Patterns Of Demobilization: A Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) of Far-Right Demonstration Campaigns (original) (raw)
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The landscape of social mobilizations in Poland has changed radically since 1989. Civil society understood as the third sector (non-governmental, non-for-profit organizations and associations) is nowadays recognized as an important part of the democratic order filling the gap between the state, the market and the private sphere, but social movements, sometimes disruptive ones, also claim this space. Normative definition of civil society reflect the assumption that civic activism should build social capital, trust and shared values, which are transferred into the political sphere and help to hold society together (Putnam et al. 1994, see also Jezierska in this volume). However, there are types of social movements that deviate from the vision of civil society as a sphere populated by civic minded organizations which are support democracy and its sustainability. The main feature of such kind of movements is the use of violence and anti-state, undemocratic ideology. The extreme-right movement, with its antidemocratic attitudes, seems to be particularly relevant. Drawing on social movement theory and the methodology of protest event analysis, which uses information gleaned from national newspapers to measure occurrences of the protest events, we propose a way to conceptualize the specific field of mobilization of the Polish extreme right as a combination of political and discursive opportunities. Our central task here is to explain variations in the mobilization by the extreme right across time and to analyze the three distinct phases of this phenomenon: marginalization (1989-1999), institutionalization (2000-2005) and radicalization (2006-2013). Our general thesis is that the extreme-right movement is stable in its anti-systemic and anti-minority aims, while its action repertoire and targets change accordingly to the shifts in the abovementioned opportunity structures. In some contexts, extreme-right groups can use democratic institutions to attain power or to become a part of the ruling institutions. In this way, the movement is able to transcend the boundaries between civil and uncivil society, as it adapts to political and social trends.