Students walk in front of the University of Warsaw in October 2007. The younger generation is at the crossroads of change. (Courtesy of Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Poland)
By June Tsai
Iga Harasimowicz, an international-relations major from Czestochowa, expressed optimism with development in Poland. She said she would vote for Law and Justice, the largest right-wing parliamentary party in Poland led by Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczynski. "Though I don't agree with everything they say or do," she added while brewing coffee at a quaint little coffee shop in historic Cracow, Poland's old capital.
But back in Warsaw, strong reservations exist regarding Law and Justice's government record. "Law and Justice believes the state should be as strong as possible," said Edmund Wnuk-Lipinski, president of Collegium Civitas and a sociology professor. He indicated that the moderate-right Civic Platform--Poland's major opposition party--heading up a coalition would be a better alternative for the Polish people looking toward the future. For him, supporters of Law and Justice are those who failed to find strategies to succeed in the new world of democracy. According to him, Law and Justice has successfully incorporated factions of people who prefer an authoritarian solution to democratic processes to handle the social problems.
On Oct. 21, new parliamentary elections took place in which Law and Justice and Civic Platform were major players as in 2005. Members of both parties have roots in Solidarity, the Polish anti-communist movement of the 1980s, and together enjoyed around 70 percent of votes in the new election. In comparison, the left-wing alliance of the Left and Democrats--transformed from former communist forces--had only 13 percent.
Communism seemed never to return. The debate today in Polish politics is whether the country should follow a radical or moderate reform route. While the Civic Platform touted its promise to create a Polish economic miracle in pre-election campaigns, the Law and Justice has pushed for a just society. The result of the Oct. 21 election, which reversed the 2005 election outcome and gave the Civic Platform an upper hand with 9 percent more support than the Law and Justice, indicated what the Polish people want for their future and, more importantly, how they wish to achieve it.
Law and Justice came to power in 2005 under the banner of fighting corruption and organized crime. For the Kaczynski twins, a corrupt network of ex-communists, former secret agents and businessmen was plaguing the country and had to be purged before a just society could be created.
Many still recall the outbreak of what was later dubbed Rywingate in December 2002, in which Lew Rywin, a film producer, was accused of asking for bribes on behalf of the governing party, then the left-wing Democratic Left Alliance, to pass a tailor-made law favorable to one particular media conglomerate. The event contributed to the drastic loss of popularity of the left alliance.
Shaping up unmistakably as a vanguard of moral revolution, Law and Justice is setting the agenda in Polish politics, as well as causing controversy with its heavy-handedness. The government has demonstrated a resolve to fight crime and corruption by revamping state organs. It disbanded the old security services, created a new intelligence agency and established an anti-corruption office. The twin's personal record of leading a pristine lifestyle have supporters believing they are incorruptible. A series of corruption scandals captured on video footage over the past months and shortly before the election, however, has given rise to critics who claim that the government is going too far.
For Maria Jarosz, a sociology professor of the Polish Academy of Sciences, corruption in Poland is real, yet she believed the fight against corruption was not.
Poland after the transition saw major political players in the old regime holding on to privileges over distribution of state resources. They mostly fell into the hands of former communist members, who continued to be privileged. People in power enjoyed the rights to appoint personnel to important posts of companies in which the state was the majority stockholder, she explained.
Jarosz argued that the Kaczynskis have proved themselves incapable of governing. "The economy has not improved for underprivileged people, and corruption, as always, lies in the abuse of privileges enjoyed by political elites of whatever parties that are in power," she claimed Sept. 19. Jarosz, who published a book on political elites and corruption in post-communist Poland in 2005, said that this kind of abuse existed even in the Law and Justice-led government that publicly committed to fighting corruption.
Jadwiga Staniszkis, a professor of sociology at the University of Warsaw and the Polish Academy of Sciences, argued that "controlled provocation" by Law and Justice in hunting down corruption cases has been a partial success.
"Corruption was so deeply entrenched," she said Sept. 21, "now, they will think twice before doing it." Though, she noted, it is not because of institutional reform. It is because people are afraid that somebody is just provoking them. "This fight against corruption by using extra-legal tools might be very costly, but the results are real."
The awkward situation of being unable to reform a system while being embroiled in it seems to be a common obstacle for political leaders of new democracies emerging through peaceful means from authoritarian one-party rule in the past decade. Like political leaders in Taiwan, the new generation of Polish political elites faces a state machine and political resources leftover by regime change. How to deal with them and consolidate power becomes a priority for the new government, and if nothing substantial is achieved, distrust increases in society.
"New governments are not experienced in running a state machine, and flawed administrating causes confrontation between supporters and opponents," Chen Yin-huei of the Institute of International Relations at the University of Warsaw, and now a lecturer at National Chengchi University in Taiwan, said Aug. 23, when comparing the situation in Poland and Taiwan.
Chen explained that opponents often accused current governments of being as bureaucratic and authoritarian as their predecessors and of repeating corrupt practices, while supporters blame critics for obstructing reform and allowing room for the old regime to return.
Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party, who was given a mandate for change in 2000 and 2004, is accused of corruption regarding a presidential discretionary fund for diplomatic affairs created under the Kuomintang one-party rule.
Furthermore, the DPP's efforts to review KMT assets and return some to the state coffers have not been realized due to insufficient parliamentary representation. With supporters of reform split, the ruling party is now hoping to secure direct popular mandate by pursuing a national referendum. But critics accuse the DPP government of being even more authoritarian than the KMT during its last decade in power.
According to Staniszkis, this awkward situation stems from the inherent paradox of political endeavors. In the case of Law and Justice, it sought to concentrate power to deliver on its political promises. For instance, the Law and Justice government combined the position of justice minister and general prosecutor. The move to concentrate power through this institutional rearrangement has caused resistance in the court system and incited distrust among judges. In addition, putting loyal, rather than capable, persons in important positions to concentrate power also mired party leaders in the stricture of corruption.
Commenting on the moral revolution the Kaczynski brothers pledged to carry out in order to sever the connection between communism and post-communism, Staniszkis pointed out the paradox in such an endeavor: It is not possible to conduct revolution within the framework of law. Their effort to impose change while keeping legal limits that are working for continuity has led to the radical rhetoric and politicization of everything, she explained.
On another level, it is not feasible to strengthen state when "at the moment the state, though existing, is beginning to have more complicated problems than it did before," Staniskis said. "Building a modern state with concentrated power is not possible anymore."
"A state gets more control when it is withdrawing," she continued, indicating that the only possible way is to communicate and be trusted. When political elites failed to recognize the limits of political maneuvering, thus not being able to have control, they become more radical, she said.
For Staniszkis, the Polish people are more sophisticated than they seem to be as shown in election results and polls that revealed the make-up of electoral bases of the different political parties. The political elite failed to recognize the real process governing people's everyday life, she argued, and the brawling between political factions often remained simply verbal ones.
For instance, Law and Justice asked voters to choose "either solidarity or freedom," with the former associated with the party and the latter with its opponents, during the campaign two years ago. The reality was that people were not so simplistic and they wanted to combine both, Staniszkis said. "People are able to understand the different logic of electoral discourse and different necessities of how you should operate when you are in charge of something, and you should cooperate," she said, expecting a grand coalition between Law and Justice and Civic Platform.
The mass emigration of 2 million Polish people, mostly to other European countries in the past few years, is also manifesting in the people's pragmatism. "There is a process of learning in Polish society, and the learning process is accelerating after the country joined the European Union [in 2004]," Staniszkis said. "These people are experiencing different types of relations in society, different relationship between bureaucrats and the people," she continued.
Staniszkis expected real, rather than verbal, conflicts to bring about realization by the political elite of what a modern state is about, as well as the ability to negotiate in a totally different context to the one 17 years ago that signaled the beginning of the end for communism in Poland.
On the other hand, she also expected the younger generation of Polish people to be able to understand how the global logic operates, since they are engaged in the integration of Europe through studying or working abroad. "In order to reform your society and to adjust to global processes to win, you need many, many years," she concluded.
The younger generation of Polish people also seems to have the patience to see their country changed, viewing domestic affairs in a broader context. Harasimowicz said she felt optimistic about Poland's future, comparing its transition process with what happened in other European countries. "It has been only two years [since the right-wing coalition rule], and I would like to give it some more time," she said.
Iga Harasimowicz, an international-relations major from Czestochowa, expressed optimism with development in Poland. She said she would vote for Law and Justice, the largest right-wing parliamentary party in Poland led by Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczynski. "Though I don't agree with everything they say or do," she added while brewing coffee at a quaint little coffee shop in historic Cracow, Poland's old capital.
But back in Warsaw, strong reservations exist regarding Law and Justice's government record. "Law and Justice believes the state should be as strong as possible," said Edmund Wnuk-Lipinski, president of Collegium Civitas and a sociology professor. He indicated that the moderate-right Civic Platform--Poland's major opposition party--heading up a coalition would be a better alternative for the Polish people looking toward the future. For him, supporters of Law and Justice are those who failed to find strategies to succeed in the new world of democracy. According to him, Law and Justice has successfully incorporated factions of people who prefer an authoritarian solution to democratic processes to handle the social problems.
On Oct. 21, new parliamentary elections took place in which Law and Justice and Civic Platform were major players as in 2005. Members of both parties have roots in Solidarity, the Polish anti-communist movement of the 1980s, and together enjoyed around 70 percent of votes in the new election. In comparison, the left-wing alliance of the Left and Democrats--transformed from former communist forces--had only 13 percent.
Communism seemed never to return. The debate today in Polish politics is whether the country should follow a radical or moderate reform route. While the Civic Platform touted its promise to create a Polish economic miracle in pre-election campaigns, the Law and Justice has pushed for a just society. The result of the Oct. 21 election, which reversed the 2005 election outcome and gave the Civic Platform an upper hand with 9 percent more support than the Law and Justice, indicated what the Polish people want for their future and, more importantly, how they wish to achieve it.
Law and Justice came to power in 2005 under the banner of fighting corruption and organized crime. For the Kaczynski twins, a corrupt network of ex-communists, former secret agents and businessmen was plaguing the country and had to be purged before a just society could be created.
Many still recall the outbreak of what was later dubbed Rywingate in December 2002, in which Lew Rywin, a film producer, was accused of asking for bribes on behalf of the governing party, then the left-wing Democratic Left Alliance, to pass a tailor-made law favorable to one particular media conglomerate. The event contributed to the drastic loss of popularity of the left alliance.
Shaping up unmistakably as a vanguard of moral revolution, Law and Justice is setting the agenda in Polish politics, as well as causing controversy with its heavy-handedness. The government has demonstrated a resolve to fight crime and corruption by revamping state organs. It disbanded the old security services, created a new intelligence agency and established an anti-corruption office. The twin's personal record of leading a pristine lifestyle have supporters believing they are incorruptible. A series of corruption scandals captured on video footage over the past months and shortly before the election, however, has given rise to critics who claim that the government is going too far.
For Maria Jarosz, a sociology professor of the Polish Academy of Sciences, corruption in Poland is real, yet she believed the fight against corruption was not.
Poland after the transition saw major political players in the old regime holding on to privileges over distribution of state resources. They mostly fell into the hands of former communist members, who continued to be privileged. People in power enjoyed the rights to appoint personnel to important posts of companies in which the state was the majority stockholder, she explained.
Jarosz argued that the Kaczynskis have proved themselves incapable of governing. "The economy has not improved for underprivileged people, and corruption, as always, lies in the abuse of privileges enjoyed by political elites of whatever parties that are in power," she claimed Sept. 19. Jarosz, who published a book on political elites and corruption in post-communist Poland in 2005, said that this kind of abuse existed even in the Law and Justice-led government that publicly committed to fighting corruption.
Jadwiga Staniszkis, a professor of sociology at the University of Warsaw and the Polish Academy of Sciences, argued that "controlled provocation" by Law and Justice in hunting down corruption cases has been a partial success.
"Corruption was so deeply entrenched," she said Sept. 21, "now, they will think twice before doing it." Though, she noted, it is not because of institutional reform. It is because people are afraid that somebody is just provoking them. "This fight against corruption by using extra-legal tools might be very costly, but the results are real."
The awkward situation of being unable to reform a system while being embroiled in it seems to be a common obstacle for political leaders of new democracies emerging through peaceful means from authoritarian one-party rule in the past decade. Like political leaders in Taiwan, the new generation of Polish political elites faces a state machine and political resources leftover by regime change. How to deal with them and consolidate power becomes a priority for the new government, and if nothing substantial is achieved, distrust increases in society.
"New governments are not experienced in running a state machine, and flawed administrating causes confrontation between supporters and opponents," Chen Yin-huei of the Institute of International Relations at the University of Warsaw, and now a lecturer at National Chengchi University in Taiwan, said Aug. 23, when comparing the situation in Poland and Taiwan.
Chen explained that opponents often accused current governments of being as bureaucratic and authoritarian as their predecessors and of repeating corrupt practices, while supporters blame critics for obstructing reform and allowing room for the old regime to return.
Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party, who was given a mandate for change in 2000 and 2004, is accused of corruption regarding a presidential discretionary fund for diplomatic affairs created under the Kuomintang one-party rule.
Furthermore, the DPP's efforts to review KMT assets and return some to the state coffers have not been realized due to insufficient parliamentary representation. With supporters of reform split, the ruling party is now hoping to secure direct popular mandate by pursuing a national referendum. But critics accuse the DPP government of being even more authoritarian than the KMT during its last decade in power.
According to Staniszkis, this awkward situation stems from the inherent paradox of political endeavors. In the case of Law and Justice, it sought to concentrate power to deliver on its political promises. For instance, the Law and Justice government combined the position of justice minister and general prosecutor. The move to concentrate power through this institutional rearrangement has caused resistance in the court system and incited distrust among judges. In addition, putting loyal, rather than capable, persons in important positions to concentrate power also mired party leaders in the stricture of corruption.
Commenting on the moral revolution the Kaczynski brothers pledged to carry out in order to sever the connection between communism and post-communism, Staniszkis pointed out the paradox in such an endeavor: It is not possible to conduct revolution within the framework of law. Their effort to impose change while keeping legal limits that are working for continuity has led to the radical rhetoric and politicization of everything, she explained.
On another level, it is not feasible to strengthen state when "at the moment the state, though existing, is beginning to have more complicated problems than it did before," Staniskis said. "Building a modern state with concentrated power is not possible anymore."
"A state gets more control when it is withdrawing," she continued, indicating that the only possible way is to communicate and be trusted. When political elites failed to recognize the limits of political maneuvering, thus not being able to have control, they become more radical, she said.
For Staniszkis, the Polish people are more sophisticated than they seem to be as shown in election results and polls that revealed the make-up of electoral bases of the different political parties. The political elite failed to recognize the real process governing people's everyday life, she argued, and the brawling between political factions often remained simply verbal ones.
For instance, Law and Justice asked voters to choose "either solidarity or freedom," with the former associated with the party and the latter with its opponents, during the campaign two years ago. The reality was that people were not so simplistic and they wanted to combine both, Staniszkis said. "People are able to understand the different logic of electoral discourse and different necessities of how you should operate when you are in charge of something, and you should cooperate," she said, expecting a grand coalition between Law and Justice and Civic Platform.
The mass emigration of 2 million Polish people, mostly to other European countries in the past few years, is also manifesting in the people's pragmatism. "There is a process of learning in Polish society, and the learning process is accelerating after the country joined the European Union [in 2004]," Staniszkis said. "These people are experiencing different types of relations in society, different relationship between bureaucrats and the people," she continued.
Staniszkis expected real, rather than verbal, conflicts to bring about realization by the political elite of what a modern state is about, as well as the ability to negotiate in a totally different context to the one 17 years ago that signaled the beginning of the end for communism in Poland.
On the other hand, she also expected the younger generation of Polish people to be able to understand how the global logic operates, since they are engaged in the integration of Europe through studying or working abroad. "In order to reform your society and to adjust to global processes to win, you need many, many years," she concluded.
The younger generation of Polish people also seems to have the patience to see their country changed, viewing domestic affairs in a broader context. Harasimowicz said she felt optimistic about Poland's future, comparing its transition process with what happened in other European countries. "It has been only two years [since the right-wing coalition rule], and I would like to give it some more time," she said.
This article appears in Taiwan Journal Oct. 26, 2007.
Note: I wrote this after a visit to Poland in 2007. Post it here to commemorate those who died in the Katyn fog and forest.
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