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Regional Issues in Polish Politics Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019 with funding from UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES) https://archive.org/details/SSEES0028 REGIONAL ISSUES IN POLISH POLITICS Edited by T. ZARYCKI and G. KOLANKIEWICZ REGIONAL ISSUES IN POLISH POLITICS Edited by T. ZARYCKI and G. KOLANKIEWICZ School of Slavonic and East European Studies Efniversity College London 2003 REGIONAL ISSUES IN POLISH POLITICS EDITED BY T. ZARYCKI AND G. KOLANKIEWICZ © School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, 2003 SSEES Occasional Papers No. 60 ISBN: 0903425-71-8 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any other form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior permision of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, UCL. Copies of this publication and others in the School’s referred series of Occasional Papers can be obtained from the Publications Office, SSEES-UCL, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU. Printed by Q3 Print Project Management Ltd, Loughborough, Leics Contents Introduction The relevance of the regional dimension of Polish politics — the Polish Referendum on EU accession 1 George Kolankiewicz Continuity and Change in Polish policy after regional reform in 1989 11 Jan Rokita Regional Politics Regionalisation: A Failure or a Step Toward a New System of Power? 19 Jerzy Regulski The Social Embeddedness of Polish Regional Development: Representative Institutions, Path Dependencies, and Network Formation 31 David Dornisch A Silesian Case Study The Silesian Voivodship: Landscape after the Reform 61 Marek S. Szczepahski Silesia and the Politics of Regionalisation in Poland 83 James Hughes, Gwendolyn Sasse, Claire Gordon and Tatiana Majcherkiewicz V VI Contents Regional Party Politics Acquiescent versus Humiliated Periphery. Global Attitudes, Political Ideologies and Economic Interests in Polish Politics 115 Anna Sosnowska Chaos Out of Order?: Polish Parties’ Electoral Strategies and Bases of Support 133 Aleks Szczerbiak The Post-communist Cleavage on the National and the Local Level in Poland 157 Miroslawa Grabowska Local Government and Local Politics Partisan Cleavages in Local Governments in Poland After 1990 179 Paw el Swianiewicz The Regional Elites the Polish Experiences in a Comparative Perspective 201 Antoni Kuklinski and Karol Olejniczak Local Identity, Democratic Values, or Partisanship? Why Some Polish Citizens are More Content than Others with the Unpopular Local Governance Reforms 215 Clare McManus-Czubinska, William L. Miller, Radoslaw Markowski and Jacek Wasilewski Conclusion The Regional Dimension of the Polish Political Scene 239 Tomasz Zarycki Afterword On the Attitudes towards the Regionalisation of Poland 263 Tomasz Zarycki Acknowledgements The Annual Anglo-Polish Colloquium held at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies on 15-16 April 2002 was devoted to the “Regional Dimension of the Polish Political Scene”. As in previous years the organ¬ isers acknowledge the contribution of the FCO and the Foundation for Polish Science (FNP) for their support of the Polish Social Science Post- Doctoral Fellowship. The duties of the Fellow include the organisation of this Colloquium which in turn was generously supported by a Research Grant from the M B Grabowski Fund attached to the Chair in Sociology with special reference to Central and Eastern Europe and represented by Mr Ryszard Gabrielczyk. The support of the Polish Embassy in London and of HE Dr Stanislaw Komorowski and Mrs Monika Lawacz for the Colloquium was, as always, highly appreciated. This volume of papers would not have been possible without the tireless energy and editorial input of Christine Fernandes and the assistance of Emma Camplejohn and Lowell Black to whom a special note of thanks is due. Tomasz Zarycki, George Kolankiewicz. SSEES-UCL, London June 2003. Notes on Contributors David Dornisch is currently an analyst at the United States General Accounting Office working on an array of economic development and public policy research projects. He has worked as a researcher, consultant, and lecturer in Austria, Poland and the UK. Claire Gordon is Lecturer in the Department of Government, London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London. Miroslawa Grabowska is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Sociology, Warsaw University. James Hughes is Reader in Comparative Politics, European Institute and Department of Government, London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London. George Kolankiewicz is Professor of Sociology, special reference Central and Eastern Europe and Director of SSEES-UCL. Antoni Kuklihski is Professor Emeritus at Warsaw University, President of the Polish Chapter of the Club of Rome and former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland. Clare McManus-Czubihska is Lecturer in the Department of Central and East European Studies, University of Glasgow and Reviews Editor of Europe- Asia Studies. Tatiana Majcherkiewicz is Assistant Professor in the Department of Applied Social Sciences, University of Mining and Metallurgy, Krakow, Poland. Radoslaw Markowski is Head of the Polish National Election Survey Program at the Institute for Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Political Sciences, Warsaw School of Social Psychology. IX X Regional Issues in Polish Politics William L. Miller is Edward Caird Professor of Politics, Department of Poli¬ tics, University of Glasgow. Karol Olejniczak is teaching assistant, Centre for European Regional and Local Studies, Warsaw University. Jerzy Regulski is President of the Foundation in Support of Local Democ¬ racy, Professor Emeritus of the Lodz University, former Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Republic of Poland at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. He is also former Chairman of the Prime Minister’s Council for the Reform of the System of the State. Jan Maria Rokita is a Member of Parliament, Chairman of the Parliamentary Club of the “Civic Platform’’ party and former Chairman of the Chancellery of the Prime Minister of Poland. Gwendolyn Sasse is Lecturer in Political Economy, Department of Govern¬ ment and European Institute at London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London. Anna Sosnowska is Assistant Professor at the American Studies Centre, Warsaw University. Pawel Swianiewicz is Associate Professor at the Centre for European Regional and Local Studies, Warsaw University, former programme manager of the British Know How Fund local government assistance programme in Poland. Marek S. Szczepanksi is Director of the Institute of Sociology, University of Silesia in Katowice and Rector of Higher School of Management and Social Science in Tychy. Aleksander Szczerbiak is Senior Lecturer in Contemporary European Studies, Sussex European Institute, University of Sussex and Associate Director, ESRC One Europe or Several? Programme. Jacek Wasilewski is Professor and Director of the Institute of Political Sciences, the Warsaw School of Social Psychology and Head of the Unit of the Elite and Political Behavior Research at the Institute for Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Tomasz Zarycki is Assistant Professor and Deputy Director of the Institute for Social Studies, Warsaw University. Introduction The Relevance of the Regional Dimension of Polish Politics — The Polish Referendum on EU Accession George Kolankiewicz After what some commentators have called one of the most important votes in Polish history, namely the referendum on EU accession held on 8-9 June 2003, an intriguing aspect of Polish political allegiances at once became apparent. Political spatial divisions whose dividing lines could be traced back centuries appeared to have acted as excellent indicators of the voting behaviour of the Polish electorate. Obviously political traditions, as well as infrastructural development can influence political sympathies, however, it is clear that voters are also prisoners of their location to a greater extent than they realised. Poland appears to be divided for voting purposes into six regions which include the Western Territories, the Prus¬ sian partition regions both east and west, Galicia to the south, the central basin of Warsaw and Lodz and the eastern “wall”. Surprisingly, it is the central basin of the old Russian partition which is the most anti-European, a fact only disguised by the presence of a large urban vote. Galicia, or the old Austrian partition, was most pro-European and indeed its democratic traditions still appear to be able to ensure a large turn-out.1 The inhabitants of the western territories which came into Poland after the war and contain migrants from eastern Poland and indeed other areas which were built up by migrant populations, displayed the highest level of pro-EU voting behaviour. Their attitude to change and uncertainty appeared to be deci¬ sive, and this is exactly what EU accession implied. The areas which had given birth to Solidarity once again demonstrated their anti-traditionalism and boldness. The opponents of accession in the Basin and the east demon¬ strated high turnout coupled with social isolationism and a “no” vote. This group had its own success and will not disappear from the political scene for some time to come. The Lublin region, for example, recorded a 36.7% no vote with a 55.5% turnout and preferred to disregard the Church and its 1 2 Regional Issues
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