Grzegorz Ekiert

Research and writing His teaching and research interests focus on comparative politics, regime change and democratization, civil society and social movements, and East European politics and societies. His ongoing work explores patterns of civil society development in new democracies in Central Europe and East Asia, the state of democracy in postcommunist world, the EU membership impact on post-communist democracies, and state mobilized contention in authoritarian and hybrid regimes.

His book Rebellious Civil Society: Popular Protest and Democratic Consolidation in Poland (1999), written jointly with Jan Kubik, was awarded the Orbis Book prize by the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies.

He edited the special journal issues of East European Politics and Societies (on the EU Eastward Enlargement with Jan Zielonka in 2003, and on Democracy in Postcommunist World in 2007) and of Taiwan Journal of Democracy (2012).

Selected publications Books The State Against Society: Political Crises and Their Aftermath in East Central Europe, Princeton University Press 1996 Rebellious Civil Society. Popular Protest and Democratic Consolidation in Poland (co-author Jan Kubik), University of Michigan Press 1999 Ruling by Other Means: State-Mobilized Movements (co-editors Elizabeth J. Perry and Yan Xiaojun), Cambridge University Press 2020

Edited books Capitalism and Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe: Assessing the Legacy of Communist Rule (co-editor Stephen Hanson), Cambridge University Press, 2003

Articles and book chapters "Contentious Politics in New Democracies: Hungary, the former East Germany, Poland and Slovakia" (co-author Jan Kubik), World Politics, 50.4 (1998), pp. 547–581 "The State after State Socialism: Poland in Comparative Perspective," in: The Nation-State in Question, ed. John Hall and John Ikenberry, Princeton University Press 2003, pp. 291–320. "Introduction: Academic Boundaries and Path Dependencies Facing The EU's Eastward Enlargement" (co-author Jan Zielonka), East European Politics and Societies, special issue (2003), pp. 2–19. "Democracy in Postcommunist World: An Unending Quest" (co-authors Jan Kubik and Milada Anna Vachudova), East European Politics and Societies, 21.1 (2007), pp. 1–24. "Dilemmas of Europeanization: Eastern and Central Europe after the EU Enlargement", Acta Slavica Iaponica, 25 (2008), pp. 1–28 "The End of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe: The Last Middle Class Revolution?", Political Power and Social Theory, 21 (2010), pp. 99–123. "Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe 100 Years On" (co-author Daniel Ziblatt), East European Politics and Societies, 27.1 (2013), pp. 88–105 "Myths and Realities of Civil Society" (co-author Jan Kubik), Journal of Democracy, 25.1 (2014), pp. 46–58. “Three Generations of Research on Post-Communist Politics – A Sketch”, in East European Politics and Societies, 29.2 (2015), pp. 323–337. "Civil Society and Three Dimensions of Inequality in Post-1989 Poland" (co-authors Jan Kubik and Michal Wenzel), Comparative Politics, 49.3 (2017), pp. 331–350 "The Study of Protest Politics in Eastern and Central Europe in the Search of Theory" (co-author Jan Kubik), in Routledge Handbook of East European Politics, ed. Adam Fagan and Petr Kopecky, Routledge 2018, pp. 197–211. "Civil Society Approach", in Handbook of Political, Social, and Economic Transformations, ed. Wolfgang Merkel, Raj Kollmorgen and Hans-Jurgen Wagener, Oxford University Press 2019, pp. 151–160 "Civil Society as a Threat to Democracy,” in The Power of Populism and People, ed. Nathan Stoltzfus and Chris Osmar, Bloomsbury Academic, London 2021, pp. 53–71. "Democracy and Authoritarianism in the Twenty-First Century", in Post-Pandemic Features: Sociology of Crisis Experience in Central and Eastern Europe, ed. Kaja Gadowska and Anna Giza, Brill Publishers 2024, pp. 215–230.