Browsing by Author "Rak, Joanna"
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Item Between Relative Deprivation and Gratification: A Study in the Gals for Gals’ Sense of Reproductive Security(Wydawnictwo Naukowe Wydziału Nauk Politycznych i Dziennikarstwa UAM, 2020) Rak, JoannaThe study examines the political thought of the pro-choice Dziewuchy Dziewuchom (Gals for Gals) movement, which was active in Poland in 2016–2018. The main goal of the analysis was to determine how the sense that one’s needs were satisfied was changing during the political activity of the Gals and to what extent these changes depended on the external stimuli provided by Polish Parliament working on two bills to tighten the anti-abortion law. The research issues were resolved using qualitative source analysis, relational content analysis and the dyad of the theoretical categories of relative deprivation (RD) and gratification (RG). The study shows that the Gals for Gals movement created an internally coherent picture of their situation. However, relative deprivation and gratification were manifested only immediately after the movement was established and on its first anniversary. The manifestations did not depend on external stimuli provided by the successive stages of the legislative processes. The manifestations of deprivation served the purpose of discursive self-legitimation of the movement, and of gratification expressed organizational success. These types of attitudes emerged during the second stage, that is after the rejection of the first bill at the second reading, when the Gals discursively self-relegitimated the movement and expressed a sense of organizational success and satisfaction of the need for social recognition. This means that the Gals were not satisfied with achieving the goals of the movement, and the efforts to neutralize relative deprivation did not motivate their political activity.Item Electoral Laws during the COVID-19 Pandemic as a Tool of Quasi-Militant Democracies: Comparative Perspective(Brill, 2023) Rak, Joanna; Bäcker, RomanCovid-19-driven post-communist states face strong authoritarian tendencies, but also their empowered political nations efficiently act against anti-democratic actors’ actions. This study explores the use of electoral laws in Poland, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria as a political tool and its influence on the sovereignty of the political nations. Embedded in the theory of neo- and quasi-militant democracy, it aims to explain to what extent the electoral laws adopted or proposed for adoption during the Covid-19 pandemic reduced the scope of the sovereignty of the political nations. The relationships between the legal changes and the sovereignty are analysed with qualitative source analysis and reflexive thematic analysis. As the analysis of themes across the attempts to shape the sovereignty of the political nations shows, changes to the electoral laws were introduced in a hurry, in the privacy of ministerial offices, and without social consultation. Such a way of proceeding stemmed from the need to change the law as soon as possible and thus avoid or reduce the resistance from the political opposition, other centres of public authority, and non-governmental organisations. In Poland, holding elections according to the law that was no longer in force meant that Poland became a prerogative state to an even greater extent than before. The Hungarian ruling party achieved a parliamentary majority by appropriate changes to the electoral law and holding a referendum, i.e., a classic tool for gaining support by autocratic leaders. The Romanian government could not amend the electoral law under the procedures in force in the rule of law. The attempts to undermine the sovereignty of the Romanian political nation failed. Also, the Bulgarian parliament introduced insignificant changes to the electoral law that did not influence the Bulgarian political nation’s decision-making freedom.Item Formation of populism in Spain: towards the explanatory framework of the 15-M Movement mindset(Wydawnictwo Naukowe WNPiD UAM w Poznaniu, 2019) Orella Martínez, José Luis; Rak, JoannaThis article aims to identify the major cores of the 15-M Movement mindset and explain how particular historical factors shaped it. The research problems are to identify the types of relations the movement established between the people and the ruling elites in its political manifestos, and the sources of these discursively created relations. The research field encompasses the content of political manifestos published between the Spanish general election on March 9, 2008 and immediately after the demonstrations held on May 15, 2011. To solve these problems, the research applies source analysis of the political manifestos. These are: (1) The Manifesto of ¡Democracia Real YA!; (2) The Manifesto of the Puerta del Sol Camp, and (3) The Manifesto “May 68 in Spain.” The research uses the technique of relational qualitative content analysis to determine the relations between the semantic fields of the major categories of populism, ‘the people’ and ‘the elites,’ as well as to identify the meanings formed by their co-occurrence. The tool used is a content analysis instruction whose major assumption is to identify all the attempts to create images of ‘the people,’ ‘the elites,’ and relations between them.Item From Mobilization to Demobilization: Dynamics of Contention in the Austerity-driven Slovenia(Wydawnictwo Naukowe WNPiD UAM w Poznaniu, 2018) Rak, JoannaThe article aims to trace the dynamics of contention in austerity-driven Slovenia, explain why it ended, through the processes of demobilization, despite the protest movement’s initial successes, and verify the explanatory power of Charles Tilly and Sidney Tarrow’s theoretical framework of demobilization. The analysis applies the method of source analysis, conceptual qualitative content analysis, and the conceptual framework of contentious politics. In doing so, it addresses the research problems of the dynamics of contention in Slovenia and why the contention resulted in demobilization. The article argues that after mass mobilization an upward scale shift appeared. The shift moved the contention beyond its local origins in Maribor, touched on the interests and values of new subjects, and involved a shift of venue to sites where the demands might have been met by state institutions. The dynamics of contention was a cycle of active and passive contentious episodes. The movement identity shift and successful recognition of its claims influenced the performances and episode sequence. The processes of demobilization started when people stopped attending protests, organizing particular performances, and implementing innovations to modular performances instead. Demobilization occurred when most of the protesters became discouraged from protest through boredom and a desire to return to everyday routines.Item How to measure political gnosis? Empirical evidence from Putin’s Russia(Wydział Nauk Politycznych i Dziennikarstwa UAM, 2017) Rak, JoannaThe research applies a method of sources analysis that draws upon a qualitative comparative study of three speeches delivered by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin during his annual news conferences. It aims to solve the problems: how was political gnosis changing in Putin’s statements over the subsequent 2014–2016 meetings? And how was Putin triggering off a performative potential of presumably non-gnostic elements of discourse to enhance political gnosis? It identifies the drift from authoritarian to totalitarian and democratic gnosis and recognizes a moderate extent of the intensity of political gnosis. The article contributes to political sociology by creating and testing the empirical effectiveness of a research tool for measuring the types and intensity of political gnosis, and distinguishing between political diagnosis and gnosis.Item Policing Protest in the Austerity-driven Slovenia(Wydawnictwo Naukowe WNPiD UAM, 2019) Rak, JoannaThis article aims to evaluate protest policing in the austerity-driven Slovenia and verify the analytical effectiveness of a tool for measuring protest policing. Therefore, the paper critically discusses and modifies Donatella della Porta and Herbert Reiter’s theoretical framework consisting of the escalated force and negotiated management antinomic ideal types, and then applies it to examine the Slovenian case. The research draws on a qualitative method of sources analysis based on a conceptual qualitative content analysis to solve the problems of what was the Slovenian model of protest policing in times of austerity? And why did it have a particular shape? The study diagnoses Slovenia as having the negotiated management mode of protest policing with the elements of the escalated force model. This mode stems from the organizational dynamics of the Slovenian National Police which typifies with the dialectic of decentralization and hierarchical submission in police units, the effectively used possibilities to coordinate the different groups operating within protesting crowds, and certainty about the purposes of the intervention.Item The Change of Russian Political Regime from the “White Revolution” To Presidential Elect ion (2012–2018)(Wydawnictwo Naukowe Wydziału Nauk Politycznych i Dziennikarstwa Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu, 2018) Bäcker, Roman; Rak, JoannaHow did Russian political regime change after the “White Revolution”? The article makes a methodological, theoretical, and empirical contribution to the field of studies on the dynamics of non-democratic regimes, and especially the nature of the alterations within Putin’s Russia. The research field is the Russian political system determined by its three aspects: structure of political institutions, political awareness of public issues, and political mobilization between the “White Revolution” and the beginning of Putin’s fourth term. The paper solves the research problems by employing the qualitative analysis of sources and drawing on the critical analysis of the recent news. The analysis benefits from the use of Roman Bäcker’s analytical device, a theoretical framework made of the three continua whose extreme points are the indicators of authoritarianism and totalitarianism respectively. The research tool is to identify the essential features of Putin’s political regime. According to this model, bureaucracy or siloviki, emotional mentality, and social apathy are typical of authoritarianism. In turn, state-party apparatus, totalitarian gnosis, and controlled mass mobilization are the symptoms of totalitarianism. This article researches how the Russian political regime evolved from the “White Revolution” to the beginning of Putin’s fourth term. It tests the hypothesis that the system most likely evolved from a soft to hard military authoritarianism. The regime might have moved towards a hybrid regime made of the elements of authoritarianism and totalitarianism. It formulates the conclusion the Russian political regime is a hard military authoritarianism. After the fall of the “White Revolution”, most notably after the annexation of Crimea, few totalitarian elements were visible, mostly in the sphere of social awareness in the form of totalitarian political gnosis. In addition, the indicators of totalitarianism started to disappear from September 2014, especially the elements of totalitarian gnosis in the political discourse.Item The Impact of Morally Injurious Events on the Dynamics of Mobilization for Women’s Rights in Poland(Wydział Nauk Politycznych i Dziennikarstwa UAM, 2022) Rak, JoannaWhy did the registration of the Gals for Gals name as a trademark and the publication of the Constitutional Tribunal’s ruling stop the largest protest movements for women’s rights in democratic Poland despite unaccomplished goals? What was the source of the 2018 and 2021 demobilization acts and subsequent waves of non-mobilization? Drawing on the theory of moral injury and narrative research methodology, this article aims to account for the determinants of the Gals for Gals’ and the All-Poland Women’s Strike’s demobilization and the lack of mobilization. The main argument is that during the fight for women’s rights, a part of Polish society involved in civic activity experienced two severe traumas. Each of the two waves of mobilization ended in a moral injury development. In both cases, a moral injury involved the loss of trust in self and others. Moreover, in both cases, the moral injuries were so severe that they turned out long-lasting. At the stage of the cognitive dissonance, there were no attempts to resolve it. In other words, activists did nothing to prevent cognitive dissonance from turning into a moral injury. In the first case, it may indicate the organizational and emotional immaturity of activists. In turn, the second case may indicate the weakening of civil society, building Poland’s political culture of withdrawal and submission.