„Nowi niepokorni”. Powstanie Komitetu Obrony Robotników jako wyzwanie dla teorii socjologicznej

The emergence of Poland’s Komitet Obrony Robotników, KOR, is a challenge for social movement research whose concepts were mainly developed studying movements in Western democratic countries. The currently dominating structuralist rationalist approach tends to reduce protests to a strategic reaction to favourable opportunity structures. Although this approach offers an adequate evolutionary explanation for KOR’s success, it does not offer a convincing causal explanation for its emergence and the mobilization of activists. This article develops an alternative explanation, using concepts from theories of collective identity, american pragmatism, Émile Durkheim, and Max Weber.