We, the research team funded by the National Science Centre (NCN), Poland (2021/43/B/HS6/01155) grant entitled “The Construction of Post-Pandemic Society: Covid-19 Street Protest in Poland,” presented several papers, and published a couple of articles and a book review, in 2024.
Published articles in 2024
Dubrow, Joshua K., Anna Radiukiewicz, and Alan Żukowski. “Government justification of police actions against protesters: biopolitics in Poland during the Covid-19 pandemic.” International Review of Sociology (2024): 1-19.
How did the government justify aggressive, and, at times, violent police actions against demonstrators during the pandemic? We use a biopolitical framework to empirically explore how leading members of Poland’s government justified protest policing. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Poland’s PiS-led government, like others across Europe, implemented social distancing measures that curtailed the right to peaceful assembly. The government justified aggressive crowd control tactics such as kettling to ‘protect’ society from what they perceived as illegal and unruly protestors who seek to cause indirect mass harm, e.g. spread the virus via street protesting, or cause direct harm to police officers through physical acts of protester aggression. The government argued that protesters, instead of being whom the state must keep safe from biological harm, actually threaten a vulnerable police force and other institutions. The government projected their own vulnerability to cast protesters as biological threats to the nation and, thus, as dangerously norm-breaking ‘others,’ in order to justify surveillance of demonstrators and aggressive police tactics.
Radiukiewicz, Anna, Alan Żukowski, and Joshua K. Dubrow. “The Polish Government’s Response to COVID-19 Protests: Restrictions and Contradictions in” Moments of Madness”.” Partecipazione e conflitto 17, no. 2 (2024): 541-558.
The COVID-19 pandemic produced “moments of madness” (Zolberg 1972), a temporary feeling that everything has changed and all things are possible. While usually viewed as an opportunity for the masses to envision positive change, we argue that governments also feel “moments of madness”, and in their crisis response, they may attempt to deepen their institutional power. As this is particularly troublesome in countries with authoritarian tendencies, we examined national laws and public statements of leading Polish members of government about street protest in 2020. The PiS-led government implemented European Union and WHO-recommended social distancing measures that curtailed constitutional freedoms of the right to peaceful assembly. They executed these measures via governmental decrees rather than primary legislative acts and thus normatively ruled out street protests. The government framed themselves as defenders of civil liberties and promoters of social solidarity and argued that the restrictions are essential for public safety. At the same time, they contradicted these frames by disparaging political opponents who engaged in street protests as immoral threats to public health. We highlight the tensions and trade-offs between public health and civil liberties and offer an extension and critique of the “moments of madness” thesis.
Book Review
Żukowski, Alan (2024). Where are we now?: The epidemic as politics: by Giorgio Agamben, Translated by Valeria Dani, Lanham, Rowman & Littlefield, 2021, 104 pp., $25.00 (Paperback), ISBN 9781538157602. Political Theology, 1–2. https://doi.org/10.1080/1462317X.2024.2414158
Conference Presentations in 2024
Dubrow, Joshua, Anna Radiukiewicz, and Alan Żukowski. 2024. “The October 10 “COVID-Skeptic” Protests in Poland: Visions of Post-Pandemic Society.” Presented at the workshop, Conservative mobilizations: Intellectuals, Movements, and the State, IFiS PAN, May 16-17, 2024, Warsaw, Poland.
The October 10 COVID-Skeptic Protests in Poland: Visions of Post-Pandemic Society
Introduction: During a street protest, the protesters hope for positive consequences. The literature in political sociology on the consequences of protest focuses on a hypothetical direct link between the protest event and a change in policy or attitudes. We argue that the vision for change that the protesters collectively expressed is a crucial step between protest and change. We define visions as “imagined futures.” In our approach, every protest is an attempted social construction of reality that has a collective vision. Thus far, scholars have overlooked visions as key to understanding the potential consequences of street protest. We argue that, through social science methods, scholars can identify the vision of each protest. In this paper, we empirically investigate collective visions of social change expressed in street protest.
Data and Methods: We attempt to empirically examine our arguments via analysis of COVID-19 street protests in Poland. We identify “COVID-19 protests” as public demonstrations in which the main focus was on the pandemic. In the first two years of the pandemic in Poland, there were ca. 250 COVID-19 street protests. To know what happened during each protest, we construct what we call “Protest Event Reports” (PER), a multimodal — text and audio-visual materials — qualitative dataset based on information from news media and movement organizers. We attempt to mitigate bias of media, organizers, and researchers by diversifying our sources and acknowledging our privileged position as academic social scientists. Our task is not to agree with the protesters’ visions; rather, our role is as scientists who attempt to understand what the protests’ visions are.
Our method for obtaining and analyzing visions is thematic analysis with a novel approach. Whereas a contentious politics approach would focus narrowly on claims, our approach is to reveal the complexity of these collective visions through a holistic analysis of actors, demands, performances, interactions, and location. Our unit of analysis is thus not a particular set of actors, or only the organizers, but the protest event itself. As such, we treat the protest as an emergent phenomenon, i.e. beyond the sum of its constituent parts.
In this preliminary paper, we aim to describe the protests’ visions of post-pandemic Polish society. On October 10, 2020, there were protests in over 40 localities in Poland that expressed skepticism of the COVID-19 pandemic and the government’s pandemic response. Because our project is in its early stages, here we analyze just 15 of the October 10 protests.
Results: We found similar collective visions across the October 10 protests. They see a world in which there are no more pandemic restrictions, that the government acts transparently, legally, and thus in accordance with the Polish constitution; that encourages creative displays of civil disobedience; in which science and expert opinions are respected; in which people think independently of the media and government public health information; and where they can make decisions for their health regardless of government policy. They also envision a world they do not want: in which conspiracies (“Plandemic”, “1984”) perpetrated by the Polish government or international organizations turn Poland and the world towards totalitarianism.
Not all visions are the same. Some visions include the roles of Catholicism and historical Polish traditions to guide Polish society. Some envision a world in which people can forcefully rebuff police interventions, or in which public shows of hyper-masculinity, perhaps with paramilitary garb and shaved heads, or fists raised and yelling, is important to convey their message to the government, or in which antisemitism is publicly tolerated.
The common visions across protests, which were organized on the same day, is due, in large part, to social movement planning: both All-Poland Association for Vaccine Awareness STOP NOP (Pol. Ogólnopolskie Stowarzyszenie Wiedzy o Szczepieniach STOP NOP), an organization that advocates against vaccination, and Confederation Liberty and Independence (Confederation; Pol. Konfederacja Wolność i Niepodległość), a neoconservative libertarian, Catholic nationalist, and Eurosceptic Polish party that is against immigration and modern notions of gender and sexual identity, are organizers of most of these protests, and of the day of protests as a whole.
Whereas a simplistic interpretation of COVID-19 skeptic protests would treat them as dangerously misinformed, there is a complex and nuanced reading of them. For example, whereas visions reject scientists and other experts mentioned in the media and by the government, they do include scientists and experts, but of their own choosing. While there was a common organizing strategy — including similar material imagery — and thus the possibility of a unified vision, there were local influences in actors, performances, demands, and interactions on these visions.
Conclusion: We argue that once we identify the visions sui generis, we can then interpret them in their larger context. October 10 protest visions are embedded in a larger milieu that consists of the ideologies of the organizers and groups who attended, as well as social norms and government policies that predate these protests and that facilitate “conservative mobilizations.”
Whereas one might posit that conservative social movement organizations act in lock-step, the pandemic protests in Poland revealed that there are inherent fissures within movements and power inequalities between government — as authority — and the citizenry, even when they ostensibly share ideological traits. To understand what social changes may come, and to the extent that the elite require some assistance from the masses to bring about that social change, we should first identify the visions of the street protesters. Our project aims to help achieve that understanding.
Presentations in Polish
Radiukiewicz, Anna, Joshua Dubrow, and Alan Żukowski. 2024. “Wizje społeczeństwa postpandemicznego: analiza protestów “koronasceptyków” z 10 października 2020 roku.” Presented at the congress, 6. Congress of Political Science, University of Lodz, September 18-20, 2024, Lodz, Poland
Wychodząc na ulice protestujący mają nadzieję na pozytywne zmiany społeczne, albo w kierunku utopii, albo z dala od dystopii. Twierdzimy, że wizja, którą protestujący wspólnie wyrażają podczas zgromadzeń, jest kluczowym krokiem w kierunku osiągnięcia zmiany społecznej. Wizje rozumiemy jako wyobrażone przyszłości, które wyłaniają się w społecznych dyskusjach i działaniach. Nasze podejście polega na ujawnieniu złożoności tych wizji poprzez całościową analizę powodów, żądań, dynamiki i kontekstu przestrzennego i protestów. Wykorzystujemy multimodalny – łączący tekst i materiały audiowizualne – jakościowy zbiór danych oparty na informacjach z mediów i od organizatorów. W naszym wystąpieniu porównujemy wizje wyrażane podczas protestów tzw. “koronasceptyków” z 10 października 2020 roku, które odbyły się w ponad 40 miejscowościach w Polsce. Badania ujawniają podobieństwa oraz różnice w tych wizjach, ukazując zarówno aspiracje do wolności i suwerenności, jak i obawy przed naruszeniem praw i autorytaryzmem. Wyniki analizy wskazują, że świat, który wyłania się z wizji to świat, gdzie nie ma już ograniczeń związanych z pandemią, w którym rząd działa zgodnie z polską konstytucją; w którym szanuje się naukę i opinie ekspertów; w którym ludzie myślą niezależnie od mediów i rządowych informacji na temat zdrowia publicznego; i w którym mogą podejmować decyzje dotyczące swojego zdrowia niezależnie od polityki rządu. W wizjach odrzuca się dystopię świata, w której polski rząd lub organizacje międzynarodowe spiskują (“Plandemia”, “1984”) i kierują Polskę oraz świat w stronę totalitaryzmu. Nasze badania pokazują, że identyfikacja i zrozumienie wizji społecznych wyrażanych podczas masowych zgromadzeń może być kluczem do zrozumienia przyszłych zmian społecznych. Projekt ma na celu dalsze zgłębienie tych wizji, aby lepiej naświetlić, jak może się kształtować przyszłość społeczeństwa po pandemii [Projekt jest wspierany przez Narodowe Centrum Nauki (2021/43/B/HS6/01155)].
Radiukiewicz, Anna, Alan Żukowski, and Joshua Dubrow. 2024. “Wzmożenie społeczne w czasie pandemii – protesty przeciwko obostrzeniom w Polsce.” Presented at the conference, Komunikacja w stanie wzmożenia, Collegium Civitas, September 23-23, 2024, Warsaw, Poland
W czasie pandemii rządy wprowadzały innowacje ochronne, które ograniczały wolność obywateli i w odpowiedzi podsycały antyrządową opozycję z różnych stron politycznych. W Polsce protesty organizowała m.in. prawicowa Konfederacja, wraz z ruchami przeciwników obostrzeń sanitarnych, antyszczepionkowców i negacjonistów. Powszechnie uznawano je za wyrażające „skrajne” i „radykalne” poglądy. Środowiska te zorganizowały wiele protestów podczas pandemii, w tym tzw. „Marsze o wolność”. 10 października 2020 roku odbyły się one w ponad 40 miejscowościach w całej Polsce – nie tylko w dużych, ale również w mniejszych miastach, co ukazało szerokie społeczne poparcie dla tych „skrajnych” wydarzeń.
W naszym badaniu analizujemy przyczyny tych protestów, ich postulaty, dynamikę i konteksty przestrzenne. Wykorzystujemy multimodalny – łączący tekst i materiały audiowizualne – jakościowy zbiór danych oparty na informacjach z mediów. Pytamy o wizje, czyli wyobrażone przyszłości, które rekonstruujemy w toku analizy narracji i działań każdego protestu. Badania ujawniają podobieństwa oraz różnice w tych wizjach, ukazując zarówno aspiracje do wolności i suwerenności, jak i obawy przed naruszeniem praw i autorytaryzmem. Przyjęta strategia badawcza pozwala nam zweryfikować „skrajność” i „radykalność” tych publicznych wystąpień. Nasze badania pokazują również, że identyfikacja i zrozumienie wizji społecznych wyrażanych podczas masowych zgromadzeń może być kluczem do zrozumienia przyszłych zmian społecznych. [Projekt jest wspierany przez Narodowe Centrum Nauki (2021/43/B/HS6/01155)]
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