Old, New, Radical: Political Activism in the Czech Republic through the Prism of Social Movement Theory

The goal of this text is to offer a systematic analysis of political activism in the Czech Republic. The article first differentiates between and theoretically defines three types of political activism. These are old, new, and radical types of activism. The first is primarily represented by trade unions, the second by organisations with a post-materialistic orientation, and the third by political groups positioned on the far right and left. To analyse them, the text utilises selected tools of social movement theory. Drawing on this theory, the article shows the differences between the three activist types in the following dimensions: action repertoire, political opportunity structure (context), organisational resources, and so-called transactional capacity, which captures the ability of activist organisations to cooperate among themselves. The text analyses data from both protest event analysis (PEA Czech Republic) and a survey of Czech activist groups (SMO Czech Republic).