The role of Western NGOs in the transition of postcommunist nations to democracy has been well documented. In this study, Paulina Pospieszna follows a different trajectory, examining the role of a ...former aid recipient (Poland), newly democratic itself, and its efforts to aid democratic transitions in the neighboring states of Belarus and Ukraine.
While the social-cultural conflict has been examined at the level of sociopolitical actors, less is known about how this division operates at the level of ordinary citizens and their participation in ...politics. Using originally collected nationally representative public opinion surveys, this study connects the ideological cultural dimension of politics and citizens’ political participation in five post-communist countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Czech Republic, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine. Specifically, the article (1) maps the mobilizing potential for culturally liberal and conservative issues; (2) examines the profile of people (sociodemographic characteristics, political attitudes, democratic norms, and membership in organizations) in these two camps; and (3) demonstrates how the mobilizing potential of the two ideological camps translates into actual types of political participation (voting; protesting; petition signing; and Internet activism). The analysis shows relatively high mobilizing potential for culturally liberal issues in five post-communist countries and a relatively weak link between culturally conservative mobilizing potential and civil society engagement.
In Search of Academic Excellence Klichowski, Michał; Pospieszna, Paulina; Sakson-Boulet, Anna
2022, 2022-03-09, Volume:
II
eBook
Open access
All papers of this edition give an opportunity for reflection on the chances, challenges and difficulties associated with the long-term transformation of higher education and scientific activities. ...Therefore, the concept of “scientific excellence” has been perceived as a guiding idea in the academics’ efforts. On the other hand, it seems to be an ideal that can never be achieved but towards which one ought to strive persistently. Furthermore, the pursuit of excellence is accompanied by contradictions which have been pointed out many times in the history of academia in Poland. This publishing series embodies the belief in the existence of the so-called invisible college, i.e., the research community, exemplified by young scientists starting their academic path inspired by recognized professors.
Democratic backsliding in Central and Eastern European countries is on the rise. Independent judiciaries, other institutions of liberal democracy, as well as civil liberties and media freedom are ...being undermined, coupled with the human rights and dignity of certain groups being curtailed or even violated. In these difficult political and legal circumstances, non-state actors, such as interest groups, face many challenges. The goal of this research is to explore how interest groups in Poland perceive their position, what tactics they use in order to influence public policies and decision-makers, and whether they search for networking strategies in order to strengthen their position vis-à-vis the government. By placing our research in the Polish context, we fill the gap in the current literature on the situation of interest groups that face democratic backsliding. We base our analyses on new survey data collected from Polish interest groups in 2017–2018, conducted within the Comparative Interest Group Survey.
How has the post-2015 democratic rollback in Poland impacted its support for the democratization of Ukraine and Belarus? Conventional wisdom is that countries undergoing autocratization would abandon ...democracy promotion. In contrast, we provide evidence that even as democracy was undermined at home, Poland continued to provide democracy support abroad, albeit less enthusiastically. We further document that it was not the normative commitment of Polish elites to democracy but the instrumental embeddedness of democracy promotion in Polish foreign and security policies that ensured its survival. Lastly, we find that Poland's support for democracy abroad now is closer to the new conservative values promoted at home, implemented mostly through state-run or state-controlled programs and less focused on supporting civil and political society abroad. Our paper contributes to the literature on regime promotion by analyzing and theorizing the overlooked question of how foreign policy, including democracy promotion, shifts for countries undergo autocratization.
This article analyses activists' attitudes towards using social media for civic actions in authoritarian and democratising countries. Specifically, it examines whether civic activists in Belarus and ...Ukraine perceive social media as 'liberation technology' or as unhelpful and overhyped, a 'net delusion'. We compare the ways in which civic activists use social media for the purpose of spreading information, networking and mobilisation. We find that social media is used by them for civic activism in order to campaign for civil and political liberties in their countries. Civic activists are generally enthusiastic about the use of social media, however we highlight challenges arising from socio-political conditions as well as negative consequences of activists' online engagement.
Democracy promoters around the world cling to the hope that assistance given to civil society organizations decreases the risk of civil war and will lead to democracy in post-conflict societies. A ...particularly promising segment of civil society in peacebuilding is women. Inspired by Welzel and Inglehart's "human empowerment: path to democracy" this study places democracy assistance to women in a broader mechanism which forms a theoretical foundation of this study. The case of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the author's insights from the fieldwork demonstrate that in order to assess the impact of democracy assistance on women's political empowerment the comprehensive women's political empowerment mechanism should be employed. The statistical examination, however, reveals that women's political activism is largely the function of legal empowerment and a country's political and socio-economic characteristics. The study also shows the limitations of current impact evaluation methodologies, and suggests better evaluation tools.
This article examines a new phase in democracy promotion in Central and Eastern European countries that recently have faced the process of shrinking civic space and democratic backsliding. In our ...case study, we analyse systematically the voices and strategies of Polish NGOs involved in democracy promotion at home and abroad as a response to these new challenges. Our empirical findings suggest that advocacy NGOs devoted to democratic quality and sustainability can continue their mission and promote or defend democracy, albeit with new incentives, strategies and goals that also depend on the existing political opportunity structures. The threat of shrinking civic space, paradoxically, has mobilized NGOs in Poland to strengthen their mission and resources, and seek wider support in society. This was possible due to new response strategies in three major areas of their operation: access, funding and networking. Understanding these actions has immediate policy implications, as it can help actors who are seeking to support democracy figure out how to play a more supportive role.
Mediation is one of the few mechanisms the international community can deploy that will affect civil wars. This article introduces the dataset on mediation in civil wars — termed the Civil War ...Mediation (CWM) dataset. This is the first dataset to focus solely on civil war mediation. These data contribute to the present state of quantitative research on mediation in three important respects: the data are collected for the period of 1946—2004, are organized by mediation cases and by civil war episode, and provide detailed information about mediation incidences. The article first presents a few variables included in the dataset that are motivated by theoretical arguments from the literature. After a presentation of summary statistics, attention is turned to using the CWM data to explore the determinants of mediation. Mediation is shown to be a function of war type (territorial and internationalized wars are more likely to be mediated), war duration (the longer the war the higher the probability of mediation), supply-side factors (the number of democracies in the world and the global polity average), and stratum (subsequent wars are less likely to be mediated). Battle-related deaths also seem to increase the chances of mediation, though the relationship is only weakly significant. The article concludes with suggestions for future research that can benefit from the dataset.
Both foreign aid and sanctions are foreign policy tools to promote democracy. Yet, it is unclear how far incentives and coercion enhance democratization. Since sanctions and aid are often employed at ...the same time, the goal of this study is to determine their joint effect on democratization in target/recipient countries. We argue that sending democracy aid through civil society organizations enhances the effectiveness of sanctions as a democracy promotion tool because the civil society is empowered to introduce democratic changes. Thus, in addition to the top-down pressure on the target government created by sanctions, there is a bottom-up pressure exerted by the civil society. Our empirical results show that democratic sanctions by the European Union and the United States are more likely to have a positive effect when aid flows bypass the government. Conversely, aid channeled through the public sector mitigates the generally positive effect of sanctions on democracy. In order to estimate these joint effects, we employ a new comprehensive dataset on economic sanctions: the EUSANCT Dataset which integrates and updates existing databases on sanctions for the period between 1989 and 2015, merged with disaggregated OECD aid data and V-Dem democracy scores.
PDF
