Twenty Years in the Making: Understanding the Difficulty for Change in Belarus. (November 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Kulakevich, Tatsiana
• Is Part Of: East European politics and societies. Volume 28:Number 4(2014)
• Page Start: 887
• Page End: 901
• Publication Date: 2014-11
• Subjects: Belarus -- political opportunity -- mobilizing structures -- social movements -- framing; Europe, Eastern -- Politics and government -- 1945-1989 -- Periodicals; Europe, Eastern -- Politics and government -- 1989- -- Periodicals; Europe, Eastern -- Social conditions -- Periodicals; 947.0005
• DOI: 10.1177/0888325414535429
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0888-3254

Abstract

Even after twenty years of Lukashenka's rule, Belarusians still have to struggle for democracy. However, there has been a modest growth in the number of protesters during presidential elections and in the pro-EU mood of the Belarusian population. This article analyzes the dynamic of this growth through the prism of social movements literature and such concepts as framing, political opportunity, and mobilizing structures. The argument is that the weakness of the mobilizing structures and framing processes at times when political opportunities presented themselves in Belarus resulted in an absence of large-scale protests and a failure to sustain the development of social movements in the country. At the same time, Belarus cannot be considered as being in a static or retrogressive state since transnational flows characteristic of a globalizing world have exposed people to wider flows of information, providing them with counterframes and resulting in a modest growth in the numbers of protesters and a change in the preferences of the Belarusian population.