I recently presented this paper at a Fulbright conference. Below is the final version that I used to make my presentation.
The upper house is called the Senate and has 100 members.[6] Senators are directly elected in single-member electoral districts every four years.[7] The Sejm can vote to dissolve the parliament with a two-thirds vote, which forces new elections for both houses.[8] The Sejm is much more powerful than the Senate. The Senate can veto legislation but the veto can be overturned by a simple majority vote in the Sejm.[9]
 |
| Me presenting this paper at a Fulbright conference. |
Introduction
Structural
functionalism is an approach to studying comparative politics. It seeks to
analyze both the actual structures of political institutions and the functions
that these institutions carry out. While institutional structures vary from
country to country, the same basic political functions occur in all states.
Additionally, states with similar structures may still operate very differently
because their institutions perform different functions. This paper will analyze
the regime of the Republic of Poland using the structural functionalism model.[1]
Political Structures
The Republic of Poland is classified as a parliamentary republic.[2] Its constitutional structure is based at least in part on the German model.[3] It has a bicameral national legislature called the National Assembly. The lower house, the Sejm, has 460 members that are elected by party list proportional representation every four years. A party must gain at least five percent of the national vote to receive any seats.[4] Ethnic minority parties are an exception to the five percent rule.[5]
 |
| Sejm Chamber in Warsaw |
 |
| Senate Chamber in Warsaw |
Poland has a
dual executive system with power shared between a prime minister and president.
The prime minister serves as head of government, and the president serves as
the head of state. The prime minister is selected by a vote in the Sejm, and
then forms a government. The Sejm can remove the prime minister by a
constructive no-confidence vote (as in Germany); this means that not only does
a majority of the Sejm have to agree to remove a prime minister, but they have
to also agree on a successor for the vote to be successful. Because of this, prime
ministers are rarely removed by this method. The Sejm can also use no
confidence votes to remove individual ministers from the government, even when
it cannot muster the support to topple the government entirely. [10]
The president of Poland is directly
elected by a national election and has meaningful powers. He can nominate the
prime minister.[11] He
can veto legislation, which can only be overturned by a three-fifths vote of
the legislature. He can send legislation to the Constitutional Tribunal, the
supreme court of Poland, and force a ruling on the legislation’s
constitutionality.[12]
He also has a strong role in foreign policy[13]
and serves as the commander in chief of the armed forces and appoints many
important officials.[14]
The president can call new elections of parliament if it fails to pass a budget
within four months of submitting a draft budget[15]
or if the Sejm is unable to select a prime minister.[16]
Although the President does have
meaningful powers, the prime minister is still the more powerful of the two
offices because he is generally the head of the party controlling the Sejm. The
prime minister’s role as head of government gives him greater influence in
national politics.[17]
Political Parties
Poland has had an extremely unstable
party system since the transition from communism. Many parties have come and
gone: “The three parties that fared best in the September 2005 elections—Law
and Justice, Civic Platform, and Self-Defense—had entered the Sejm for the
first time only in 2001… [The] accompanying prime ministerial turnover is
exceptional.”[18]
Throughout Eastern Europe, incumbent parties have done poorly in most
elections.[19]
Additionally, because the electoral system of the Sejm uses proportional
representation with medium-sized districts, one-party majorities are very
difficult to achieve[20]
and coalition government is the norm.
The most
recent parliamentary election in Poland was held on October 9, 2011. The
following charts show the election results and the current composition of the
Polish legislature:
This latest
election was an important turning point because it was the first time in Polish
history since the fall of communism that a governing party won reelection. “In
the first 18 years after communism, Poland had 13 different governments, a new
one every 17 months on average.”[21]
Civic Platform’s reelection is a sign of increasing political stability in
Poland.[22]
Civic Platform is a center-right party,
which has made enticing high-profile politicians to defect from other parties
on both the left and right a foundation of its strategy. It has been largely
successful in painting itself as a moderate, inclusive party,[23]
which accounts for its recent electoral success. There is some danger, however,
of an overreach that could break the party’s cohesion the broader the party
becomes.[24] At
present, the Civic Platform party controls the Sejm and therefore the
government in coalition with the Polish Peasant Party,[25]
a small left-wing party that represents rural interests.[26]
Bronislaw Komorowski, the Polish President since 2010, is also a member of
Civic Platform,[27]
which gives the party solid control of executive power. Civic Platform has consistently been a
pro-European integration party. In December, foreign minister Radosaw Sikorski
of the ruling Civic Platform party showed commitment to the EU when he said
that Poland planned to join the Eurozone by 2015 “despite its manifest
problems.”[28]
It is therefore not surprising that Civic Platform’s reelection was welcomed by
other European leaders and observers.[29]
The
largest opposition party in the Sejm at present is Law and Justice, a right
wing party that is focused on law and order.[30]
It is perceived by many as a “divisive and overly conservative force.”[31]
It has followed a nationalistic and anti-EU policy, and has opposed the
privatization of health care facilities put forth by Civic Platform.[32]
This past November, Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of the party and a former
prime minister, voiced concerns that France and Germany are dominating all
other members of the EU and that to join the euro would be suicidal for the
Polish economy.[33]
On the
left side of the opposition are two parties: Palikot’s Movement and the
Democratic Left Alliance. Palikot’s Movement is a progressive left wing party.
It took third place in the recent Polish parliamentary elections. Among their
MPs admitted to parliament are a transsexual woman and an openly gay man, the
first in Polish history. The party supports gay rights and abortion rights,
opposes the influence of the Roman Catholic Church,[34]
and seeks the legalization of both soft and hard drugs, including amphetamines,
MDMA, heroin and LSD.[35]
The
Democratic Left Alliance is a “direct successor to the Communist Party, which
has recast itself as a social democratic movement.”[36]
It has been in decline of late; it was a ruling party after winning 41 percent
of the vote with a coalition partner in 2001[37]
but received just over eight percent of the vote in the October elections.[38]
Recruitment of Elites
Polish society has a very strong and deep-seated aversion to political
parties. Part of this comes from their history. Many Poles, especially from the
older generation, associate political parties as a whole with the memory of
brutal, one-party authoritarian rule under the communist People’s Republic of
Poland. Others “accuse parties of failing to represent average people, of
causing conflict and chaos within the country, of being primarily concerned
with their own self-interest, and of being political cliques, striving for
power.”[39]
This
perception clearly affects the recruitment of ruling elites, a function common
to all states. Public opinion forces Polish governments to focus very strongly
on making the public image of their ministers “emphasize their education, their
relevant experience (often heading a relevant parliamentary commission), and
their professional successes.”[40]
They also make a great effort to include women, younger politicians, and
leaders from particular regions of Poland into their governing coalition. They
try to make it appear that professional merit drives minister choices. Leszek
Miller, prime minister from 2001-2004, “demonstrated his lack of constraint by
party loyalties” by appointing Barbara Piwnik and Michal Kleiber to his
cabinet, both well respected in their fields and non-partisan independents. The
general rule however is that “the most important factor [driving appointments]
is the candidate’s political position within his or her own party.”[41]
Economic Issues
Energy independence is an important
concern for Poland. Russia is using its extensive natural resources, especially
its supplies of natural gas, as leverage to increase its influence and power
over its customer states in Europe. In January 2009, Moscow turned off the
natural gas pipeline to the Ukraine, leaving people across Europe without heat
in the middle of winter, and tripled their asking price for natural gas
overnight. Ukraine believed it was a move to punish it for reaching out to NATO
and the European Union.[42]
Whatever Moscow’s motives, the experience was a reminder to countries like
Poland of the value of seeking energy independence.
Poland
has been seeking to develop shale gas resources to provide its own source of
natural gas. If estimates pan out, by the end of this year, residents of
Pomorskie voivodship will be able to cut their heat expenses by twenty percent
by using locally produced shale gas instead of imported Russian natural gas;
industrial-scale production is expected by 2014.[43] However, corruption is an issue;
seven people were arrested in January in connection with alleged bribes related
to licensing for shale gas exploration.[44] In addition, the viability of shale natural gas has
not yet been proved:
“If shale gas can be
exploited in a commercially viable way, then it is absolutely the best solution
for Polish energy independence.
Unfortunately, the commercial viability of shale gas is still very much
an open question. Nobody knows yet how
this will play out. If the projected shale gas reserves in Poland actually exist, and if those reserves can actually be
exploited in a safe, economically-viable way, then shale gas will change
Poland's future. Those are really big ‘ifs’
at the moment.”[45]
In more general economic terms,
Poland’s future looks promising. Poland’s GDP is projected to continue to grow
by an annual average of 3.8 percent through 2015. Because it did not focus its
economy on exports as much as Slovakia or the Czech Republic, it was hurt much
less by the 2008 economic crisis that sparked such a large decline in global
trade. Poland also was the only member of the European Union to maintain
positive growth throughout the crisis.[46]
There are however, still some serious
concerns. While maintaining an independent currency has been helpful in
avoiding some of the fallout surrounding the euro crisis, the zloty went down
in relation to the swiss franc by a full ten percent in 2011. This is not a
small problem for Poland, because more than half of all Polish mortgages are
denominated in the swiss franc, not the zloty.[47]
Unemployment is also a problem. Not
everyone has been sharing in Poland’s economic growth; unemployment is at 12.1
percent nationwide, and in some regions it is as high as 21 percent.[48]
Unemployment has also hit young people very hard; the unemployment rate for
university graduates was near 20 percent in 2011. Economic realities are
driving many young people to emigrate to find work elsewhere,[49]
and Poland’s long term prospects for economic growth suffer as some of the best
and brightest leave the country. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and
Development recommended in 2009 that the Polish government specifically target
young people with policies like reducing social security taxes on low-wage jobs
and improving vocational education programs to address this issue.[50]
Foreign Policy Issues
Poland faces some of the same national security threats as the rest of
the world, including terrorism. Many years of reconciliation with Germany
combined with the European integration project has made it very unlikely that a
military threat will come from Poland’s western border, but Poles do still fear
the power of the Russian bear to the east. However, Poland simply cannot afford
a modernized standing army big enough to defend against a Russian invasion by
itself.[51]
It is no
surprise then that Poland sought to join NATO and enjoy the Article 5
protections to try to guarantee its own security with the power of the United
States and its allies. Nevertheless, Poles are skeptical of how much they can
count on NATO guarantees. They had a
similar alliance in 1938 that did not save them from the devastation of World
War II; European countries as a whole have been slashing their defense budgets;
and the US is planning to withdraw half its military forces stationed in
Europe.[52]
It is likely
that NATO Article 5 guarantees would not leave Poland alone against a full-out
Russian invasion; such a naked act of aggression would be quickly condemned by
the world community, and would not likely be in Russia’s interest. A much more likely threat is a limited
Russian incursion, comparable in scope to its 2008 invasion of Georgia; perhaps
an invasion to gain territory that would connect Russia’s bases in Kaliningrad
to Russia through Belarus could be one such scenario. Under such circumstances,
it would not be unimaginable to think that NATO would not bring into play a
full Article 5 response and refuse to get involved, leaving Poland to defend
the corridor alone.[53]
While NATO is obligated to respond in the event of an “attack,” an “attack” is
only an “attack” if the North Atlantic Council unanimously calls it such. The
terminology that the council chooses to use is politically important; NATO
diplomats refer to the 2008 invasion of Georgia not as an “attack” or
“invasion,” but rather as a “disproportionate military response.”[54]
The best
thing that Poland can do to defend against such a possibility is to focus
developing its military structure against such a small regional incursion
instead of against a full armored invasion of the entire country, by improving
its air defenses and building new highly mobile armored infantry units that can
quickly respond to a limited attack.[55]
Poland’s
skepticism of NATO’s commitment to its security has led it to try to seek other
parallel security arrangements to defend its interests. In May 2011 Poland
committed to forming a joint battlegroup with Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech
Republic, and in July Poland committed to forming a joint military force with
France and Germany. In addition, Poland is seeking to expand its bilateral
military ties with the United States.[56]
Poland is
also seeking to help other nations in the transition to democracy. Leaders from
regimes affected by the Arab Spring movements have come to Poland to learn the
lessons from Poland’s 1989 democratic transition. Poland is also a safe haven for
democratic dissidents from Belarus. Staff from Egypt, Libya and Tunisia
observed Poland’s recent October parliamentary elections to learn better ways
of implementing electoral reform in their own countries. Poland is very
well-equipped to serve as an example; it didn’t prop up Arab dictators and it
doesn’t have the baggage of a colonialist past to impede its diplomatic
efforts.[57]
Conclusion
Poland has a brutal history of subjugation by its neighbors that goes
back for centuries. Now, only two decades after it finally cast off the yoke of
communism and Soviet domination, it has a functioning parliamentary democracy
with free and fair elections; has a thriving, modernizing economy; is a member
of the European Union and NATO; has enjoyed economic growth while its neighbors
sank into recession; and is serving as an example for democratic transition to
the developing world. This demonstrates to the world the amazing resilience of
the Polish people and shows they have hope for a better future.
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