Customer Reviews

Rebellious Civil Society: Popular Protest and Democratic Consolidation in Poland, 1989-1993

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CITATION FOR 2000 AAASS/ORBIS BOOKS PRIZE FOR POLISH STUDIES for an outstanding English-language book on any aspect of Polish affairs co-funded by Orbis Books in London

Different cultures at different moments in history seem to construct civil disobedience and popular protest differently. Where one goes from there depends on two things: one's critical methodology and one's creative hunches. Rebellious Civil Society: Popular Protest and Democratic Consolidation in Poland, 1989-1993 (University of Michigan Press, 1999) by Grzegorz Ekiert and Jan Kubik has just the right mix of innovation and inspiration. It offers a new set of insights into the major points of seismic shift in post-communist Central Europe.

Rebellious Civil Society speaks powerfully about, and to, a particular time and place: Poland in the wake of the Velvet Revolution. Placing Poland in a comparative framework, Ekiert and Kubik hack their way through the thickets of theory and data. Central to their discussion is the question: what is the role of popular protest in the consolidation of new democracy? It is a threat or a godsend?

Ekiert and Kubik write out of passion for freedom, democracy, and human agency. Their argument is characteristically detailed and lucid, and is supported by a reading of data that has powerful political implications. *Rebellious Civil Society" is a stimulating and well-argued book. It is so well-argued and so lucidly written that it is tempting to write a citation consisting entirely of quotations from the text. Such a combination of compelling scholarship and elegant writing seems almost illicit in a book that ostensibly falls under the rubric of political science.

(the prize was presented on November 11, 2000 at the AAASS 32nd National Convention in Denver, Colorado)