Polish Studies in Culture, Nations and Politics – serie

This collection of essays aims to revive the sociological debate on the unintended, unanticipated and unexpected consequences of social action, as started by Robert K. Merton in a classic study of 1936. The contributing authors provide insights on both Merton’s work and the reception it received in the academia. They also go beyond his original formulations to encompass new theoretical perspectives and empirical interests that have emerged in the intellectual circumstances different from, or opposed to, his functionalist theory. The contributing authors delve into fields as diverse as education, law, politics, financial markets, consumption, risks and accidents, systemic transformation, organizations and institutional work, innovations, and Polish studies.

Central-Eastern Europe, in the mid-20th century, was a scene of Holocaust, mass killings, war, deportations and forced resettlements under the competing totalitarian invasions and afterwards. It was also the area where churches, politicians and citizens were engaged in reconciliation between antagonized religions and nations. This book presents several attempts to heal relations between Poles, Jews, Germans, Czechs, Ukrainians, Russians and Latvians as well as between Catholics, Protestants and Mariavites. Re-conciliatory practices of John Paul II and other Catholic leaders as well as Protestant churches are analysed in the first part of the book. Most of the remaining studies are focused on particular localities in Upper Silesia, Cieszyn Silesia, former Polish Livland and on the Polish-Ukrainian borderland. These detailed contributions combine sociological methods with anthropological insight and historical context. The authors are sociologists, psychologists and theologians and this leads to a fully interdisciplinary approach in the assessment of the recent state of inter-group relations in the region as well as in the proposed theory of peacebuilding and reconciliation.

The book offers an analysis of the «Belarusian Maidan» protest movement that emerged in Minsk at the October Square as a result of the falsification of the presidential elections in March 2006. In particular, the author analyses the virtual dimension of the movement and its creativity by applying the New Social Movement approach elaborated by Melucci. He also presents an in-depth analysis through the use of Deleuzian concepts. The «Belarusian Maidan» is inscribed into the historical context of Belarusian social activism of 1990–2006, amid the increasing influence of new ICTs and the Internet.

This book analyzes how people settle disputes in and outside of Polish courts. The preference for courts against informal settlements increased with the consolidation of the democratic legal state. Still, the compromise settlement remains the cultural ideal. The authors evaluate these circumstances in their extensive study of private disputes in the courts and of different types of individual settlements. They observed that the role of power behind these choices proved to be significant as people in better social positions are more inclined to use the courts and in worse social positions more inclined to deal informally with opponents in power. The ethnic factor surveyed in other former Communist countries is also related to the relative power of the different ethnic groups. The book investigates how institutional, social and cultural factors interact in shaping the dispute settlement patterns.