From the Street to the Ballot Box - Civic Activism and Electoral Participation in Poland.

This paper examines the relationship between civic activism and electoral participation in Poland. During the Law and Justice (PiS) government (2015–2023), mass civil society mobilisation erupted around issues such as women’s rights or pro-Ukrainian solidarity. Against the prevailing narrative of post-communist social apathy, I argue that Poland has experienced a revival of civil society, leading to increased political participation and higher electoral turnout. Methodologically, the study employs panel data analysis to test the association between civic and electoral engagement. It draws on protest catalogue alongside POLPAN survey data. The paper explores how various forms of civic participation—ranging from protest involvement to informal volunteering—affect propensity to vote and democratic attitudes. Additionally, the paper seeks to quantify the extent to which bottom-up mobilisation under constraining political conditions contributed to the record 74% voter turnout and the electoral success of the opposition in 2023. In doing so, the study advances an empirically grounded understanding of how collective action can reinforce democratic resilience in post-communist contexts and challenges existing assumptions about the weakness of civil society in Central and Eastern Europe.