Radical and moderate left activism in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia (1989–2010)
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| Year of publication | 2017 |
| Type | Chapter of a book |
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| Description | The chapter draws on the data on protest events organized by moderate and radical left organizations in the Czech Republic and Slovakia between 1989 and 2010, and deals with two main issues. First, it reviews the main approaches to the definition of radical left politics, identifies how it may be differentiated from the activities of the reformist (old) Left and from the post-modernist strategies of the new social movements, and illustrates this empirically. The chapter shows that the key aspects of radical left activism (post-materialist issues, confrontational repertoire, sub-national and supra-national scale of claims) demarcate it from the moderate left contention also in the post-communist context. Second, the paper focuses on the role of political context of activism. It follows Kriesi´s notion of political opportunity structure and focuses on the role of political cleavages in shaping political activism. More specifically, the chapter explores how the salience of socio-economic conflict influences protest agenda, general cooperation patterns, and reactions to national cabinet shifts in two countries under study. Chapter comes to conclusion that while there are systematic differences in terms of protest cooperation and reactions towards the orientation of national cabinet, there are only minor differences in terms of protest issue preference. |
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