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Abstract
Gay rights would seem an area of politics largely untouched by the changes wrought by Eastern Europe's democratic transitions and accession to the European Union (EU). Against the conventional wisdom, this article argues that the broader picture in the region is actually one of increasing rights and better-organised, more influential gay-rights movements and that these developments were catalysed by EU accession. It also argues, however, that the dominant theoretical perspective on accession's effect on domestic politics, Europeanisation theory, cannot account for this outcome. Using a close study of Poland, I suggest that social movement theory – with its emphasis on political opportunity structure, framing, and polarisation – provides a better account of how gay rights have developed as a political issue since the fall of communism.
Acknowledgements
I thank the anonymous reviewers for their very helpful feedback. For their suggestions on earlier drafts, I cordially thank Anna Grzymała-Busse; the participants of the workshop ‘Social Movements in Central and Eastern Europe: National Mobilisation Strategies’, organised by Kerstin Jacobsson and Steven Saxonberg at Södertörn University in Sweden on 18–19 March 2011; and the participants of the Jean Monnet workshop ‘Antidiscrimination Law and Policy in the European Union’ organised by Mark Pollack at Temple University on 13 April 2012.
Notes
To avoid excessive use of acronyms, I will use the ‘gay rights’ to include rights for the umbrella grouping of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people.
My characterisation of this theory centres on Sedelemeier and Schimmelfennig's 2005 volume The Europeanization of Central and Eastern Europe and a special issue of the Journal of European Public Policy (September 2008) that focused on post-accession Europeanisation. These collections remain the most comprehensive summaries of scholarship on ‘Europeanisation East’.
In their alternative conceptualisation of Europeanisation mechanisms, Knill and Lehmkuhl (Citation1999, pp. 3–4) sketch a process of cognitive change, or ‘framing integration’, that closely resembles social learning. Framing integration policies ‘are designed to change the domestic political climate by stimulating and strengthening the overall support for European reform objectives … [and providing] legitimacy and concepts to favour the acceptance of domestic compromise solutions’. As with social learning, framing integration is difficult when there is tension between domestic and EU norms.
As another example, Epstein and Sedelmeier's (Citation2008) analysis of post-accession Europeanisation uses the conventional external incentives framework with no modification beyond considering which issue areas may still allow acquis-based leverage after a country gains membership.
Where available, the case study also draws on the extant secondary literature (e.g. Gruszczynska Citation2009, Owczarzak Citation2009, Binnie and Klesse Citation2011, Kuhar Citation2011, Holzhacker Citation2012).
In another article, I present the 2007 wave of interviews in detail (O'Dwyer Citation2010).
For the catalogue, see Leszkowicz (Citation2010).
There is some precedent within the Europeanisation literature for incorporating the political opportunity structure theoretically and for thinking about conditionality in broader terms. Knill and Lehmkuhl (Citation1999, p. 4) argue that ‘negative integration’ – the removal of national trade barriers and regulatory policies – redistributes resources among domestic actors, thereby reshaping political opportunity structures. However, their argument does not go the further step of addressing how political opportunity structures change and what effects that has. A more relevant parallel for the argument here is Sasse's (Citation2008) analysis of ethnic minority rights in the Baltics after succession. She begins from the insight that ‘EU conditionality may appear as something fixed and constant but its chameleon-like characteristics can turn it into a dynamic process itself’ (p. 843). The idea of process-tracing how conditionality evolves over time is strongly consonant with my approach here; the chief difference is that Sasse's ultimate concern remains compliance with conditionality, not with understanding its interaction with political opportunity structures.
Both Owczarzak and Gruszczynska's characterisations of framing are based on field interviews with activists. Owczarzak's characterisations are particularly valuable for my argument, as they cover the 1990s, that is, the ‘morality/charity’ period.
For a recent overview of this scholarship, see the March 2012 special issue of the American Behavioral Scientist – especially the contributions by de Vreese (Citation2012) and Matthes (Citation2012) – as well as Kuhar's (Citation2011) analysis of the framing of same-sex partnership debates in Europe.
Holzhacker (2012) describes gay rights in Poland as ‘morality politics’. In contrast to my conceptualisation here, however, Holzhacker's ‘morality politics’ includes political activism by rights advocates. With regard to Poland, this reflects his focus on the post-2000 period. A broader view of gay-rights issues in Poland reveals that an earlier generation of activism was avowedly apolitical in orientation; rejecting the ‘morality/charity’ framing was a key part of the move to more political goals.
In Polish, Młodzieżowy Ruch na Rzecz Przeciwdziałania Narkomanii.
The latter party was more liberal in name than in practice; nevertheless, it was considerably more moderate on national identity and the EU than PiS or LPR would be.
See http://www.kph.org.pl/images/stories/dokumenty/statut_kph.pdf, as cited in Gruszczynska (Citation2009, p. 34).
The acronym stands for the International Lesbian & Gay Culture Network – Poland.
See the ILGA-Europe rights index, http://www.ilga-europe.org/home/publications/reports_and_other_materials/rainbow_map_and_index_2011.
Until 2010, Poland lacked legislation establishing an independent state office for anti-discrimination policy. After years of criticism, the Commission had at last initiated legal proceedings against Poland with the European Court of Justice, which could have led to financial sanctions.
Britain, the other country to opt out, did so for economic reasons.
Since 2005, The Equality Foundation has organised Warsaw's annual Equality Parade. It is also a member of the European Pride Organizations Association, which organises EuroPride.
The absence of this rhetoric represents progress, though it would be an exaggeration to say that Poland's political discourse has become gay-friendly. My respondents in research trips in 2009 and 2010 reported that PO was not so much tolerant as pragmatic, avoiding the topic of homosexuality altogether. My respondents interpreted this silence not as tacit approval, but rather as a strategy to not be drawn into statements that could be damaging either domestically or internationally.
There is no space here to compare the organisation of the Czech and Polish movements in detail, but two points of difference are revealing. First, while Warsaw has hosted Pride marches since 2001, Prague saw its first Pride march in 2011. Second, the Czech movement, as a political movement, effectively dissolved itself in 2006, when it was at the height of its organisational capacity and, almost immediately after its greatest legislative success, registered partnerships. Since that time, there has been no national-level Czech organisation engaged with lobbying for gay rights. In May 2011, an attempt to establish such an organisation, named PROUD, was made, but at the time of this writing, it remained primarily an Internet presence. By contrast, Poland's KPH has been adding organisational capacity since its founding in 2001.
‘Homo-erotic art exhibition causes storm in Warsaw’, Polskie Radio dla Zagranicy, 10 June 2010. Available from: http://thenews.pl/culture/artykul133313_homo–-erotic-art-exhibition-causes-storm-in-warsaw.html [Accessed 28 July 2010].
‘Public Debate: Homosexuality and Social Change’ National Museum in Warsaw, 11 July 2010.