The Oxford Handbook of Polish Politics provides students, researchers, practitioners, and interested readers with the most complete analysis of Polish politics and society yet published.
The Oxford Handbook of Polish Politics provides students, researchers, practitioners, and interested readers with the most complete analysis of Polish politics and society yet published. Including cutting-edge contributions from specialist scholars across the world, it is a comprehensive and up to date reference work and authoritative source on Polish Politics.
Poland is the fifth largest European Union (EU) member state, representing in terms of size and population more than half of the EU enlargement in 2004. On October 27th 2021, it celebrated the 30th anniversary of the first free and fair parliamentary elections. During these 30 years, the country has achieved unprecedented progress and has gone through substantial political and economic transformation. These dynamics make Poland a fascinating laboratory to unfold complexities of post-communist processes and developments, from transition to democracy, to democratic backsliding and backward. Although Poland itself is reasonably well-researched, above all together with other Central East European countries, a prestigious systematic and in-depth analysis in English language in the format offered by an Oxford Handbook is unprecedented.
Part I. Introduction
1: KATARZYNA WALECKA, SIMONA GUERRA AND FERNANDO CASAL BÉRTOA: Polish
Politics: an Introduction
2: NORMAN DAVIES: History and Politics
Part II. Past and Present
3: ANTONI DUDEK: The Communist Rule (1945-1989) and Its Influence on
Contemporary Political Life
4: KRZYSTOF JASIEWICZ: The Round Table Accord and Elections of 1989: The
Foundation Myth that Faded Away
5: WIKTOR MARZEC AND TOMASZ ZARYCKI: Structural Entanglements of Polish
Politics in Historical Perspective
6: MITCHELL A. ORENSTEIN: Democratisation and Marketisation
7: IPEK CINAR AND MONIKA NALEPA: Transnational Justice and Elite
Polarisation
8: BARBARA GRABOWSKA-MOROZ: Rule of law and democratic backsliding in Poland
- stages, methods, outcomes
Part III. Institutions
9: JAROSLAW FLIS AND MAREK M. KAMINSKI: Electoral System: Genesis, Evolution,
and Functioning
10: KAMIL MARCINKIEWICZ: Parliamentary Transformation: Unstable Parties,
State Party Families
11: PHILIPP KÖKER: Presidential Politics
12: ANDRZEJ ANTOSZEWSKI AND PRZEMYSLAW ZUKIEWICZ: Coalition Governments and
Coalitions Politics
13: ADAM BODNAR AND ADAM PLOSZKA: The Struggle for the Independence of the
Judiciary: From Communism to the Rule of Law Crisis
14: KINGA WOJTAS AND RAFAL MATYJA: Public Administration
15: ADAM GENDZWILL: Decentralization and Local Politics
Part IV. Mass Politics and Voters
16: MARTA BUCHOLC AND IRENEUSZ PAWEL KAROLEWSKI: Nationalism
17: AGNIESZKA KWIATKOWSKA AND KATARZYNA WALECKA: Polarised Democracy:
Diverging Attitudes Towards Democracy
18: JAN KUBIK, MICHAEL BERNHARD AND GRZEGORZ EKIERT: Political Culture
19: MICHAL KOTNAROWSKI: Short-term Determinants of Electoral Behaviour:
Economic Voting and Its Extensions
20: HUBERT TWORZECKI: The Social Structure and Electoral Behaviour
21: MIKOLAJ CZESNIK AND PIOTR ZAGÓRSKI: Electoral Turnout
22: DAMIAN GUZEK, MAREK MAZUR AND KAROLINA KOC-MICHALSKA: Mass Media and
Political Communication
23: PAWEL MATUSZEWSKI AND MAREK TROSZYNSKI: Social Media and Politics
Part V. Political Parties and the Party System
24: KATARZYNA SOBOLEWSKA-MYSLIK: Parliamentary and Presidential Elections
25: RADOS?AW MARKOWSKI: Party System: Stability and Change
26: FERNANDO CASAL BÉRTOA AND INGRID VAN BIEZEN: Party Regulation: A
Laissez-Faire Affair
27: FERNANDO CASAL BÉRTOA, TOMASZ GASIOR, MAGDALENA MUSIAL-KARG AND MARCIN
WALECKI: Party Funding Regulation: From De-communisation to De-stabilisation
28: KATARZYNA WALECKA AND MARIA WINCLAWSKA: Political Parties as
Organizations
29: MACIEJ HARTLINSKI: Pathways and Background of Political Leaders and
Elites
30: BEATA KOSOWSKA-GASTOL: Candidate Selection in National and European
Parliament Elections
31: BEN STANLEY: Political parties and Ideological Representation
Party VI. Society
32: ANNA GWIAZDA: Gender and Politics
33: ANNA GRZYMALA-BUSSE: Religion and Politics
34: GRZEGORZ EKIERT, JAN KUBIK AND MICHAEL BERNHARD: Social Movements and
Protests
35: MICHAEL BERNHARD, JAN KUBIK AND GRZEGORZ EKIERT: Social Capital and Civil
Society
36: PATRYCJA ROZBICKA AND PAWEL KAMINSKI: Interest Groups and Trade Unions
37: JOANNA FOMINA AND JACEK KUCHARCZYK: The Immigration Policy Debate in
Poland, 1989-2023: From Institutionalisation to Instrumentalisation
Part VII. Governance and Public Policies
38: MAREK NACZYK: Dependency and developmentalism in Poland's FDI-led growth
model
39: JOANNA TYROWICZ AND MARCIN BOJANOWSKI: Labour Market Policies
40: DOROTA SZELEWA AND MICHAL POLAKOWSKI: The evolution of social policy:
continuity and change
41: MACIEJ JAKUBOWSKI AND TOMASZ GAJDEROWICZ: The politics and education
policies
42: BARBARA WIECKOWSKA, ALDONA FRACZKIEWICZ-WRONKA, IGA RUDAWSKA AND
CHRISTOPH SOWADA: Health Policies
43: GRZEGORZ MAKOWSKI AND ADAM SAWICKI: Corruption and anti-corruption policy
in Poland
Part VIII. Poland and the European Union
44: ANNA PACZESNIAK: Poland in the European Union: the corrosion of
consensus
45: ALEKSANDRA SOJKA: Political Elites and the European Union
46: SIMONA GUERRA: Explaining attitudes towards the EU
47: MAGDALENA GÓRA AND KATARZYNA ZIELINSKA: Between Europe and the Nation:
The Polish Representation in the European Parliament
48: WOJCIECH GAGATEK: Politicizing Europe: Challenges to Domestic Political
Competition
49: AGNIESZKA K. CIANCIARA: EU Decision-making: a Case of Differentiated
(Dis)integration?
50: MONIKA SUS: Poland and the European Union's foreign policy
Part IX. Foreign Policy and Defence
51: STEFAN SZWED: The awkward middle power: Poland's foreign policy after
1989
52: BARTLOMIEJ E. NOWAK: Security and Geostrategy
53: OLAF OSICA: Poland's uneasy relations with its defence policy
54: SEBASTIAN KUBAS: Poland and the Visegrad Group
55: MICHAL NATORSKI: Polish Eastern foreign policy from the postcolonial
perspective
56: PAULINA POSPIESZNA AND TSVETA PETROVA: Poland and Democracy Promotion
Fernando Casal Bértoa is an Associate Professor in the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Nottingham. He is co-director of REPRESENT: Research Centre for the Study of Parties and Democracy, and a member of the OSCE/ODIHR Core Group of Political Party Experts.
Katarzyna Walecka is an Assistant Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Sociology at Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw. She previously held a Jean Monnet Fellowship at the European University Institute in Florence and was a Keeley Visiting Fellow at Wadham College, University of Oxford.
Simona Guerra, SFHEA, is Senior Lecturer in Comparative Politics at the University of Surrey. She is the founding co-chief editor of the first ECPR open access journal Political Research Exchange, current co-editor of Representation, The Journal of Representative Democracy, and an elected executive board member of the IPSA Research Committee (RC03) on European Unification.
