Suchergebnisse

Despite the polarization of Polish politics after 2005, there are appearing offers addressed to a moderate political centre. During the parliamentary campaign 2019, elements of such an offer resonansed in the election message of the "Law and Justice" (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość) election committee as well. However, the essence of its campaign seems to be mobilizing various groups of voters by displaying the axis of political and social sharp divisions, and its moderate tones can be considered mainly as political rhetoric. The perspective of creating a moderate political centre is brought by the possible independence of "Agreement Jarosław Gowin's" (Porozumienie Jarosława Gowina). The redefinition of existing political polarization axes seems to be the way to build a political centre in Poland.

An important feature of the development processes in Mazovia is a deep polarization between Warsaw with its metropolitan area and the rest of the region. The capital (and surrounding municipalities) is a center for innovation in the country, but at the same time it leans more towards imitation of external solutions, rather than creation of original innovations. The situation in rural areas in the region is in this respect much worse. Public policy can stimulate innovative economy in these areas, although this is an extremely difficult task. The article presents recommendations on selected public policies, particularly enabling diversification of economic activities beyond agriculture which seems to be the most desirable direction of modernization changes.

Transitions, democratization and recent democratic backsliding in CEE provide
a rich context for examining the meaning and shifting of civic activism and how people
participate and organize in civil society today. This article offers a fresh and comparative
analysis based on empirical data on the question of what motivates formal and informal
activism, and the potentially transformative role of civil society that has recently faced
such challenges as democratic backsliding, shrinking public space and polarization. It
looks specifically at the responses of Polish and Hungarian activists and advocacy CSOs
to these new challenges. Their strategies bring an important lesson on how civil society
actors can adapt, continue their mission, or even turn challenges into opportunities.
These new trends indicate that civic space in CEE is shifting which is further influenced
by the reactions to new forms of social, economic and political crises. It is argued that
this shift and the new trends in civic activism require not only fresh empirical data, but
also a revision of normative and methodological approaches that have so far been used
in civil society and social movement research.

This paper is devoted to the analysis of the socio-political changes that occurred in Poland in 2016 as a result of the outbreak of the so-called black protests. The protests, which later became known as the All-Poland Women's Strike, were activated several times in the following years, as a result of subsequent events related to the provisions regulating the right to abortion in Poland. The empirical findings contained in this text result from the analysis of statistical data (CBOS reports), dedicated to the research of political party electorates, which was carried out in 2015, 2017 and 2021. Moreover, the article presents own research conducted in the period from April to July 2021 using the method of analysis of the content published on social media by entities established after 2016. The results of the research confirm that the outbreak and the subsequent periodic activation of protests, supported by the activities of entities promoting the right to abortion, initiated two significant changes in Poland. The first is the clear polarization of political party electorates regarding the right to abortion, and the second is the intensification of the discourse on the very right to abortion, introducing new arguments regarding termination of pregnancy to the agenda (as well as other topics related to the situation of women and broadly understood sex education). Both of the indicated outcomes resulted in the phenomenon of abortion being visible in the public discourse, especially in social media. The following analysis is part of the trend of social research devoted to the importance of socio-political protests in democratic countries and the role of social media as an immanent tool used in the activity of new social movements.