities and the often surprising and multiple ways in which transnational discourses and norm pressure are received, translated or resisted in the local contexts. The contributions also in different ways re-evaluate the conventional characterisation of post-communist civil society as weak. All in all, the volume provides a much needed update on the state of civil society in post-communist Europe and Russia more than two decades after the fall of the communist regimes.

Disciplining the “Second World”: the relationship between transnational and local forces in contemporary Hungarian women’s social movements

Katalin Fábi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Citation Information
• 1. Introduction: A new look at social movements and civil society in post-communist Europe and Russia
• 2. Addendum: Introduction to the additional two articles
• 3. Disciplining the “Second World”: the relationship between transnational and local forces in contemporary Hungarian women’s social movements
• 4. Does the EU help or hinder gay-rights movements in post-communist Europe? The case of Poland
• 5. Fragmentation of the collective action space: the animal rights movement in Poland
• 6. The diffusion of public interest mobilisation: a historical sociology perspective on advocates without members in the post-communist Czech Republic
• 7. Civil society and the state intertwined: the case of disability NGOs in Russia
• 8. State-sponsored civic associations in Russia: systemic integration or the ‘war of position’?
• Index