Strategies of Contentious Action: A comparative analysis of the women's movements in Poland and the Czech Republic Open Access

When analyzing the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, scholars have often discussed the lack of large-scale mobilizations in the region and the process of so-called ‘NGOization’ of civil society groups. According to this view, civil society groups have become professionalized; they focus on lobbying, education, self-help, and applying for grants rather than trying to mobilize the public (Mendelson and Glenn 2002, Narozhna 2004). These scholars have argued that NGOization reflects the alleged weakness of civil society in CEE. Others disagree with this argument. For example, Tsveta Petrova and Sidney Tarrow (2007: 75) claim that ‘although some forms of activism are indeed feeble in the new states of East Central Europe, there is evidence to suggest that other aspects and particularly what we call a “transactional activism” are more robust’. They define participatory activism as regarding the potential for mobilization and ‘actual magnitude of individual and group participation in civic life, interest group activities, voting, and elections’. Transactional activism, by contrast, refers to relational dimensions of collective actions, especially cooperation between non-state actors and between them and power holders, e.g. coalition and network formation, as well as lobbying and negotiation with elites. Transactional activism exists ‘in a variety of settings and relationships at the local, national, and transnational levels’ (2007: 79).

In contrast to the NGOization claim that civil society organizations are politically passive and do not try to mobilize mass support for policy changes, the transactional hypothesis has it that these organizations often engage in national and international coalition building to mobilize the support of groups that can pressure governments into changing their policies. Consequently, they interpret the lack of large-scale mobilizations not as a weakness but rather as a strategic choice embedded in the local context. Thus, they claim that transactional activism, rather than ‘participatory activism’, is characteristic of the CEE region. We test their conceptual proposition looking at women's movements in Poland and the Czech Republic.

The main aim of this article is to compare the strategies of the women's organizations and groups in the two countries. Our findings speak to the body of scholarship on women's activism in CEE (e.g. Fuszara et al. 2008; Hašková 2005; Regulska and Grabowska 2008; Roth 2008). However, while most scholars have focused on the early 1990s or the period around European Union's (EU) enlargement, our study encompasses the post-accession period, as we conducted the main interviews between 2009 and 2012. Moreover, we compare two countries, while most studies either consist of single-country case studies or offer a general view of the region (Glass and Fodor 2007 provide one of the few exceptions).

In comparing the Czech Republic and Poland, our data demonstrate not only that women's movements in these two countries display a wide repertoire of ‘contentious actions’ (Tilly and Tarrow 2007), but also that there are some interesting differences between the countries. Generally, Polish organizations and groups have been much more willing to use not only transactional but also participatory strategies, while the Czech women's movement has been much more focused on what Petrova and Tarrow (2007) term ‘transactions’, such as lobbying, coalition building with national and international organizations, as well as negotiations and cooperation with state institutions. Thus, another goal of this article is to explain why women's groups in some postcommunist countries are more likely to engage in participatory activism than those in other countries.

Following the social movement literature, this article emphasizes the role of the openings in the political opportunity structure (e.g. Tarrow 1991) and argues that in Poland there were more openings. For example, the law on petitions in Poland that allows citizens to demand that parliament votes on a law proposal if 100,000 people sign a petition gives Polish women's organizations an extra incentive to mobilize the population, which Czech women's organizations do not have. Following the literature on comparative state feminism, we also emphasize particular institutional structures, such as the characteristics of women's policy agencies and the characteristics of the women's movements (e.g. Stetson 2001). We argue that an important institutional characteristic of the two women's movements is the different roles played by the former communist women's organizations. Also, the main Polish women's policy agency created political opening for the women's movement in that it has much greater resources and institutional capability than its Czech counterparts.

The present article is based on the outcomes of a comparative research project focused on contemporary women's movements in Poland and the Czech Republic. We made sure that the sampling frames and the set of questions asked in each country are comparable. We interviewed NGOs, informal organizations, and groups, whose representatives are mostly or exclusively women, who identify with women as a group, and who claim to represent their interests in the public sphere, taking into consideration that the number of women's groups and organizations active in both countries differs. According to a previous study, carried on in 2007–2008, when we analyzed all the Czech and Polish women's groups (including both feminists and non-feminists), which were present on-line, there were 49 women's organizations that had website homepages in the Czech Republic compared to 133 in Poland. Another survey shows that over 300 women's organizations and groups exist in Poland, some of which are feminist oriented and some are not (Fuszara et al. 2008). Thus, we conducted more interviews in Poland. This analysis is based on 24 interviews with members of 20 Polish organizations and 21 interviews with members of 17 organizations in the Czech Republic. Sixteen of the Czech interviews were conducted in 2009–2012, but we also use data from a previous study that we conducted in 2007–2008.

Our sample was designed to maximize diversity of organizations in terms of the goals, size, and location. We used purposive sampling, as we wanted to reach respondents representing a variety of organizations in both countries, and used our expert judgment and snowball method to select them. Therefore, in Poland we interviewed representatives of the organizations, which are the most visible in the public sphere and the largest in terms of members and/or employees, such as Feminoteka or the Congress of Women. Most of these groups are located in Warsaw. We also interviewed small organizations and informal groups that are located in smaller cities, such as Kraków, Łódź, Lublin, and Tarnów, e.g. the Association Help for Women from Tarnów.

In the Czech Republic we simply contacted every organization that posted contact information on its website homepage or on general homepages for women's organizations, such as Gender Studies Centre or the Association for Business and Professional Women. But to maximize diversity we made a special effort to contact groups outside of Prague and groups that represented a diversity of views by especially following up with extra e-mails or phone calls to the less represented groups. The interviews were semi-structured and the themes included organization and financing, cooperation with national and international NGOs, discussion of their activities (including their greatest achievements), and their relationships with the mass media, as well as their experiences in dealing with governmental organizations (such as being member of gender equality councils and their lobbying activities).

Many important similarities existed concerning the situation of Polish and Czech women under the state socialism. In both countries, women entered the labor force in large numbers; however, they remained responsible for the majority of the household work, and the regimes repressed debates about feminism and suppressed autonomous women's groups. Only one officially approved organization was supposed to represent women's interests: the League of Polish Women (Liga Kobiet Polskich) and the Czechoslovak Women's Union, which in 1969 split into the Czech Women's Union and the Slovak Women's union (Hašková 2005; Nowak 2004). However, after 1989, an important difference emerged in that the League of Polish Women, which once had hundreds of thousands of active members around the country, quickly lost its significance and faded. In sharp contrast, in the Czech Republic, the reformed former communist women's organization is still by far the largest women's organization. The Czech Women's Union has local branches all over the country, and its leaders claim in interviews with us to have over 19,000 members. It also has its own reliable source of funding coming from the properties that it owns from the communist period. Thus, the Czech Women's Union managed to quickly reform itself and use its great resources to maintain a strong presence.

After 1989, both countries had comparable experiences in quickly making the transition from a command economy to a market economy and a one-party communist dictatorship to a pluralist democracy. It is an open question whether women have been the winners or the losers of the capitalist transformation. New opportunities have opened up for women to have professional careers or start their own businesses. Moreover, those women, who are politically active, probably have more influence than during the communist era. At the same time, access to day care has decreased radically for children under three, and women have remained responsible for the vast majority of care and household work (i.e. Ferge 1997). In both countries, the changes led to a decrease in women's labor market and political representation (Fuchs and Payer 2007; Roth 2008).

The effects of eastward expansion of the EU on women's movements in CEE have also been contradictory (Fuchs and Payer 2007; Roth 2008). According to Roth, ‘national adaptation to the ostensibly gender-neutral political and economic standards … led to an exclusion of women from the labour market and the public sphere’. On the other hand, ‘the EU represents an important ally in the fight for gender equality and antidiscrimination policies in those countries’ (2008: 7). According to some scholars, the EU strengthened civil society organizations' dependence on external financing, which leads to their ideological co-optation, and prevents the NGOs' from pursuing issues that could mobilize the population and demanding more far-reaching changes (e.g. Graff 2009). The present article suggests that the NGOization hypothesis – while partially correct – oversimplifies the situation, as it does not account for the differences regarding the character and the effects of the activities undertaken by the organizations and groups in various states.

Both countries also have in common that a wide plurality of groups has emerged during the last two decades, which provide services, write reports, educate the public, and cooperate with both national and international organizations. These include feminist and non-feminist NGOs and groups, some of which focus on specific issues such as trafficking or LGBT rights. In the Czech Republic, the largest group besides the postcommunist Czech Women's Union is the Mother Centre Network, which has around 330 local centres, which provide meeting places and services for mothers of small children (http://www.materska-centra.cz/). In Poland the most visible and active organization is the Congress of Women, which focuses on political representation and counteracting discrimination against women on the job market (Korolczuk 2014). Despite the great amount of pluralism in each country's women's movement, Czech groups share a tendency to avoid participatory activities, while Polish ones use both transactional and participatory strategies.

Of course, despite the similarities discussed here, there are also some important cultural and political differences between the two countries. For example, due to specific historic and political reasons, the Catholic Church in Poland has become one of the major forces and has great impact on the discourse on gender and women's rights (Zielińska 2000). Some scholars have seen the strong position of the Catholic Church in Poland as one of the most conductive factors for women undertaking collective action (i.e. Fuszara et al. 2008), as it provided a clear rallying point to mobilize around and stimulated the cooperation between different groups. Our research confirms that even today the Church provides a clear and obvious ‘enemy’, which women's groups organize against in contesting policy decisions, concerning issues such as abortion, new reproductive technologies, or violence against women. It does not play a comparable role in the Czech Republic either institutionally or culturally. However, since so much attention has already been paid to the Church, we will not focus on it in this article.

Another important distinction between the two countries pertains to the pre-1989 period. The mass character of Solidarity in Poland gave the older generation of Polish women the possibility to gain experience in grassroots organizing and opportunities to establish contacts and networks. The success of the Congress of Women, which was established in 2009 to celebrate the anniversary of 1989 and women's contribution to the transition process, suggests that these experiences still play an important role in the development of the women's movement in Poland (Korolczuk 2014). The Czech opposition in turn was never as widespread until the actual weeks of the ‘Velvet Revolution’, and women were never involved in it on a mass scale.

Our article concentrates on the importance of institutional differences between the two countries, especially in the domestic opportunity structure. One important difference comes from Article 118 of the Polish Constitution, which allows citizens to petition the government for new laws if they manage to gather 100,000 signatures in three months. Parliament must then discuss and vote on the proposal, although there is no guarantee the proposal will pass. Another opening in Poland is the so-called ‘percentage law’ introduced in the 2003 in the Act on Public Benefit and Volunteer Work. It allows citizens to directly support nongovernmental organizations such as foundations and associations by giving a chosen organization 1% of their income tax. This option is most beneficial to large, well-known organizations, which have qualified staff, who are able to prepare a detailed yearly report on their activities and/or are supported by media celebrities (Korolczuk 2011). However, an increasing number of smaller women's organizations are also obtaining public benefit status in order to be able to gain funding from the percentage law, and thereby diversify their sources of funding.

We also discuss the differences in the manner that each country set up its institutions for monitoring gender equality. The EU demanded that all countries set up governmental organizations for dealing with gender mainstreaming.¹ However, the Polish Government set up an independent Office of the Government Plenipotentiary for Equal Treatment, which is responsible both for counteracting discrimination and for promoting the principle of equal treatment of men and women. It has been a relatively strong organization with strong leaders, some of whom went on to become ministers. In the Czech Republic, by contrast, the organizations were much weaker. Instead of independent organizations, the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs created the Department for the Equality of Men and Women, but as it is under the ministry's control, it does not have the kind of independent platform that the Plenipotentiary has in Poland. The government also has a Council for Equal Opportunities for Men and Women, which is a governmental advisory committee that only meets a couple of times a year.

Our study demonstrates that the character and the effects of the activities undertaken by the organizations and groups in Poland and the Czech Republic vary. While the contemporary Polish women's movement seems to thrive and has managed to achieve some tangible successes, such as the reestablishment of the Alimony Fund in 2007 (Hryciuk and Korolczuk 2013) or the introduction of the 35% gender quotas in all electoral lists in 2011, the Czech women's movement has been less successful. This is not to deny that the Czech women's groups have increased their access to the political elite lately, as some sit in governmental advisory councils that the government set up in order to meet EU's demands for gender mainstreaming (i.e. Císař and Vráblíková 2010). Many activists who participated in our study also claim that that the mass media has become more open to their views, now that the EU has legitimized the discourse on gender equality. So far, this has not led to the types of mass mobilizations that we have seen in Poland, nor have these political openings led to similar policy successes as the Polish women's groups have achieved.

There are significant differences as to the strategies undertaken by activists in both countries. Polish women's groups have been mobilizing the public, the Czech organizations have focused almost exclusively on transactions, e.g. collaboration between organizations in specific projects, lobbying, cooperating with national and international organizations, and negotiating with state institutions. Among the 17 Czech organizations included in our study, 15 engage in collaboration with state authorities at the national or local level; 10 of them have had members in governmental councils or committees, while another has been represented through its membership in an umbrella organization; and yet another has constant contacts with the Ministry of Education and considers itself to have become an ‘advisory organ’ of the ministry. All 17 collaborate with both international and Czech organizations. However, not one of them admits to being involved in mobilizing the general public in such protest activities as organizing demonstrations. As one activist explains, her organization has not been interested in organizing demonstrations ‘because feminism and gender issues are so controversial topics and when you do demonstration it's like more controversial; and we want to change this topic [feminism] so it will not be controversial’ (middle-sized NGO, Prague, 26 November 2007). The one slight exception is the organization Elnadruhou, which holds a festival in support of Lesbians every year, in which around 500 people attend, but even when Czech women's groups utilize participatory types of activism, they do so at the local level.

Polish women, in turn, use various types of activism depending on the situation, and goals they pursue. Similar to the Czech organizations, they initiate debates in the media, lobby for new legislation, negotiate with the authorities, and build coalitions with other organizations and groups (e.g. LGBT movement or trade unions). In contrast to the Czech Republic though, they often engage in participatory strategies. Out of the 20 Polish organizations we studied 13 have engaged in strengthening individual and group participation in civic life, e.g. through organizing public protests, such as demonstrations, and pickets. Significantly, most interviewees in Poland claimed that they were not only participating, but also taking part in planning and organizing such events. Often, they cooperate with each other on such occasions, organizing public protests together. Contrary to the Czech Republic, collaboration between different Polish NGOs and groups is not just a transactional activity, but also a prerequisite for mass mobilization.

Here we will briefly discuss the ‘Manifas’ in Poland as an example of such collaboration in order to demonstrate how this dynamic works. These annual women's marches originated in 2001 and take place every year in the main Polish cities on 8 March to celebrate the International Women's Day (www.manifa.org.pl). The first march took place in Warsaw, when a group of feminists decided to protest against the lack of access to abortion in Poland. They formed an informal network called the Women's 8th of March Alliance, but today Manifas are organized also by other groups in different cities. Almost half of the women participating in our study have taken part in organizing ‘Manifas’ in recent years. While most of the protesters' political demands made have not been met so far, the annual manifestations have become an important element of the social and cultural landscape of Poland.

Our study indicates that although many of the Czech organizations also collaborate, they find it much more difficult to establish wide coalitions around specific issues. Some started discussing the possibility of creating a platform to facilitate cooperation already in the 1990s, but were unable to reach an agreement. According to the activists who took part in our study, one of the main reasons was the lack of trust toward the postcommunist Czech Women's Association (see also Hašková 2005; Saxonberg 2001, 2003). Even when in 1998 the Association for Equal Opportunities was established as an umbrella association for more than 20 women's NGOs, it excluded the Czech Women's Association. Moreover, even when different organizations collaborate, so far it has not facilitated participatory activism. As already noted, we did not find any evidence in the interviews that the Czech organizations and groups have undertaken any attempts at organizing mass demonstrations or mobilizations comparable to the Manifas. The closest that we could find was a coalition in Prague that tried to get a house returned, which the communist regime had confiscated, but even according to estimates of the organizers, no more than 50–150 people took part in the protest.

Thus, the question arises: Why has the Polish women's movement been able to use both transactional and participatory strategies, while the Czech women's movement seems to be more NGOized? We already pointed to some differences concerning the historical legacies, and mentioned the role of the Church as a political institution in Poland. While we agree that they play an important role, in the present analysis we will concentrate on the less-studied institutional factors. First, we compare the role of the postcommunist women's organizations. Then, examine the domestic opportunity structures, such as the possibility of initiating legislative process by the citizens, and the possibility of getting 1% of personal income taxes, which exist in Poland, but not in the Czech Republic. Then, we address how EU's gender mainstreaming policy has been institutionalized at the national level, and how this process influenced women's movements.

An important difference between the two countries concerns the structure of the movement itself. As already noted, in contrast to Poland, where the postcommunist women's organization became small and marginalized, the postcommunist women's organization in the Czech Republic remains the country's best-organized. It remains large and well-financed, while the vast majority of women's organizations only have a handful of members and have to fight hard for funding (Saxonberg 2001, 2003). This strengthens potential conflicts and increases the distrust among women's organizations. Many activists claim that they fear that the postcommunist organization would dominate any collaborative projects because of its superior size and access to resources. This has made it more difficult than in Poland to cooperate and build large coalitions.

Our interviewees confirm the claim that EU accession has changed this somewhat, since the Czech Women's Union was one of the few organizations that was large enough to be able to get EU funding (see also Hašková and Křížková 2008: 165). However, cooperation has been mostly limited to subcontracting in big EU projects, such as EQUAL, which 7 of the 17 groups that we interviewed participated in. Czech women's organizations managed to cooperate also due to the establishment of the Czech Women's Lobby as the Czech section of the European Women's Lobby.

In Poland, the official communist-run mass organization, Liga Kobiet Polskich (the League of Polish Women), quickly lost its significance after 1989. Some of its members have become important figures in the women's movement and in the Polish political sphere, e.g. Izabela Jaruga-Nowacka, who was chairwoman of the League in the 1980s, then became head of the Government Plenipotentiary for Equal Treatment in 2001 and vice-prime minister in 2004. The organization, however, does not play a significant role in contemporary women's movement (see also Fuszara et al. 2008; Nowak 2004). According to the League's representative who took part in our study, the organization lacks funding, most activists are over 50- or 60 years old, and many local branches have closed down lately. Since the postcommunist women's organization is rather weak, there is no need to compete with it for funds. This also affects the structure of the movement in general. Since none of the existing Polish organizations has a dominating position, or much better access to resources than the others, it makes it easier to cooperate and form ad hoc coalitions and networks, not necessarily in order to apply for funding, but in reaction to current events.

Social movement scholars emphasize that differences in the strategies, which political activists choose, can be explained by differences in opportunity structures. When an opening in the opportunity structures takes place, activists are more likely to choose mobilizing strategies (i.e. della Porta and Diani 2006; Tarrow 1991). Our analysis supports such a view. More precisely, it shows how specific opportunity structures influence the types of activities social movement participants undertake. Thus, this section analyzes legislation concerning the possibility to petition government for new legal regulations, as well as the laws influencing possible funding sources for NGOs.

As already indicated, Polish law makes it possible for citizens to propose legislation. Some Polish women's groups have used this opportunity successfully. In 2011, for example, the Congress of Women succeeded in getting quotas introduced on all electoral lists using this mechanism (c.f. Korolczuk 2014). This regulation requires broad cooperation and coalition building to initiate the process and prepare new laws. Furthermore, such large-scale mass mobilization requires broad collaboration, as the committee initiating the process has only three months to gather the required number of signatures. In order to ensure that the parliament will pass the law, the activists need to put pressure on decision-makers mobilizing the media and public opinion. Such a mechanism does not exist in the Czech Republic, and none of the Czech organizations that we interviewed claims to have engaged in any petition drives. Instead, Czech women's organizations only have the option of lobbying politicians to try and get them to introduce legislation, or organizing mass rallies to pressure the government.

The legislation concerning funding for NGOs also comprises an important element of the opportunity structures. Hašková and Křížková (2008) and Císař and Vráblíková (2010) observed that due to the lack of alternative types of funding and the withdrawal of some donors (e.g. Soros Foundation and Ford Foundation) after EU accession, many organizations in CEE have become heavily dependent on EU grants, as well as finance directly from the state. While we agree with this view, we also argue that Poland and Czech Republic differ in terms of the available sources of funding, which translate into the differences in the types of strategies chosen by the women's organizations and groups in both countries.

Financial dependence on the EU and the state has been much stronger in the Czech Republic. 16 of the 17 women's groups that we interviewed have received funding from the EU, and an equal number have received funding from the Czech government or local governments. The only organization that has never received EU financing, receives most of its funding from an American organization. Thus, all 17 organizations have received foreign funding. Several of them were founded or co-founded by international organizations, such as La Strada, which is a Dutch anti-trafficking organization with affiliates in nine countries. Seven of the organizations were involved in one EU project, EQUAL, which aimed at supporting equal opportunities for women. At times it is difficult to decide whether one would term their projects to be EU- or government-sponsored projects, as after the accession period, EU funding largely moved from direct to indirect support by giving grants directly to the national governments in the form of the European Structural Funds.²

As in the Czech Republic, some of the women's organizations and groups in Poland apply for EU grants and funding from the state (Korolczuk 2013, see also Fuszara et al. 2008). However, they rely less on EU and the state. This stems partly from the fact that some of them focus on areas, such as reproductive rights, which the Polish political elite perceives to be controversial, and which fall beyond the scope of interest of EU institutions. In the Czech Republic, reproductive rights have not been a major issue which, as one Czech activist remarks, may influence women's organizations' lack of interest in mobilizing the population:

In Poland abortion is not the only issue that is seen as ‘problematic’. According to the representatives of several Polish NGOs, it is very difficult also to get funding for projects dealing with violence against women, despite the fact that EU bodies have issued several reports on the issue. As one of the participants in the study said:

Some organizations adjust; others try to submit applications that would appear as if they regard the labor market but in reality aim at targeting other problems; others try to diversify their sources of funding. The activists seek support from international NGOs, which focus specifically on reproductive rights and from private companies interested in supporting women's rights, or earn money themselves by selling books, etc. This gives them significant freedom as to the types of strategies they choose, and enables some to openly protest against the state:

Moreover, Polish legislation enables citizens to give a nongovernmental organization 1% of one's individual income tax. 8 out of 20 organizations, whose representatives took part in the study, were eligible for these tax-based donations. Even though their representatives claimed that these donations did not change their financial situation dramatically, they give them a bit more freedom in choosing contentious strategies. The diversification of funding sources is important, because financial dependence on the state can lead to de-radicalization of the movement and make mobilizing the people to oppose the authorities more risky, if possible at all. A representative of a Polish organization that focuses on transactional strategies, and does not engage in participatory ones, openly claims that:

While some Polish organizations were forced to become at least partially independent from the state and had possibilities to gain other sources of funding, e.g. due to 1% law, the Czech ones had neither the incentives nor comparable opportunities to do so. Thus, they have turned more to international institutions, and especially EU for funding. However, since much of the EU funding gets distributed from the Czech state, still 15 of the 17 organizations officially received funding from the state. The only Czech women's group that we interviewed that has enough independent funding to be able to set its own agenda to a large extent is the postcommunist Czech Women's Association.

Another factor that has had an impact on the strategies that women's movements have chosen in both countries has been the process of setting up women's policy agencies to implement EU's demands for gender mainstreaming. Theoretically, accession to the EU caused a similar political opening for both the Czech and Polish women's organizations. During the accession period, and after, they could turn to the EU to pressure their national governments to introduce legislation promoting gender equality in order to meet EU standards, such as anti-discrimination laws, the need to introduce ‘gender mainstreaming’ and set up governmental councils on gender equality (Hašková and Křížková 2008). Scholars point out, however, that ‘despite the EU's pressures for change, national institutions not only have retained, but also visibly strengthened their power and their ability to forge patriarchal discourses’ (Regulska and Grabowska 2008: 140). Thus, it is important to analyze how the domestic context differed in both countries.

The manner in which the Polish and Czech Governments set up structures for dealing with EU's demands for gender mainstreaming comprises one of the most significant differences in this area, even though in practice these institutions have had limited influence in both countries. In the case of Poland, the character and role of the Office changed several times and some Plenipotentiaries were rather weak or openly opposed gender equality. Nevertheless, the Office has had much greater resources and political influence than its Czech counterpart. Until 2005 – when it was (temporarily) liquidated – it had its own employees; it sometimes had nearly semi-ministry status and several famous leaders, often engaged in women's movement, e.g. Izabela Jaruga-Nowacka and the philosophy professor and renowned feminist activist Magdalena Środa. The current head of the Plenipotentiary, Agnieszka Kozłowska-Rajewicz, appointed in 2011, did not have any experience with women's organizations but she cooperates with women's groups on many issues and strongly supports specific claims, such as the need to ratify the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence.

In the Czech Republic, by contrast, the two governmental organizations dealing with gender issues did not have their own independent organization with employees and official leaders. One organization was the Council for Equal Opportunities for Men and Women, which became an advisory body for the government and only meets a few times a year (see also Hašková 2005; Hašková and Křížková 2008). The other was the Department of Equality of Men and Women within the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, which had more influence, but did not have any experts on gender issues or include representatives from NGOs. As Hašková and Křížková (2008: 162) comment, ‘none of its members (the leader of the department included) ever dealt with gender equality issues before their appointment to the [ministry]’. Moreover, these councils had ‘limited responsibilities and frequently rotating, uneducated personnel emerged in patches and exhibited a minimum of activity’ (Hašková and Křížková 2008: 160). Nevertheless, some organizations did point out minor successes. For example, one group claimed that it was able to use its presence in the governmental Council for Equal Opportunities to influence a law against stalking (small NGO, Prague, 24 March 2009).

One potential political opening did arise as the social democratic minister for labor and social affairs appointed an openly feminist, former head of the Gender Studies Centre to become head of the Section for Family Planning at the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs in 2004. However, her influence was severely limited by the fact that the vice-minister responsible for family issues was a conservative-Catholic, who belonged to the Christian Democratic Party. The situation worsened when the centre–right came to power in 2007. One activist went so far as to say that under the centre–right government ‘the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs is sort of our mortal enemy’, because when they give grants to NGOs, they set up the procedures in a way ‘so that it excluded almost all of the feminist or women's rights oriented’ (small NGO, Prague, 2011).

One could imagine that because the Plenipotentiaries in Poland at times had rather strong leaders, who were supportive of gender equality, this might have given women's organizations a disincentive to mobilize, since they had more direct access to power by engaging in transactional practices such as lobbying. However, even though the Plenipotentiaries have had a much stronger institutional basis than their Czech counterparts, they had limited influence on policy-making. They have still not been able to achieve significant successes, although they have succeeded in such areas as raising public awareness of gender issues, getting the mass media to take gender inequality more seriously, and provide more space to them. Thus, some Plenipotentiaries, such as Jaruga-Nowacka and Środa, encouraged mass mobilizations to pressure the government, and supported participatory activism by personally taking part in big demonstrations, such as Warsaw Manifas. Such a feedback mechanism did not emerge in the Czech Republic, partly due to the differences in the process of institutionalization of the gender mainstreaming policies.

Even though Poland and the Czech Republic are postcommunist countries, with many similarities, Polish and Czech women's organizations and groups have to some extent chosen different strategies. In Poland they have been using both transactional and participatory strategies, while in the Czech Republic they relied almost completely on transactional strategies. We argue that several reasons exist for these differences, including the role of the Church and historical legacies of women's participation in social movements, which are conducive to consolidation and mobilization of the Polish women's movement, but not the Czech one.

In the analysis we focus more on the differences in characteristics of the movement and differences in domestic opportunity structures. The dominant position of the postcommunist organization makes it harder for Czech organizations to cooperate, which is not the case in Poland. At the same time, the possibility to submit a civic law proposal gives Polish activists a clear goal to mobilize around when trying to change governmental policies. Meanwhile, the 1% law enables women's groups in Poland to become more economically independent of the state and international organizations, and thus engage in participatory activism without fear of losing funding.

Similarly, Polish women's organizations have benefited more from the process of institutionalization of EU's gender mainstreaming policies. The relatively strong position of the Government Plenipotentiary for Equal Treatment enabled some of the women holding this position to encourage feminist mobilizations and bring up feminist issues into the domestic media.

These findings support Petrova and Tarrow's (2007) argument that we should look at both transactional and participatory activism, instead of concentrating solely on individual engagement in civil society organizations and the potential for mass mobilizations. At the same time, the results of our study also suggest that the choice between different types of activism is not the problem of ‘either–or’. Poland shows that under certain circumstances many organizations can opt for combining both types of activism. It also demonstrates that mass mobilizations can take place even when general participation levels in society are rather low. However, the propensity for protests and civic engagement is determined not only by the historical legacies but also by the process of NGOization of civil society actors. It depends on a set of interrelated factors, which include domestic opportunity structures, and other institutional mechanisms that enable organizations to be at least partly independent from the state, and offer people clear incentives for mass mobilization.

Our research for this article was supported by a grant from the Swedish Research Council [grant number 421-2010-1706].

Elżbieta Korolczuk is a sociologist and works as a researcher at the Department of Sociology and Work Science, University of Gothenburg and as a lecturer in Gender Studies at Warsaw University. She has published on social movements, civil society, and gender (especially motherhood/fatherhood, assisted reproductive technologies, and infertility). She co-edited (with Renata E. Hryciuk) the books Farewell to the Polish Mother. Discourses, Practices and Representations of Motherhood in Contemporary Poland (2012, in Polish) and Dangerous liaisons. Motherhood, fatherhood and politics (2014, in Polish).

Steven Saxonberg is an Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of International Relations, Prague (Czech Republic) and is a guest researcher in political sociology at Dalarna University College in Sweden. He has written several books and numerous articles on the collapse of communism and the post-communist transformation, including books and articles focusing on social movements, the women's movement, gender relations, and family policy. His most recent monographs dealing with post-communist gender issues include: Gendering Family Policies in Post-Communist Europe: A Historical-Institutional Analysis (Palgrave, 2014); With Martina Kamplicher and Miroslava Janouskova, Mothers – Grandmothers – Daughters? Reconciling Labor Market Integration with Care Responsibilities in Brno (Masaryk University Press, 2013); and Together with Hana Hašková, The Development of Czech Childcare Policies (Prague: Slon, 2013).