Mobilizing Grassroots in the City: Lessons for Civil Society Research in Central and Eastern Europe

Kerstin Jacobsson,Elżbieta Korolczuk

doi:10.1007/s10767-019-9320-7

Abstract

What can we learn about civil society in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and Russia from studies on activism within the region’s urban spaces? In this article, we argue that studying urban activism in CEE offers useful insights for general theory building about the importance of uneventful protests, the formation of agency and the processes of becoming active in the public sphere (conceptualized here as “political becoming”), and the enabling role of informality in collective action in adverse contexts. By contributing to our understanding in this way, these insights help to advance relational and process-based conceptions of civil society.

Highlights

Civil society in Central and Eastern Europe has been the topic of much scholarly debate.1 In the first two decades after 1989, narratives about “weak civil society” dominated the research literature
This research has focused on the NGO-ization of civil society, which is characterized by depoliticization and donor dependency due to these NGOs being sponsored by external sources, especially during the first decade of economic and political transformation (e.g., Gawin & Gliński 2006; Mendelson & Glenn 2002; Narozhna 2004)
While our research focus here is on Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), including Russia, our central argument is that the development of civic activism in the region is marked by both general trends in the contemporary world and the region’s distinctive experiences of state-socialism and post-socialist transformation

Summary

Introduction

Civil society in Central and Eastern Europe has been the topic of much scholarly debate. In the first two decades after 1989, narratives about “weak civil society” dominated the research literature. Civil society in Central and Eastern Europe has been the topic of much scholarly debate.. In the first two decades after 1989, narratives about “weak civil society” dominated the research literature. As Salamon put it “despite its achievements [ ... ] the Central European civil society sector remains [ ... ] a fragile organism, undercapitalized, under-staffed, and still not fully integrated into the prevailing political and economic order” Scholars lamenting the weakness of civil society in post-socialist Europe have highlighted the lack of social and political trust, the general passivity of the population, and low levels of engagement in political

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Urban Transformation and Urban Movements in Central and Eastern Europe

Conclusion