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The sphere of grassroots and civil activism became highly politicized before the 2015 elections. The introduction of the new policies has resulted in higher levels of mobilizations, both supporting and resisting the new policies of the PiS government. For instance, Poland has switched from a country with the highest acceptance rate for refugees in the EU to the one with the lowest rate within around a year sparking a number of anti-migrant and anti-refugee mobilizations and at the same time fueled the growth of initiatives opposing the trend. The narrative about masses of refugees in Poland and at its borders threatening various aspects of Polish culture, civilization, and identity started to keep heat in the bed and have provoked numerous intended and unintended consequences, political and social, so as further campaigns against LGBT community. In this paper I reflect on the development of the anti-fascist and anti-racist movements in Poland in the face of structural changes that are a result of the political shift initiated in 2015.

The issue of migration had become highly politicized in Poland already before the 2015 elections. The neoconservative Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, PiS) party made it one of the key topics in the electoral campaign both for the parliamentary and for the presidential elections, both of which the party won. Poland has switched from a country with the highest acceptance rate of refugees in the EU to the one with the lowest rate within about a year. The narrative about masses of refugees in Poland and at its borders threatening Polish culture, civilization and identity started to gather momentum and has provoked numerous intended and unintended consequences, political and social. On the one hand such statements and politics have sparked an increase in hate speech and incidents, and violent actions. On the other, as a reaction, there is an observable awakening of the civil society in Poland through more intensified actions of various groups and organizations. Both are outcomes of the situation in which the government and the ruling party take a strong and negative stance on the issue of migrants and refugees. At the same time, anti-racist activism has been instrumentalized as a tool for anti-government struggles, involving new actors into the struggle. The new alliances forged after 2015 are more than interesting and will be described below, based on the empirical research conducted for a comparative research project on anti-racist contention in the Baltic Sea region. I will show particularly the nature of cooperation between grassroots groups (often radical) and the more moderate NGOs, activists (of both stripes) and civil servants as well as politicians; and here point to the specific role of municipalities and the city-level.

The threats to democracy from populist political projects are more and more often commented on and analyzed around the world. The Polish case is not an exception as there are numerous scholarly papers on the changes in public discourse, politics, democratic institutions and the like. The case of civil society is, however, sometimes overlooked and downplayed in this stream of thought. This article looks at the recent reconfigurations within the sphere of civil society in Poland as well as in the ways this sector of activities is conceptualized and analyzed by scholars and commentators alike. This approach stems from understanding civil society in Poland as a political project, a process begun around the transition of 1989, but that also had political meaning during the years of consolidation of democracy. Only the recent reconfiguration and accumulation of power and consequent shift in politics and public discourse to the right has resulted – among other things – in higher levels of activism among citizens and politicization of numerous topics. The observed higher levels of citizen engagement have pushed some observers and scholars to re-define the concept of civil society in Poland and to include within it forms of activism previously excluded. With the numerous and often politicized collective actions of Poles – such as nationalist activism, urban activism, and participation in street protests – not only is the concept of civil society being stretched but also some previously used distinctions, such as the notion of 'uncivil society', are no longer in use.

Większość badań nad ruchem alterglobalistycznym koncentruje się na Europie Zachodniej i Ameryce Północnej, od czasu do czasu uwzględniając inne części świata. Badania na temat tego ruchu w krajach postsocjalistycznych Europy Środkowej i Wschodniej są mniej niż wyczerpujące i rzadko podejmowane z perspektywy porównawczej. Niniejszy artykuł ma na celu wypełnienie tej luki poprzez opisanie kluczowych wydarzeń z historii tego ruchu, jak również genealogii oddolnego aktywizmu w regionie. Ruch alterglobalistyczny rozwinął się w środowisku wrogo nastawionym do lewicowych ideologii i grup. Niniejszy artykuł ma wyjaśnić nie tylko rozwój ruchu alterglobalistycznego w regionie, lecz także jego źródła. Stawia również pytania o naturę ruchu i sposobów jego analizy ‒ jako upolitycznionego ruchu społecznego lub subkultury i stylu życia. Bliskie związki oddolnych ruchów społecznych oraz subkultury i kontrkultury w Europie Środkowej i Wschodniej mogą sugerować nowe i świeże spojrzenie na badania ruchów społecznych.

Most of the research on the alterglobalist, also known as the global justice, movement has focused on Western Europe and North America, with occasional research on other parts of the world. There has been little research done on this movement in the postsocialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. This paper attempts to fill this gap by exploring the key events of the movement as well as the genealogy of grassroots social activism in the region. It offers insight into a movement that developed in a region that, due to its history, has been rather hostile to leftist ideologies and groups. This paper examines the development of the alterglobalist movement in the region and traces its inspirations and path dependencies. It also poses questions about the nature of the movement and ways to analyse it – whether as a politicized social movement or a subculture and lifestyle choice. The close connections of Central and Eastern European grassroots social movements to subcultures and counterculture might suggest a new and fresh perspective for studying social movements.

The transition to democracy in 1989 in Central and Eastern Europe is said to be the achievement of the dissident sector. In Poland the biggest power in the democratization process was the Solidarność trade union. At the same time many smaller grassroots groups from that time remain unnoticed and their influence on the democratization process is underrated. Such grassroots groups were responsible for organizing numerous strikes, campaigns on the issues of environmental protection and many others. They also brought novel protest repertoires and managed to mobilize different sectors of the society. This paper aims at presenting the complex environment of civil society actors in the democratization of Poland as well as presents the broader context for the transformation of 1989: structural preconditions, cleavages within the authorities and main waves of protest events. ; The research project 'Mobilizing for Democracy: Democratization Processes and the Mobilization of Civil Society' is funded by European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant. (Grant Agreeement no: 269136.)

AbstractJarocin in Poland is usually associated with one of the biggest rock festivals behind the Iron Curtain. It was not only a birthplace of many music groups in the 1980s, but also an enclave of freedom in communist Poland. It was a place where young people could manifest their music and fashion tastes, listen to their favorite bands and enjoy few days of relative freedom. This article highlights the main events in the history of the festival and also tries to assess its significance for the broader political and cultural life of Poland in the 1980s. It also looks at the role the festival played in the creation of youth subcultures and in catalyzing political changes in "late socialist" Poland.

This article discusses the experience of civil society and social movements inCentral and Eastern Europe both before and after the events of 1989. It showshow the different paths to the development of "civil society" as an organisingconcept in the pre-1989 period impacted on experiences after that date, and relates this to broader theoretical debates on the concept. In particular, it argues that the movements of "un-civil society" often fulfil a more substantial political role than the NGOs of "civil society", for a range of reasons. Thearticle draws on a series of interviews conducted with "alter-globalisation" activists in the region

Two years after the peak of the 2020 street protests for reproductive rights in Poland, Magdalena Muszel and Grzegorz Piotrowski explore the movement's effects on Polish society. Despite the dissipating energy of the participants and continued intransigence of most major parties, this cycle of protests shifted the values and political preferences of specific gender and age groups, as well as affecting the common perception of protest movements in Poland.

Black Monday and the National Women's Strike in 2016 caused a new wave of feminist/women's activists to appear. One of the main determinants of the success of these protests was their geographical distribution: most of the demonstrations took place in small towns and cities. The main aim of this article is to present the civic practices of activists – organizers of the above-mentioned protests – from small towns and cities. On the basis of 24 in-depth interviews the authors intend to present the characteristics of civic practices in provincial Polish cities. The proposed article will present a look at civic practices from a completely new perspective, using the dividing lines so far ignored in research on social movements, especially pro-women's movements in Poland.