Democracy within the Polish political parties. A 'secret garden' of politics

Dr. M. Kaczorowska

University of Warsaw

m.kaczorowska@uw.edu.pl

The topics of lectures are:

“Democracy within the Polish political parties. A 'secret garden' of politics”,

“Who holds the keys? Polish Political Parties: their members and leaders. An Assessment of their Impact on Intra-Party Democracy”,

“Democracy within the (Polish) political parties. How to measure it?" and

“The evolution of the political parties and party system in Poland since 1989 in comparison with other countries in Central and Eastern Europe”

the series of lectures will explore selected developments of the Polish political parties since 1989.

The lectures will enable students to develop a thorough understanding of the evolution of the nature and structures of the Polish political parties and political decision making processes. The presentations will also explore the ideas and issues that have shaped the contemporary Polish politics. Furthermore, I shall discuss the political parties in the Polish parliament and those aspiring to winning seats, their relations, political parties in the government and in the opposition, elections.

How democratic are the political parties in Poland? I will present some of the preliminary results of my research and survey data from the Polish party members to address three key questions: how we may evaluate the state of intra-party democracy? And what type of intra-party democracy exits within Polish political parties? What are the consequences of the certain kind of democracy within political parties for the Polish politics? The empirical analysis of the democracy within the political parties is developed on the basis of the four dimensions identified and on based the Hazan and Rahat model (2010): competition, participation, representation and responsiveness. The analyses do support the thesis of an increasing centralization of party decision-making. Members are not always satisfied with the leadership of their political parties, but those in positions of power were more satisfied than the grassroots. Participants at all levels preferred the present delegatory type of democracy to more direct democratic procedures. The attitudes of the participants do not indicate any strong pressure for organizational change, but declining membership and lack of legitimacy may still bring changes to intra-party decision-making.

Comparisons with political parties political activity in other countries of the Western, Central and Eastern Europe will be made throughout the lectures. This way students will be given a framework that will facilitate a better understanding of the evolution of political parties and political behavior in Poland since 1989.

Class sessions will encourage students participation and discussions.

LEARNING OUTCOMES:

At the end of the course, students will be able to:
have an understanding of the specific structure of the Polish political parties and
the political process within political parties in Poland (in comparison with other countries in Europe),
become familiar with the current problems with democracy and within the Polish political parties, contemporary debates on amending the Political Parties Act in Poland, as well as with the existing model of financing politics in Poland;
acquire a good grasp of the key political developments in post 1989 Poland in terms of party politics.

Student performance will be evaluated based on a written test.