Urban grassroots activism in Czech and Moravian cities: Actors, demands and frames

Up until recently, the civil society in the Czech Republic had predominantly been perceived as weak, passive and underdeveloped, or overly NGO-ized and focused on professional advocacy. These characteristics were further reinforced by the marginalization of political activism from the political debate in the mid-1990s, and by the prevalence of the citizenry’s uncritical acceptance of the new post-socialist regime. It was not until after the beginning of the global economic crisis in late 2000s that voices critiquing neoliberal policies gradually penetrated the mainstream debate, and the grassroots started to awake and mobilize. Since one of the most perceptible materializations of neoliberal policies is urban space exploitation, affecting almost every city across the country through new spatial patterns of growth and decline, as well as neoliberal governance and clientelistic networks, urban related issues have been a key trigger of unprecedented grassroots activism dissemination in the Czech Republic. During the past few years, various “right to the city” demands have emerged, and have taken a distinct form arising out of the specific local context. So far, urban grassroots activism in the Czech context has received little academic attention. This contribution partly fills this gap by bringing insight to this new wave of dynamically evolving activism that has swept across the Czech Republic over the past few years. Special attention is paid to the role of citizens’ identities, political subjectivities, and professional background in relation to one’s involvement in various urban conflicts, particularly in terms of agenda setting, communication with authorities, as well as the way demands, action and one’s own role in urban conflicts are framed. The analysis of these relations is based on selected case studies involving urban grassroots activism in several Czech and Moravian cities, and is mainly drawn from qualitative interviews with people who actively partake in the studied urban conflicts. Interviewees involve both people participating in conflicts triggered by local issues, as well as those focused on more general demands concerning sustainable, just and democratic urban development, frequently dominated by various urban professionals, and architects especially. The aim of the analysis is to contribute to the knowledge of social movements and urban grassroots in Central and Eastern Europe, where many aspects of local civil society development still remain heavily understudied.