The Civic Platform in Poland - the first decade 2001 -2011 Søren Riishøj Associate professor Department of Political Science and Public Management University of Southern Denmark Email-address:
[email protected] Poli tical Science Publications No. 24/2010 Civic Platform (PO) is one of the new parties in Poland, established July 1 2001 as a liberal soft protest party with a flat decentralized institutional set-up. Over time, that profile changed radically, not least after the party in 2007 took over government responsibility. The formation took place predominantly endogenously as a conflict inside the Democratic Union (UD), where the liberal Donald Tusk lost the election for party chairman to the social liberal Bronislaw Gemerek. This paper first presents a short overview of the political parties and party systems in the CEECs, and second reviews the party's history with particular emphasis on variables like party institutionalization, electoral support, party programme, policy and party strategies, party cohesion, coalition building, and the party type. In conclusion, I discuss the position of the party in a broader Central European context. Key words: Party type, party systems, Civic Platform (PO), electoral support, coalition potential, party cohesion and institutionalisation, party policy, strategy and programme 2 Introduction: Parties and party systems in the CEECs: a short overview As in the “old Europe”, the parties and party systems in East Central Europe are decisive for consolidation of democracy. Often they are studied with particular emphasis on the party type . Mass parties have been contrasted to cadre parties (Duverger, 1954), and since the beginning of 1960s there have been much focus on catch-all parties (Kirchheimer,1966) with broad popular appeal, and cartel parties (Katz and Mair,1994) with focus on relations between party and state.