About

Prof. Dr. Grzegorz Ekiert is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Government at Harvard University. He is also the Director of the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies and a Senior Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. His academic and administrative roles are based at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies located at 27 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA. Contact information includes the phone number 617-998-5420 and the email ekiert@fas.harvard.edu.

Research topics

• Information Retrieval
• Computer Science

Selected publications

• Social Movements and Protests

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2025-12-18

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract In no other country in post-1945 Central and Eastern Europe has protest and social movement activity been more frequent and intense than in Poland. After a period of armed resistance to the imposition of Soviet-style communism, the country experienced six major waves of protest in 1956, 1968, 1970, 1976, 1980–81, and 1989–90. The last, led by Solidarity, contributed to the downfall of the communist system. During the initial phase of democratic consolidation, protest was also intense, although this time, it was an integral part of democratic politics. Eventually, protest activity weakened, and civil society activities underwent a process of NGO-ization. This changed again after 2015, when the policies of the right-wing Law and Justice Party (PiS) government started to generate massive street demonstrations, mostly in defence of the constitutional order and women’s rights. For many observers, this re-intensified protest activity contributed to the defeat of PiS in the October 2023 elections.

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• Social Capital and Civil Society

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2025-12-18

  book-chapter

  Abstract This chapter traces the development of civil society in Poland and assesses its state at the current juncture in time. It begins with a discussion of the rise of civil society in the post-Partition period where the Polish state was removed from the map by the three neighbouring empires and Polish society organized in its self-defence. It discusses the flowering of civil society in the interwar period when Poland recovered its sovereignty. It also discusses civil society organization as a form of resistance during the Second World War and the period of communist rule. Since transition in 1989, Polish civil society has been rebuilt in a more institutionalized fashion. The chapter discusses its configuration and explores the ways in which this has differed from the classic Western pattern of organized interests. It closes with a discussion of the most recent period, where civil society has become increasingly polarized, a site of renewed resistance, and was subjected to politicized intervention by the Law and Justice government.

  PublisherDOI

• Political Culture

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2025-12-18

  book-chapterSenior author

  Abstract Post-communist transformations are conceptualized as a quintuple process, including reconstitution of the state and political regime; construction of the party system and autonomous civil society; introduction and development of market economy; reorganization of the social structure; and reformation/reconsideration of collective identity, particularly its dimensions pertaining to nationality and religiosity. We analyse the cultural aspects of all five processes, beginning with an examination of studies on the political culture of the state-socialist period (1944–1989). The centre of the chapter is a study of the post-1989 Polish political culture, based on an extensive literature review. We assume that this culture is shaped by the processes of long durée, the legacies of the communist period, and the dynamics of post-communist transformations. Culture is conceptualized as a two-level phenomenon, in which the semiotic (discursive) and socio-psychological (attitudinal) dimensions incessantly influence each other. While we focus on the latter, we also identify tensions between the discursive and attitudinal dimensions of Polish political culture.

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• The Return of Dictatorship

  Journal of democracy · 2024-09-24 · 4 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  ABSTRACT: In recent years, significant academic attention has been devoted to the phenomenon of democratic backsliding, understood as a creeping assault on the rule of law and the fairness of elections, combined with efforts to capture the judicial system and state agencies to subjugate them to the executive power. At the same time, however, there has been a parallel political development affecting hybrid and authoritarian regimes that has been more consequential yet largely neglected. Identified in this essay as dictatorial drift, this process implies the transition from "soft" forms of authoritarian rule to hardcore authoritarian policies, characterized by the emergence of unconstrained leaders with dictatorial ambitions; an extreme concentration of executive power; the marginalization of parliaments and the elimination of political opposition; the end of competitive elections; a takeover or destruction of the judiciary, independent media, and autonomous civil society organizations; and worsening political repressions. This essay documents such drift as a global phenomenon and probes its causes and consequences. The essay notes the exhaustion of mechanisms that constrained shifts towards dictatorship in the past and highlight how autocratic hegemonies today drive regime change in much the same way as Western liberal democracies once did in the early post–Cold War era.

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• Democracy and Authoritarianism in the Twenty-First Century

  2024-09-28 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
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• Powrót dyktatur

  Studia Socjologiczne · 2024-06-28

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Erozja jakości instytucji demokratycznych oraz spadek poszanowania dla wolności i praw obywatelskich stały się w ostatnich latach przedmiotem sporów i dyskusji. Jednakże oprócz erozji demokracji ma miejsce równoległe zjawisko polityczne, rzadziej diagnozowane, ale równie istotne i potencjalnie bardziej niebezpieczne. Jest to proces, który można nazwać powrotem dyktatur. Dotyka on głównie współczesne reżimy hybrydowe i autorytarne, i oznacza przejście od „łagodnych” form rządów autorytarnych do „twardych” dyktatur. Autokratyczni przywódcy, którzy dochodzą do władzy w wyniku demokratycznych wyborów, dążą do absolutnej koncentracji władzy wykonawczej i eliminacji opozycji politycznej. Stopniowo niszczą instytucje demokratyczne, takie jak uczciwe wybory, niezależne sądownictwo, wolne media i autonomiczne organizacje społeczeństwa obywatelskiego oraz uruchomiają cały arsenał represji politycznych łącznie z mordowaniem swoich przeciwników politycznych. Ten artykuł dokumentuje powrót dyktatur w wielu regionach świata i analizuje jego przyczyny i konsekwencje.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Chapter 1 CIVIL SOCIETY IN POSTCOMMUNIST EUROPE: POLAND IN A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

  Berghahn Books · 2022-10-29

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
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• Civil society as a threat to democracy

  Bloomsbury Academic eBooks · 2021-01-01 · 16 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
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• Index

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2020-07-29

  paratext1st authorCorresponding

  A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.

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• Manufactured Ambiguity

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2020-07-29 · 2 citations

  book-chapterSenior author

  In January 1968, Poland's communist government banned Dziady, a Romantic play by Adam Mickiewicz, Poland's national poet, from the stage of the Warsaw National Theater due to its alleged anti-Russian and anti-Soviet undertones. After its last showing on January 30, a couple of hundred students gathered to protest the government's decision, ending with a demonstration in front of the poet's monument. The police responded with force, beating the protesters and arresting thirty-five participants. Two students, Adam Michnik and Henryk Szlajfer, were expelled from the University of Warsaw. On March 8, students from UW organized a rally at the university in their defense, expressing their solidarity and condemning the government's cultural policies. This protest also ended violently – the People's Militia (Milicja Obywatelska, MO) and plainclothes Voluntary Reserves of People's Militia (ORMO) dispersed the demonstration and brutally beat up participating students and bystanders.

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Frequent coauthors

• Jan Kubı́k

  Rütgers (Germany)

  14 shared

• Dominika Kruszewska

  4 shared

• Elizabeth J. Perry

  Harvard University Press

  4 shared

• Danijela Dolenec

  University of Zagreb

  3 shared

• Julie Hemment

  University of Massachusetts Amherst

  3 shared

• Sam Handlin

  Swarthmore College

  3 shared

• David Cunningham

  3 shared

• Eliza W.Y. Lee

  3 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Political Science

  Harvard University

  2006

• M.A., Political Science

  University of Warsaw

  2001

• B.A., Political Science

  University of Warsaw

  1998