Lustration Systems in Poland and Czech Republic Post
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Lustration Laws in Action: the Motives and Evaluation of Lustration Policy in the Czech Republic and Poland ( 1989-200 1 ) Roman David
Lustration Laws in Action: The Motives and Evaluation of Lustration Policy in the Czech Republic and Poland ( 1989-200 1 ) Roman David Lustration laws, which discharge the influence of old power structures upon entering democracies, are considered the most controversial measure of transitional justice. This article suggests that initial examinations of lustrations have often overlooked the tremendous challenges faced by new democracies. It identifies the motives behind the approval of two distinctive lustration laws in the Czech Republic and Poland, examines their capacity to meet their objectives, and determines the factors that influence their perfor- mance. The comparison of the Czech semi-renibutive model with the Polish semi-reconciliatory model suggests the relative success of the fonner within a few years following its approval. It concludes that a certain lustration model might be significant for democratic consolidation in other transitional coun- tries. The Czech word lustrace and the Polish lustrucju have enlivened the forgotten English term lustration,’ which is derived from the Latin term lus- Roman David is a postdoctoral fellow at the law school of the University of the Witwa- tersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa ([email protected]; [email protected]). The original version of the paper was presented at “Law in Action,” the joint annual meeting of the Law and Society Association and the Research Committee on the Sociology of Law, Budapest, 4-7 July 2001. The author thanks the University for providing support in writing this paper; the Research Support Scheme, Prague (grant no. 1636/245/1998), for financing the fieldwork; Jeny Oniszczuk from the Polish Constitutional Tribunal for relevant legal mate- rials; and Christopher Roederer for his comments on the original version of the paper. -
Should Poland Join the Euro? an Economic and Political Analysis
Should Poland Join the Euro? An Economic and Political Analysis Should Poland Join the Euro? An Economic and Political Analysis Graduate Policy Workshop February 2016 Michael Carlson Conor Carroll Iris Chan Geoff Cooper Vanessa Lehner Kelsey Montgomery Duc Tran Table of Contents Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................ i About the WWS Graduate Policy Workshop ........................................................................................ ii Executive Summary .............................................................................................................................. 1 1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 2 2 The Evolution of Polish Thought on Euro Adoption ................................................................. 5 2.1 Pre-EU membership reforms ...................................................................................................................... 5 2.2 After EU Accession ....................................................................................................................................... 5 2.3 Crisis years ...................................................................................................................................................... 6 2.4 Post-crisis assessment .................................................................................................................................. -
Wojciech Roszkowski Post-Communist Lustration in Poland: a Political and Moral Dilemma Congress of the Societas Ethica, Warsaw 22 August 2009 Draft Not to Be Quoted
Wojciech Roszkowski Post-Communist Lustration in Poland: a Political and Moral Dilemma Congress of the Societas Ethica, Warsaw 22 August 2009 Draft not to be quoted 1. Introduction Quite recently a well-known Polish writer stated that the major dividing line in the Polish society runs across the attitude towards lustration. Some Poles, he said, have been secret security agents or collaborators or, for some reasons, defend this cooperation, others have not and want to make things clear1. Even if this statement is a bit exaggerated, it shows how heated the debates on lustration in Poland are. Secret services in democratic countries are a different story than security services in totalitarian states. Timothy Garton Ash even calls this comparison “absurd”2. A democratic state is, by definition, a common good of its citizens. Some of them are professionals dealing with the protection of state in police, armed forces and special services, all of them being subordinated to civilian, constitutional organs of the state. Other citizens are recruited by these services extremely rarely and not without their consent. In totalitarian states secret services are the backbone of despotic power of the ruling party and serve not the security of a country but the security of the ruling elites. Therefore they should rather be given the name of security services. They tend to bring under their control all aspects of political, social, economic, and cultural life of the subjects of the totalitarian state, becoming, along with uniformed police and armed forces, a pillar of state coercion. Apart from propaganda, which is to make people believe in the ideological goals of the totalitarian state, terror is the main vehicle of power, aiming at discouraging people from any thoughts and deeds contrary to the said goals and even from any activity independent of the party-state. -
The Perverse Effects of Economic Liberalism on Human Rights
Reversing the Wave: The Perverse Effects of Economic Liberalism on Human Rights UMUT KORKUT* University College Dublin Abstract: This article takes the conservative shift in Polish politics under PiS as an example and argues that the failure of the liberal economy could end up reversing the fast-forward wave in human rights. And because Poland is a relatively new member of the EU, the article also develops the argument that such a reversal in the new member countries could make the European Un- ion’s (EU) acquis irrelevant for further democratisation. Therefore, the article fi rst explains how the failure of the economic liberalism of the neo-liberal mar- ket economy paves the way for the success of conservative political parties. It then raises the question of why political liberalism, promoted by the EU’s human rights acquis, is also a target for the opponents of the market economy. The article concludes with a discussion of current Polish politics in the after- math of the October 2007 elections. Keywords: liberalism, Poland, PiS, EU, human rights Sociologický časopis/Czech Sociological Review, 2009, Vol. 45, No. 3: 571–590 Introduction Is it possible for economic liberalisation to lead to the contraction of civil rights? This article looks at the conservative shift in Polish politics under the PiS (Prawo a sprawiedliwość – Law and Justice Party) government from September 2005 to Oc- tober 2007 in Poland as an example and argues that the failure of liberal economy could end up reversing the fast-forward wave in human rights. Therefore, rather than explaining the ascendance of PiS purely as a result of embedded conserva- tism in Polish politics, the article depicts how conservative political parties can oppose economic and political liberalism in one package. -
Steel Concrete Reinforcing Bar from Belarus, China, Indonesia, Korea, Latvia, Moldova, Poland, and Ukraine
Steel Concrete Reinforcing Bar From Belarus, China, Indonesia, Korea, Latvia, Moldova, Poland, and Ukraine Investigation Nos. 731-TA-873-875, 877-880, and 882 (Review) Publication 3933 July 2007 Washington, DC 20436 U.S. International Trade Commission COMMISSIONERS Daniel R. Pearson, Chairman Shara L. Aranoff, Vice Chairman Deanna Tanner Okun Charlotte R. Lane Irving A. Williamson Dean A. Pinkert Robert A. Rogowsky Director of Operations Staff assigned Olympia Hand, Investigator Karl Tsuji, Industry Analyst Clark Workman, Economist David Boyland, Accountant Gracemary Roth-Roffy, Attorney Patrick Gallagher, Attorney Steven Hudgens, Statistician Gabriel Ellenberger, Research Assistant Douglas E. Corkran, Supervisory Investigator Address all communications to Secretary to the Commission United States International Trade Commission Washington, DC 20436 U.S. International Trade Commission Washington, DC 20436 www.usitc.gov Steel Concrete Reinforcing Bar From Belarus, China, Indonesia, Korea, Latvia, Moldova, Poland, and Ukraine Investigation Nos. 731-TA-873-875, 877-880, and 882 (Review) Publication 3933 July 2007 CONTENTS Page Determination................................................................... 1 Views of the Commission ......................................................... 3 Separate and concurring views of Vice Chairman Shara L. Aranoff regarding Belarus, China, Indonesia, Moldova, and Ukraine ................................................. 43 Separate and dissenting views of Chairman Daniel R. Pearson and Commissioner -
Corrected Version Aysegul Keskin Zeren
IRAQ’S DE-BA`THIFICATION: RATIONALES AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A CONTESTED TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE MECHANISM A dissertation submitted to Kent State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Aysegul Keskin Zeren January 2014 Dissertation written by Aysegul Keskin Zeren B.A., Istanbul Bilgi University, 2005 M.A., Sabanci University, 2007 Ph.D., Kent State University, 2014 Approved by Patrick G. Coy, Co-Chair, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Landon E. Hancock, Co-Chair, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Andrew Barnes, Committee Member Pete W. Moore, Outside Committee Member C. Lockwood Reynolds, Graduate Faculty Member Accepted by Andrew Barnes, Chair, Department of Political Science Raymond Craig, Associate Dean, College of Arts and Sciences ii TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION ............................................................................................................... VIII ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................. IX CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................... 12 1.1 Research Question and Argument ........................................................................... 12 1.2 Transitional Justice .................................................................................................. 17 1.3 The Case: De-Ba`thification .................................................................................... 22 1.4 Structure of the Dissertation -
Lustration”, and Constitutional Continuity: Dilemmas of Transitional Justice in Central Europe
EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE, FLORENCE DEPARTMENT OF LAW EUI Working Paper LAW No. 2003/15 “Decommunisation”, “Lustration”, and Constitutional Continuity: Dilemmas of Transitional Justice in Central Europe WOJCIECH SADURSKI BADIA FIESOLANA, SAN DOMENICO (FI) All rights reserved. No part of this paper may be reproduced in any form without permission of the author(s) © 2003 Wojciech Sadurski Printed in Italy in December 2003 European University Institute Badia Fiesolana I – 50016 San Domenico (FI) Italy “Decommunisation”, “Lustration”, and Constitutional Continuity: Dilemmas of Transitional Justice in Central Europe Wojciech Sadurski* In a recent wide-ranging article two professors of the University of Chicago Law School, Eric Posner and Adrian Vermeule, attempt to show that there is no qualitative difference between transitional justice in post-communist (and other post-authoritarian) societies on the one hand and those manifestations of “domestic [U.S.] justice” which are eminently acceptable. They refute the claim that “transitional justice is a distinctive topic that presents a distinct set of moral and jurisprudential dilemmas” and assert that “transitional justice is continuous with ordinary justice” and as such, is not “presumptively suspect, on either moral or institutional grounds”.1 Their general strategy is to pick some of the most controversial tenets of “transitional justice” and to show that they have some unimpeachable equivalents in domestic American law. But this way of “normalizing” transitional justice won’t do. To be sure, an American (or more generally: Western) legal audience may perhaps obtain some help in comprehending the dramatic moral dilemmas faced by post-Communist societies when, for example, reputational problems related to “lustration” laws are compared to credit reporting rules regarding defaults on debts and bankruptcies;2 retroactive extensions of statutes of limitation on crimes under Communism are compared to new U.S. -
Lustration and Consolidation of Democracy and the Rule of Law in Central and Eastern Europe Series of Political Science Research Centre Forum Book 5
Lustration and Consolidation of Democracy and the Rule of Law in Central and Eastern Europe Series of Political Science Research Centre Forum Book 5 Series Editors: Erna Matanović Anđelko Milardović Davor Pauković Davorka Vidović Publisher: © Political Science Research Centre Zagreb, 2007 ISBN 978-953-7022-18-1 CIP record is available in an electronic catalog of National and University Library numbered XXXXXX LUSTRATION AND CONSOLIDATION OF DEMOCRACY AND THE RULE OF LAW IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE Editors: Vladimira Dvořáková Anđelko Milardović This volume was published with the financial support of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung www.cpi.hr Zagreb, 2007 Contents Preface ............................................................................................... 7 Stefanie Ricarda Roos Introduction .................................................................................... 11 Vladimíra Dvořáková I. Theoretical and conceptual approach 1. Lustration and Access to the Files of the Secret Police in Central Europe ..................................................................... 19 Gábor Halmai 2. (In)surpassable Barriers to Lustration: quis custodiet ipsos custodes? ......................................................................... 47 Alan Uzelac 3. In Search of a Theoretical Model of Transitional Justice ....... 65 Raluca Ursachi 4. Elites in the Waves of Democratization and the Lustration .... 85 Anđelko Milardović 5. Church: Between Lustration and the Crisis of Lustration .... 111 Ivan Markešić 6. Dilemmas of Transitional -
GENERAL ELECTIONS and SENATORIAL ELECTIONS in POLAND 9Th October 2011
GENERAL ELECTIONS AND SENATORIAL ELECTIONS IN POLAND 9th October 2011 European Elections monitor Outgoing Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s Civic Platform en route for a second term in office? From Corinne Deloy Translated by Helen Levy More than 30 million Poles are being called to ballot on 9th October next to renew the entire par- liament, i.e. 460 members of the Diet (Sejm) and the 100 members of the Senate. A special fact in ANALYSIS this election: they will be taking place whilst Warsaw is ensuring the presidency o f the Council of 1 month before the Ministers of the European Union. It was decided that whatever the election result, the present the pool government led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk (Civic Platform, PO) will chair the Ministers Council of the EU until 31st December 2011. It will only be possible to form the next government late on, for example at the beginning or in mid-December, since the parliament that emerges after the election will meet before mid-November. The Civic Platform, the party in office since the last elections on 21st October 2007, seems to be set to win the election on 9th October. One question remains however: what lead will it have over its competitors? How comfortable will this be? Law and Justice (PiS), the main opposition party led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, has said it wanted the elections to take place over two days in order to boost turnout that is traditionally low in Poland. The Constitutional Court opposed this, recalling that the Constitution stipulated that the election absolutely had to take place on a holiday or weekend. -
Democratic Consolidation in Poland: Support for Democracy, Civil Society and the Party System
TADEUSZ SZAWIEL University of Warsaw Democratic Consolidation in Poland: Support for Democracy, Civil Society and the Party System Abstract: Democratic consolidation is a complex problem area. In this article it is analyzed, first, from the perspective of the concept of support for democracy, originally conceptualized by David Easton and then elaborated by Hans-Dieter Klingemann and Russell Dalton. Second, since democratic institutions and procedures do not operate in a void, the social context of civil society, social engagement and political parties are analyzed. As far as possible, the empirical analyses are conducted according to a complex and ramified theoretical model based on these concepts. Eleven European countries are analyzed including seven established democracies, three of which are historically Catholic countries (Spain, Italy, Ireland). In light of the importance of the communist legacy, the data for Germany are presented separately for western and eastern lands. The data presented in this article are derived from the most recent, publicly accessible research containing comparable information on all 11 countries, with a few minor exceptions. Keywords: democracy, democratic consolidation, diffused and specific political support, civil society, poli- tical parties, social trust When we say “consolidated democracy,” the most rudimentary intuition which comes to mind is this: a country in which democracy is safe, will not die or be subverted. Consolidated democracy leads to stability and persistence. If so, then our job would be very easy, were we to be asked whether Polish democracy was a consolidated democracy. In his book “Democracy and Development” based on extensive empirical material covering well over a hundred countries over the period 1950–1990, Adam Przeworski (2000:98) says: …the probability that a democracy would die in a country with an income above $4,000 was almost zero. -
A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts And
LUSTRATION AND DEMOCRACY: THE POLITICS OF TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE IN THE POST- COMMUNIST WORLD A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Georgetown University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Government By Peter Rožič SJ, MDiv. Washington, DC December 5, 2012 Copyright 2012 by Peter Rožič SJ All Rights Reserved ii LUSTRATION AND DEMOCRACY: THE POLITICS OF TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE IN THE POST- COMMUNIST WORLD Peter Rožič SJ, MDiv. Thesis Advisor: Charles King, PhD. ABSTRACT In transitions from authoritarian regimes, justice has normally encompassed a variety of approaches, from amnesty to public trials. The oddity about the post-communist world is that transitional justice has been reduced to, by and large, the mechanism of lustration, which is the process of limiting the political participation of the former authoritarian elites. This widespread political arrangement raises three puzzles of regime transitions. Why do some post-communist countries lustrate, while others do not? Why do countries with similar authoritarian pasts implement different lustration mechanisms? What explains the timing of lustration? This dissertation argues that three factors–– democracy, elite politics and the institutional environment––explain levels of lustration as measured by an original Lustration Index, covering thirty-four post-communist countries from 1990 to 2012. Statistical analyses, elite interviews and in-depth case studies of Russia and Georgia illustrate that inherited social capital and institutional constraints affect transitional justice in ways that account for lustration as an integral part of post-communist regime change. The findings of this study demonstrate that lustration is a tool by which the transitional elites rewrite the rules of the political process in order to gain and maintain political power. -
Why Do Politicians Need Television Debates? a Content Analysis of Polish Debates
MAREK MAZUR, ALEKSANDRA KONIECZNY Why do Politicians Need Television Debates? A Content Analysis of Polish Debates KEY WORDS televised campaign debates, election campaign, functional theory of political discourse, contents analysis ABSTRACT The aim of the study discussed in the article was to recognise the content and form of televised campaign debates in Poland in the years 1995–2010. Their content analysis concentrated on verbal message elements of politicians and journalists participating in debates in the context of functional theory of political discourse. In the light of the study, political candidates focus on a positive presentation of their election offer, treating debates primarily as a form of advertising. Politicians’ appeals refer to matters of policy and character to a similar degree. Their policy statements consist of pragmatic messages, referring to current issues in a superficial form, and in statements on personal issues, what dominates are political competences. Debates turn out to be a highly contextualized form of political communication. The fact that in 2011, for the first time in the history of Polish elections, the subject of television debates between the leaders of the most important parties, and more precisely, the deliberations if, under which rules, where, and when would they take place, dominated for a long time in the television reports of the campaign seems to confirm not only the growing popularity of the debates but also the growing expectations of journalist and a large part of the electorate1 about