Heilig, Carolin Ida;
(2024)
The politics of gender in a pillarized society: A network analysis of civil society in Krakow.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
After the electoral success of the Law and Justice (PiS) party in 2015, Poland experienced a process variously described as an illiberal shift or democratic backsliding. This thesis contributes to political theory by tracing how civil society responds to illiberal challenges in a liberal democracy. As this process was highly gendered with women’s and sexual minorities’ rights experiencing restrictions and attacks, I focus on civil society mobilised around gender (CCMAG). This thesis applies a relational approach to Grzegorz Ekiert’s concept of pillarisation. It extends it beyond the focus on networks within civil society to incorporate its relations with political society and the state. Based on a survey conducted in 2020 among CCMAG organisations and groups in Krakow I reconstruct the intra-civil society, and political-civil society networks. These were analysed using Social Network Analysis while observations from my own ethnographic fieldwork (collected offline and online) were used to interpret the results of network analysis. My analyses confirm the basic tenet of pillarisation: a clear division between liberal and illiberal civil society that can also be observed in the relations between political parties and civil society. But the illiberal and liberal pillar do not form uniform blocks. The liberal pillar of CCMAG builds a coherent network displaying a social movement mode of coordination, whereas the liberal pillar of political society is divided between liberal centrist and left-wing parties. The former’s cooperation with CCMAG in Krakow is superficial, whereas the latter act as trusted partners. Highlighting different dynamics within political and civil society, this thesis therefore challenges the idea of a simple binary division in a pillarised society. This has practical implications for coalition building within and between these two spheres; regarding gender issues, the political Left offers an alternative to the power duopoly between illiberal PiS and liberal centrist Civic Platform.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | The politics of gender in a pillarized society: A network analysis of civil society in Krakow |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2024. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. - Some third party copyright material has been removed from this e-thesis. |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > SSEES UCL |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10192214 |
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