Czech Republic—From Apathy to Mass Mobilisations, 1989–2022

The Czech Republic has been known for low levels of people’s political participation and weak civil society. During the 20 years after the 1989 democratic revolution, social movements mostly faced closed political opportunities: self-contained, corrupt and non-accountable politics, and strong anti-protest discourse. Combined with the tradition of civic ethos framing that pictures protest as a tool “above politics”, the movements were not able to face the adversarial environment. The single-dimensional constellation of mainstream politics around economic issues pacified the potential for economic protest and left room only for new social movement issues. As a result, a strong stream of transactional new social movements developed in the country. After 2010, Czech politics went through turbulent times: first the right-wing government opened the possibility to mobilise around the alleged economic crisis and later a large restructuring of the mainstream political landscape took place bringing a populist Movement ANO to power. In response to these events, the country experienced unexpected mass protests “Stop the Government” (2012) and the movement “Million Moments for the Sake of Democracy” (2017–2020). Though protest in general remains rather an exceptional tool used in times of crises, these mobilisations show that post-communist countries can mobilise in large numbers when the conditions are right.