Polish Politics and Society

Frances Millard

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• eBook ISBN: 9781134724468
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Política

An examination of political, social and economic development in Poland since the summer of 1989, with the main focus on democratization.

1
POLAND AND THE
‘TRANSITION TO DEMOCRACY’

The loss of the communists’ monopoly of political power in the former Soviet bloc between 1989 and 1991 was a series of events of incalculable import and extraordinary implications. Two countries, Poland and Hungary, spearheaded this process as their authoritarian regimes sought desperately to find new means of legitimating their power and rejuvenating a bankrupt political and economic system.¹ Even the most ardent of communist reformers in these two countries were astonished to find that they had launched a tidal wave of upheaval washing across the eastern half of Europe and beyond. The images were potent and the language was millennial: a new dawn, a new era, a new order. The watchwords were ‘democracy’ and ‘the market’. The new rulers of the former communist countries turned to march to a different tune, if not always melodically or harmoniously. They would no longer seek to create a new international order but to integrate themselves into the existing one. Coca-Cola was ‘no longer the drug of imperialist domination but the nectar of universal prosperity’.²

Approaches to democratization

These exciting events generated shelves of additional scholarly literature regarding the way in which the post-communist countries fit into general approaches to the conditions, process and nature of democratic development. American scholars led the way to a revival of wide-ranging comparative studies, as the Eastern European states and the former Soviet Republics were added to the laboratory of Latin America and Southern Europe in this ‘third wave’ of democratization.³ These studies opened interesting avenues of investigation and reformulated many traditional approaches to the conditions, causes and processes of democratic evolution.⁴ Increasingly as democratic institutions gained credence, a new emphasis on the consolidation of democracy made its appearance.

Of course none of these concepts is unproblematic. Democracy itself has been dissected and re-dissected and divided into types and sub-types.⁵ The same is true of the path itself: the ‘transition to democracy’. Attempts todistinguish aspects of democratization led to notions of ‘phases of transition’⁶ or ‘two transitions’.⁷ Many preferred to substitute ‘transformation’ as a term that bears no burden of teleology, yet conveys a similar image of change and dynamism. Others readily adopted the term transition but disagreed about its character, how we know when it has begun and ended, as well as about its significance and implications. Consolidation presents similar difficulties. When does ‘transition’ cease and ‘consolidation’ begin? What are the indices of consolidated democracy? Consolidation implies ‘habituation’⁸ and ‘institutionalization’;⁹ but it is difficult to judge this condition except with considerable hindsight. Moreover, much depends on one’s concept of democracy, itself at least partly a product of the eye of the beholder.¹⁰

In particular, distinctions centred on whether democracy should be considered as ‘procedural’ or ‘substantive’. Minimalist, procedural definitions often focused on the process of elections, viewing democratization as a process whereby uncompetitive authoritarian regimes give way to regimes based on a choice of leaders.¹¹ In Huntington’s view the process could be seen as consolidated when elections twice generated a peaceful handover of power to new winners.¹² Since electoral choice depends on certain other freedoms, notably of expression, assembly and association, the safeguarding of these liberties also constituted at least an implicit element of most definitions.¹³ To avoid the charge of the ‘electoral fallacy’, however, many scholars shifted their procedural emphasis from elections to wider issues of the rules laid down for the functioning of the polity. Elections were a key but insufficient aspect of democracy. Democracy would only be adjudged consolidated after a series of elections, when institutionalization of formal and informal institutions had secured the ‘reproduction of the minimalist procedures’ and when ‘all major political actors’ had accepted the democratic rules of the game.¹⁴ Adopting a proceduralist definition of democracy appeared to make comparative analysis easier,¹⁵ but attempts to generalize about markedly different countries also led to doubts as to how far the comparisons could be taken.¹⁶

In contrast, if democracy is seen as a multi-layered and dynamic system with practices, procedures and attitudes entrenched in a complex interaction of political, economic, social and cultural dimensions, its qualitative elements become vital and comparison becomes more difficult. Substantive approaches placed more emphasis on the centrality of the demos and the importance of mechanisms of political participation, responsiveness and accountability, while stressing individual rights as part of the substance of democracy, not just as necessary instruments of free elections.¹⁷

It was also the case that crucial differences separated the Latin American and Southern European ‘transitions’ from those of Central and Eastern Europe. Gerardo Munck has raised the question of why transitions from authoritarian regimes were ‘harder to start’ there than those in Latin America.¹⁸ The answer does not seem very problematic. The Latin American countries were already capitalist market economies. When élite divisions manifested themselves, anew élite was often available to take over political power, and the region’s superpower patron was (formally) enthusiastic about democracy, if fearful of popular revolution. In Eastern Europe the Soviet Union served as a fundamental (if not the fundamental) constraint. Moreover, the scope of political, economic and social control by domestic communist parties was far greater than that in Latin America. The initial conditions and the complexity and totality of the tasks undertaken in 1989–91 made ‘postcommunism’ a distinctive category, at least in the short term.

The tasks of transformation

Once the commitment to capitalist democracy was made, the tasks of postcommunist transformation were more challenging than elsewhere. Roughly five sets of inter-related and interdependent institutional relationships were involved if liberal democratic-capitalist aspirations were in some fashion to be met in more than strictly procedural terms. First, the process of democratization required the development of institutions functioning according to two key principles: the rule of law and the safeguarding of minority rights. This entailed qualitatively new relations among the political institutions of parliament, executive and the judiciary, based on the separation of powers. It required new intermediate institutions between the citizen and the polity, including political parties and autonomous pressure groups, with guarantees of individual civil liberties. It also required mechanisms of accountability of institutions to the citizenry. In Poland and Hungary in particular the erosion (or ‘liberalization’) of the authoritarian system meant that some of these institutions were already emerging before 1989; but the ensuing commitment to democracy changed their functions and their interrelations.

Secondly, the process of building capitalism required the dismantling of the institutions of central planning and price fixing; the development of new mechanisms to determine and safeguard private property rights; and new systems of taxation and financial regulation compatible with market economics. It was also clear that the large state enterprises, especially in the heavy industrial sector, required restructuring, if indeed they could survive in competitive conditions.

Thirdly, the dual processes of capitalist and democratic development would lead to the transformation of the social structure and would require reshaping the social institutions of the communist welfare state. Assumed changes in class structure included above all the emergence of a new entrepreneurial class and a recasting of the intelligentsia and large sections of the industrial working class into a new middle stratum. A ‘service class’ would emerge and peasants would become farmers. Institutional changes in welfare would result from a reduction of the state’s social role; from new behavioural requirements for enterprises, which would need to relinquish their extensivesocial functions in the search for profits; and from new inequalities. The restored ability of organizations like the churches to pursue traditional social functions and the emergence of new intermediate groups also had implications for social provision.

Fourthly, the aim of substantive democracy entailed transformation of the underlying political culture, as subjects of communist rule became citizens of democratic society. Observers such as Seymour Martin Lipset, long associated with the view that democracy is closely related to economic development, came to accept the view that in the present context ‘cultural factors appear even more important than economic ones’.¹⁹ Yet this is also the area of slowest change in this asynchronous process of multiple transition. Ralf Dahrendorf thought that the emergence of an active civil society, with its values of self-reliance, courtesy and tolerance, could take a generation or two.²⁰ Attila Ágh referred to a new political culture as materializing ‘only at the very end of the consolidation process…[and representing] a fundamental turning point in system change, i.e. the massive appearance of democrats after a long process of democratization’.²¹ We shall explore later the ways in which many have seen the social and cultural traits of ‘Soviet man’, homo sovieticus— passive and addicted to dependence on the state—as a profound barrier to change, even in countries such as Poland and Hungary²² where the emergence of ‘civil society’ predated (and contributed to) the end of the communist regime. Furthermore, it is important to stress that the development of a society of ‘citizens’ is itself complex and often contradictory and linked in various ways to the development of economic and social (in) equality. The early processes of democratization had a differential impact on men and women, for example, which emphases on procedural democracy cannot capture.²³ Women saw a sharp reduction in their role in the political system, redefinitions of their social roles, greater unemployment, and social policies which affected them more than men. In some countries ethnic minorities also suffered adversely. Indeed, it is pertinent to note here that inaugurating processes of socio-cultural adaptation seemed to be easier for those countries with a basic ethnic homogeneity and a strong sense of national identity. Such countries, especially Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, had few problems in defining the community of citizens, while others grappled with serious problems of identity.²⁴

Finally, processes of global integration required developing new trading relationships, membership of the institutions of the international economic and monetary systems, and new security institutions. The decisions of many post-communist states to seek membership of the European Union and NATO ensured qualitatively different relationships with these two organizations, which were themselves adapting to post-Cold War conditions. This also applied to other institutions such as the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).Extraction from the dependence of the bipolarity of the Cold War also meant a radical redefinition of their relationships with one another and with the USSR. Then, as the communist federations of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia disintegrated, neighbours changed as new states were added to the map of Europe. The international relations of the new states, including international economic relations, became both an aspect of and a cause of ‘transition’. Indeed, debates about the relationship between and the relative importance of internal and external factors for promoting processes of change continued to be salient long after the demise of the Soviet Union.²⁵

As expected, these multiple transitions gave rise to a series of interacting and interdependent processes. Yet after nearly a decade it was clear that for Central Europe at least, the worst fears of observers had not thus far materialized, namely that economic and social disruption and dislocation would be so severe as to threaten the process of democratization itself.²⁶ All post-communist countries plunged into economic depression as a result of the first stages of the move to capitalism. Standards of living fell and social provision diminished. Inequalities became not only more pronounced but also highly visible. Social problems, including high crime rates, drug abuse, and homelessness, were the more threatening because they had been unknown or effectively hidden under the communist regimes, and they contributed to high levels of personal insecurity. The genuine hardship and anguish of major elements of the population did not find expression in waves of mass social protest or support for extremist, anti-democratic movements. Discontent surfaced through ‘normal channels’, including strikes and protests, but it was largely expressed through the electoral process, thus increasing confidence that democracy had indeed been achieved (in accordance with procedural definitions) or was deepening²⁷ (in accordance with substantive approaches).

Nevertheless, in many countries the issue of ‘nostalgia’ for the communist system remained important. In one sense this was not nostalgia at all. Only a tiny minority advocated a return to the repressive, stultifying centralized bureaucratic regimes of ‘really existing socialism’; and in Central Europe no major political party advocated such a position. However, there was a widespread sense that the old system had positive features, including its highly developed welfare state, the absence of (open) unemployment, and rather low levels of violent crime—a considerable contrast with the upheavals and insecurity of ‘transition’. Egalitarian values strengthened as inequalities widened. Support for continuing state interventionism was linked to arguments about the persistence of a communist ‘mentality’. It was also relevant to more general issues of the communist legacy.²⁸ ‘Legacy’ or ‘path dependence’ approaches stressed the importance (or burden) of history in shaping change. They were countered by those who argued that the demands and incentives of new arrangements shape behaviour (the ‘imperatives of liberalization’).²⁹ We will stress how both approaches are needed, not least because new institutions are unlikely to succeed if they are not consonant with social norms and the structural characteristics of society.³⁰

Much of this study will be taken up with themes which relate the ‘tasks of transformation’ both to Poland’s historical legacy and its influence in shaping subsequent developments and to the new factors generating shifts in political and social behaviour. Identifying the ‘new’ also requires a conception of the ‘old’, both encapsulating its nature and positioning it in its broader context. If Poland was unique among the communist states, as Linz and Stepan maintain,³¹ then one might expect its pattern of post-communist transformation to be qualitatively different from that elsewhere. Examining the starting point is also vital to assess the significance of the transition mechanism itself. For a number of reasons, then, it is appropriate to take a brief backwards diversion.

The nature of the Polish communist system

Certainly there is little dispute among scholars as to the distinctive nature of the Polish variant of the communist system. It is not the intention to rehearse those arguments fully here, but rather to make clear some of the judgements and ass...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Tables
• Preface
• 1. Poland and the ‘Transition to Democracy’
• 2. The Practice of Government
• 3. Institution-Building and the Constitutional Settlement
• 4. Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law
• 5. Elections and the Emerging Party System
• 6. Political Participation and Civil Society
• 7. The Political Role of the Catholic Church
• 8. The Politics of Economic and Social Policy
• 9. Conclusion the Character of Polish Democratization
• Notes
• Bibliography