Back to Bibliography:

Jacobsson, Kerstin 2012. Fragmentation of the collective action space: The animal rights movement in Poland. East European Politics 28 (4): 353-370. To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21599165.2012.720570

Abstract: In Poland, legacies of the communist past interact with contemporary domestic opportunity structures, conditioning and shaping the forms of action of the country's animal rights movement. The resulting 'NGO-isation' of civil society impedes effective collective action, with animal rights activists' engagement channelled towards 'animal charity' and service provision rather than more political strategies or disruptive forms of protest. Faced with an unfavourable political opportunity structure, the Polish animal rights movement has, moreover, opted for judicial activism and education instead of politics to achieve its ends. To understand the organisational fragmentation of the 'collective action space', the article suggests, the notion of 'opportunity structures' must be broadened to capture how the interplay between different types of opportunity structures affects action.

Introduction

In spring 2011, marches against cruelty to animals were organised in several cities around Poland,with around 10,000 protesters in total taking to the streets. That same year, the Polish animalrights movement collected more than 200,000 signatures in support of a proposed amendmentto the Polish Animal Protection Act. The existing Animal Protection Act of 1997 had comeabout as a result of a nationwide campaign in 1995-1997 by animal rights groups from allover the country. These occasional mass mobilisations offer evidence of the extent and vigourof animal rights activism in the country. However, upon closer inspection, there are severalways in which the Polish animal rights movement differs from its sister movements operating,for instance, in the Anglo-Saxon world or in Scandinavia. The Polish movement, quitenotably, abstains from illegal activism and animal liberation. Another prominent feature is theclose connection it draws between: 'animal charity', involving work such as shelter operations;and animal rights activism, whereby movement actors, with various degrees of success,attempt to combine a service-provision approach with advocacy. Finally, the Polish movement,rather than pursuing political strategies, has opted for judicial activism and other interventionstargeted at influencing policy execution in the field of animal protection.The question addressed in this article is: what factors and legacies condition, shape, andexplain the forms of action of the animal rights movement in Poland? More generally, I willfocus on the influence of 'opportunity structures' on the forms, behaviour, and trajectory of anactivist movement embedded in a contemporary post-communist setting. The term 'opportunitystructures' refers to the environmental factors that present collective actors with opportunities andconstraints, which they then try to (creatively) make use of or overcome.The Polish animal rights movement serves as an instructive case in several respects. First, thestudy underlines the need for social movement researchers to broaden their notion of 'opportunitystructures', so as to be able to consider opportunities and strategies other than purely politicalones. The movement has met with little resonance among political decision-makers. In theabsence of a favourable political opportunity structure, it has opted for the strategy of usinglaw instead of politics to reach its goals (through means such as animal rescue and court litigation),combined with educational initiatives aimed at the general public. Second, my analysisshows how the prevailing political, legal, cultural, and economic opportunity structures inPoland interact to shape the forms of collective action by channelling engagement in the directionof 'animal charity' and service-provision rather than more disruptive forms of protest. Finally, thecase illustrates the general challenges for collective action in countries like Poland rather well.While the animal rights movement tends to build on grassroots activism combined with more professionalforms of activism internationally, the Polish case exemplifies what has become knownwidely as the 'NGO-isation' of civil society in post-communist contexts. This organisational fragmentationimpedes effective collective action. What I will do in this article is identify the factorsand forces that produce and reproduce that fragmentation.The study draws upon 35 semi-structured interviews conducted in 2010-2011 with representativesof the most active animal rights organisations and groups, and four interviews conductedwith civil servants working with animal protection. In addition, information obtained from theorganisations' websites and media reports were studied. To date, no previous research existson the Polish animal rights movement (even though some animal rights groups were mentionedin a study of ecological groups in the 1990s (Glin´ski 1996).A multiplex opportunity structure .....