Anti-Authoritarian Learning: Prospects for Democratization in Belarus Based on a Study of Polish Solidarity

Abstract

This article examines the anti-Lukashenka protest movement in Belarus by comparing it to the Solidarity movement in Poland. We organize our analysis around the concept of four stages identifiable in the development of social movements: emergence, coalescence, bureaucratization, and decline. We argue that protests in Belarus reached the bureaucratization stage, but their transformation into a more durable movement was slowed down by the brutal repressions unleashed by the Lukashenka regime propped up by Putin’s Russia. However, the spectacular changes in people’s conceptions of national identity built around symbols different from those associated with the officialdom may sustain emotional mobilization necessary for formation of higher levels of organizations in the oppressive context of today’s Belarus. The contours of this process are brought into sharp relief when compared with the long, cumulative trajectory of the 1956-89 anti-authoritarian Polish revolts. This opens the way for cautious prognostication.

The Dynamics of Mass Mobilization in Belarus

“…The case of the 2020 mass mobilization in Belarus offers an opportunity to engage with and answer these questions in a reciprocal dialogue between scholars of protest and activism, politics of competitive authoritarian and democratizing contexts, and regional and country experts. This symposium brings together a diverse set of scholar and combines comparative and case-specific analyses, empirically driven and interpretive analyses that focus on different political, social, and cultural angles of this episode of mass mobilization and its aftermath (Bekus 2023; Douglas 2023; Elsner 2023; Hansen and Ford 2023; Korosteleva and Petrova 2023; Kulakevich and Kubik 2023; Stykow 2023; Onuch et al 2023; Way and Tolvin 2023).…”