Civil Society Revisited Lessons from Poland

We challenge, or in other instances qualify, dominant claims about civil society in Poland as weak and bureaucratized, showing the potential for grassroots mobilization and collective action. Thus, even though the volume was submitted for publication before 2015 elections, our analysis helps to understand the emergence of the mass protests, which erupted in the Fall 2015 and 2016. Most of the existing literature on civil society in Poland focuses on the third sector, that is on non-profit NGOs. Our volume takes a broader view of civil society in Poland, covering both formal and informal forms of activism, including mobilizations at the infra-level and social movements. · The volume covers not only activism of socially progressive orientation (which adheres to common definitions of civil society as oriented towards equality, individual and minority rights) but also protest actions of conservative groups, fuelled by for instance religious symbolism and imagery. Moreover, while most studies of Polish civil society focus on the civil society organizations developed after 1989 this volume includes also the ‘old’ associational life developed under state-socialism and still in existence. The volume thus reflects the richness and complexity of Polish civil society. While many edited volumes tend to present a range of case-studies without providing a coherent conceptual framework, this volume is structured around a common set of questions that drive empirical and theoretical inquiry. The volume identifies a number of theoretical, methodological as well as empirical lessons, of relevance for civil society research generally.