Dr. Maciej Bartkowski, Senior Director for Education and Research at the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, presented  this webinar on the long term impact of civil resistance after a nonviolent struggle ends and a democratic transition is launched. Does civil resistance create a long lasting effect on the society and politics? Do earlier practices of civil resistance have an impact on later processes of democratic transformation? How exactly is a propitious effect of civil resistance on democratization and democratic consolidation generated and visible in practice? What analytical tools can be used to study the residual impact of civil resistance? All the above inquiries direct the conversation to the very essence of what civil resistance is, what kind of social capital it might help to create, and how the long-lasting effects of civil resistance are evident in a concrete case of a major nonviolent struggle. Accordingly, the presentation focuses on civil resistance and the Solidarity movement in communist Poland. The talk will illustrate the immediate and long-term residual effects of civil resistance-generated social capital on Polish society and politics following the events of 1989.

Dr. Maciej Bartkowski