Power, Environment, and Depoliticized Conflict in Social Space: Threats to Sustainable Development from the Perspective of Environmental Activists in Poland

Do local environmental conflicts have a political dimension? Can the fight for social space be an opportunity for ecological activists to enter the “historical level” and question the fundamental principles of the existing political and economic order? This article aims to answer these questions and—based on the statements of environmental activists obtained during a sociological intervention—reconstruct the threats and socioinstitutional obstacles to sustainable development. It also aims to indicate sets of public actors that can be described—from the perspective of environmental activists—as opponents of the ecological movement in Poland. In this sense, the article attempts to determine what is at stake in the conflicts in which the ecological movement is engaged under the conditions of the crisis of democracy. It also asks about the relationship between local environmental conflicts and the dominant logic of the official state policy.