TITLE: REBELLIOUS CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE CONSOLIDATIONOF DEMOCRACY IN POLAND, 1989-1993

AUTHOR: GRZEGORZ EKIERT, Harvard UniversityJAN KUBIK, Rutgers University

THE NATIONAL COUNCILFOR SOVIET AND EAST EUROPEAN

RESEARCH

TITLE VIII PROGRAM

1755 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.Washington, D.C. 20036

NCSEER NOTE

This Report analyzes patterns of public participation (including protest) in Polandwhich preceded the electoral return of former communists to power. To a degreethe patterns are being replicated in Russia, and this analysis of conditions andcauses may be pertinent there.

PROJECT INFORMATION:1

CONTRACTOR: Harvard University

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Grzegorz Ekiert

COUNCIL CONTRACT NUMBER: 809-03

DATE: February 21 , 1996

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Individual researchers retain the copyright on work products derived from research funded byCouncil Contract. The Council and the U.S. Government have the right to duplicate written reportsand other materials submitted under Council Contract and to distribute such copies within theCouncil and U.S. Government for their own use, and to draw upon such reports and materials fortheir own studies; but the Council and U.S. Government do not have the right to distribute, ormake such reports and materials available, outside the Council or U.S. Government without thewritten consent of the authors, except as may be required under the provisions of the Freedom ofInformation Act 5 U.S.C. 552, or other applicable law.

1 The work leading to this report was supported in pan by contract funds provided by the NationalCouncil for Soviet and East European Research, made available by the U. S. Department of State under TitleVIII (the Soviet-Eastern European Research and Training Act of 1983, as amended). The analysis andinterpretations contained in the report are those of the author(s).

Dr. Grzegorz Ekiert Dr. Jan KubikDepartment of Government Department of Political ScienceCenter for European Studies Rutgers UniversityHarvard University Hickman Hall27 Kirkland Street New Brunswick, NJ 08903-0270Cambridge, MA 02138

PROJECT TITLE:

"STRATEGIES OF COLLECTIVE PROTEST IN DEMOCRATIZING SOCIETIES:HUNGARY AND SLOVAKIA SINCE 1989."

This report contains a summary of the project entitled "Rebellious Civil Society and the Consolidationof Democracy in Poland, 1989-1993," which constitutes an integral part of the larger project, partiallysponsored by the Council.

The project summarized here allowed us to formulate specific hypotheses, which will be tested inHungary, Slovakia and the Former East Germany.1

SUMMARY

While working on the Polish part of our project we have collected data on several dimensionsof public participation in post-communist Poland, including formal political participation, protest andrepression potentials of Polish society after 1989, and cycles of collective protest between 1989 and 1993.We discovered that the first five years of consolidation in Poland produced: (a) a state that was biggerbut weaker than the Party-state of communism: (b) a political society that was disorganized thougharguably increasingly more consolidated (structured); and (c) a civil society that was increasingly moreactive and politicized. This last finding confirms a generalization (to be tested), that during a regimetransition, when the boundaries between the institutional realms of polity are unclear and contested,organizations of civil society penetrate political arenas with greater frequency than in more stable polities.

Contentious collective action was the common if not predominant mode of participation in civilsociety. Thus we conclude that many Poles who were uncomfortable with routine parliamentarydemocracy and dissatisfied with party politics, turned to contentious collective action as a mode of publicparticipation. The growing politization of collective protest did not, however, acquire an"oversymbolized" form, but rather a more pragmatic one; demands remained primarily economicthroughout the whole period. Nor did the politization manifest itself through the intensification ofprotest-sponsorship by political parties. It occurred, first of all, through the generalization of protestors'identities and through the growing "seriousness" of the addressees (or targets) of their actions. In brief,as the years went by, the protestors acted more often on behalf of "the whole society" and targeted with

1Funding by the National Council does not include support for study of the Former East Germany.

i

increasing frequency the country's highest authorities. This tendency may be interpreted as a growingdissatisfaction with political parties as channels of interest articulation and representation. The post-communist party system in Poland might have become more consolidated and structured, but its abilityto articulate and represent people's interests - in light of our research - did not increase.

The second important set of conclusions concerns the relationship between civil and politicalsocieties as well as the specific, institutionalization of collective action in the former. In most cases,Poles' civic activities (such as collective protests) were organized by already established organizations(mostly trade unions). But very often such civic activities occurred as contentious collective action ratherthan inter-organizational negotiation and mediation: instead of engaging in well-institutionalized inter-organizational games (negotiations, lobbying, etc.), such organizations as trade unions were very quickto organize or sponsor contentious collective actions (strikes, demonstrations). In a sense, then, civilsociety (at least its significant segment) was poorly institutionalized, i.e. the rules of routine interestrepresentation and conflict resolution were not established and/or legitimized. This weakinstitutionalization was not however the result of organizations' passivity, but rather of their tendencyto employ non-institutional forms of participation in public life i.e., protest. In brief, their politics werea-institutional.

The analysis of this "a-institutionalism" can be facilitated by introducing Jepperson's importantdistinction between two modes of society's reproduction: through institutionalization and through action.He writes:

"Here I wish to concentrate on just one contrast: between institutionalization and 'action,'...astwo different reproduction forms. A social pattern is reproduced through action if personsrepeatedly (re)mobilize and (re)intervene in historical process to secure its persistence. /.../'Action' is a much weaker form of reproduction than institutionalization, because it faces all the'logic of collective action' problems well established in the literature (e.g., Olson 1965)."2

Following Jepperson's suggestions we posed two questions: What was the mix of "institutionalization"and "action" in the reproduction of the Polish post-communist reality? How was the regime'sconsolidation influenced by this particular "mix"?

Our data suggest that in Poland, post-communist society reproduced itself through action moreoften than in any other society of East Central Europe (a major hypothesis to be tested by the Council-sponsored project). This action however was not spontaneous; it was organized mostly by existingorganizations, mainly trade unions. What we found in Poland, therefore, was a "hybrid" form(unspecified by Jepperson) of contentious action by well-established and institutionalized organizations.Moreover, protest activities became a routine mode of conflict resolution thereby the emerging set ofnorms and rule should be referred to as contentious institutionalization. It seems, additionally, that thishigh involvement of well-established "protest" organizations (such as Solidarity) in organizing society'sactivism accounts for relaxation of the Olsonian collective action dilemma.

The reasons for the high ratio of "action" to "institutionalization" may be predominantlyhistorical. If there was a place in Eastern Europe where state-socialism failed due to "action" rather than"inter-organizational deals," it was Poland. Polish society's repertoire of contentious action wasextensive and well rehearsed; the "tradition of action" was developed and transmitted (also unreflectively)as a "natural" mode of participation in public life to a degree unknown in other East European countries.

2Ronald Jepperson, "Institutions, Institutional Effects, and Institutionalism," in Walter W. Powell andPaul DiMaggio, eds., The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. Chicago: The University ofChicago Press, 1991, p. 148.

The comparative part of our project (sponsored by the Council) will allow us to assess the impactof this reproduction through action, occurring predominantly in the domain of civil society, on theconsolidation of the new regime. We will attempt to test Samuel Huntington's classical warning, that:

Political stability ... depends upon the ratio of institutionalization to participation. As politicalparticipation increases, the complexity, autonomy, adaptability, and coherence3 of the society'spolitical institutions must also increase if political stability is to be maintained.4

According to our research, in the case of Poland the ratio of institutionalization to participation was high,but both had uncommon features: (1) the organizations which institutionalized participation were notpolitical parties or state institutions but trade unions and other associations of civil society and (2)participation, though institutionalized, tended to take the form of contentious collective action. Wesuspect that this pattern of: (a) increasingly politicized, (b) gradually intensifying contentious collectiveaction, occurring mostly (c) within civil society, may have contributed to the destabilization of the Polishpolity and, in particular, slowed down the development of political society, limiting its scope of supportand possibly delaying its institutionalization.5 But, paradoxically, the very same pattern may havecontributed to the constancy of the radical economic reforms. Opposition to the reforms was ineffectivefor it was either channelled through the medium of inconclusive (as our data indicate) contentiouscollective action (civil society) or it was articulated by several small parties in an uncoordinated, thusimpotent, fashion.

Finally, we set out to discover whether popular protest, which developed on such a massivescale, became a crucial component of the state building and re-building in post-1989 Poland? It is noteasy to answer this question because the direct effects of social protest are not easily measurable. It isvery striking, though, that very few contentious collective actions stated as one of their objectives therevolutionary overthrow of the post-1989 socio-political order. As our data base demonstrates, a demandto "modify/reform existing state or public institutions" was voiced only in .6% of protests in 1989, 4.6%- 1990; 4.1% - 1991; 1.3% - 1992; 2.0% - 1993. A more radical demand to "abolish/replace the post-1989 political order" was practically never voiced. As we pointed out earlier the tenor of the post-communist protest in Poland was decisively reformist. Protestors did not intend to engage in state-building; instead they wanted to influence reformist policies.

Furthermore, our data base does not provide much evidence for our initial hypothesis that throughprotest actions people would forge new identities and set up new organizations. The decisive majorityof protest actions were organized by existing organizations, mobilizing people in the name of existingidentities. The only exception were youth protests, whose politics, rhetorics, and imagery indicate thatthe generation gap in Poland is so huge that the reproduction of the polity and society may beendangered.

3For the definitions of these terms see Samuel Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies.New Haven: Yale University Press 1968, pp. 12-24.

4Huntington, Political Order. 1968, p.79.

5For a complex definition of the level of institutionalization see Huntington, Political Order, 1968,p. 12ff. "Scope refers simply to the extent to which the political organizations and procedures encompassactivity in the society," Huntington, Political Order,1968, p. 12.

iii

1

Rebellious Civil Society and the Consolidation of

Democracy in Poland, 1989-1993

As a result of the "round table" negotiations which began in Warsaw on February 6, 1989,

Poland became the first country in the Soviet bloc to initiate a peaceful transfer of political power.1

The semi-democratic elections in June 1989 led to the political triumph of the re-legalized Solidarity

movement, the first non-communist government was in office by the end of the summer, and the

communist party dismantled itself by January 1990. This rapid surrender was the result of a

negotiated pact, made possible by the prior massive mobilization of large segments of the populace

and a dramatic change in the geo-political situation. The transfer of power was followed by

comprehensive transformations of the national political institutions, local administration, and the

radical economic reform (Balcerowicz's "shock therapy"). The new political elites which emerged

from the Solidarity movement set Poland on the course toward liberal democracy and a market

economy.

The transformation policies, however, had to be forged and implemented amidst a deepening

economic crisis, regional political chaos, as well as disintegrating regional economic and political

institutions. These external adversities combined with the need to institute radical macro-stabilization

measures2 contributed to the sharp decline in real incomes, the beginnings and rapid growth of

unemployment, new social inequalities, and rising insecurity. The populace responded to this largely

unanticipated situation with strikes and protests, whose intensity increased from 1989 through 1993.

On the other hand, the political consensus which initially united the new elites, collapsed.

Consequently, during the 1989-1994 period, Poland experienced a turbulent political evolution. It had

three parliamentary, two local and two presidential elections, as well as six prime ministers and five

1The empirical evidence for this paper comes primarily from the research project which involvessystematic data collection on collective protest during the first years of democratic transition in fourcountries: Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and the former East Germany. The project is funded by theProgram for the Study of Germany and Europe administered by the Center for European Studies atHarvard University, the National Council for Soviet and East European Research and the AmericanCouncil of Learned Societies. It is directed by Grzegorz Ekiert and Jan Kubik. Our conceptualizationsand definitions are influenced by Professor Sidney Tarrow, who generously shared with us his privateresearch materials, including a questionnaire and instructions prepared for his research project "Socialprotest and Policy Innovations: Italy 1966-1973." For their indispensable assistance, our special gratitudegoes to Jason Wittenberg, Anna Grzymala-Busse, Kazimierz Kloc, and Krzysztof Gorlach.

2For a brief description of the Balcerowicz Plan see Adam Przeworski, "Economic reforms, publicopinion, and political institutions: Poland in the Eastern European perspective," in Luiz Carlos BresserPereira, Jose Maria Maravall, Adam Przeworski, Economic Reforms in New Democracies. A Social-Democratic Approach. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993, pp. 143-47; for a morecomprehensive analysis consult Ben Slay 1994.

governments. After its political triumph in 1989, the Solidarity-based political movement disintegrated

and in 1993 elections the ex-communist parties were returned to power. In brief, during its first five

years, Poland's fledgling democratic system faced rising popular pressure and experienced political

instability: all symptoms of the serious problems of consolidation.

Poland's problems strike at the heart of what Philippe Schmitter identified as "the most

significant issue for contemporary political science: How can democracy be consolidated in the

aftermath of the transition from authoritarian rule."3 The issue of consolidation of new democracies

emerged as an explicit object of systematic scholarly investigations in the early 1990s.4 Until then,

most research in the dynamically growing field of transitions to democracy had concentrated either on

the structural preconditions and processes of the old regime's decomposition or on the transfer of

power and its immediate aftermath. The most influential earlier works in the field, including

O'Donnell, Schmitter and Whitehead (1986), Di Palma (1990), Przeworski (1991) largely avoided a

systematic analysis of consolidation.5 Di Palma argued that "the most decisive role in establishing

democracy belongs to the agreement phase, not to consolidation."6

This reluctance to study consolidation has had two sources. First, as O'Donnell and Schmitter

noted:

The Wilson Center working group paid little attention to processes of consolidation and'advanced democratization' for the obvious reason that the cases and countries which

3Philippe Schmitter, Interest Systems and the Consolidation of Democracies, in: ReexaminingDemocracy. Essays in Honor of Seymour Martin Lipset, edited by Gary Marks and Larry Diamond,Newbury Park: Sage 1992, p. 157.

4See, for example, Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave. Democratization in the Late TwentiethCentury, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992 (in particular Chapter 5, "How Long?Consolidation and its Problems"); Scott Mainwaring, Guillermo O'Donnell, and J. Samuel Valenzuela,eds., Issues in Democratic Consolidation: The New South American Democracies in ComparativePerspective. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992; John Higley, Richard Gunther, eds..Elites and Democratic Consolidation in Latin America and Southern Europe, Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press 1992; Stephan Haggard and Robert R. Kaufman, The Political Economy of DemocraticTransitions, Princeton: Princeton University Press, forthcoming (in particular. "Part Two: The PoliticalEconomy of Adjustment in New Democracies"); Bresser Pereira, Maravall, Przeworski, EconomicReforms in New Democracies ...

5See Guillermo O'Donnell, Philippe Schmitter and Laurence Whitehead, Transitions fromAuthoritarian Rule: Prospects for Democracy. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. 1986:Giuseppe Di Palma, To Craft Democracies: An Essay in Democratic Transitions. Berkeley: Universityof California Press, 1990, Adam Przeworski, Democracy and the Market. Political and EconomicReforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

6DiPalma, op. cit., pp. 110-11.

preoccupied us were involved in the much more proximate and hazardous business ofextricating themselves from various versions of authoritarian rule."7

Second, as Huntington suggested, the consolidation process is shaped by "contextual problems

endemic to individual countries"8 as well as "systemic problems stemming from workings of a

democratic system." Thus, in the view of many students of democratization, a combination of

historically contingent factors makes comparative analyses of consolidation difficult and cross-national

generalizations uncertain.

In this chapter we propose to analyze the consolidation of democracy as a complex process

taking place simultaneously on several levels (or within several institutional domains) of the socio-

political organization of society. The interactions between individual and collective actors at these

different levels, their capacity to influence public life, their choices and strategies may foster the

stabilization of the polity and consolidation of a democratic system or reinforce the political instability

leading to the erosion of newly funded democratic institutions and liberties.9

Schmitter defines consolidation as "the process of transforming the accidental arrangements,

prudential norms, and contingent solutions that have emerged during the transition into relations of

cooperation and competition that are reliably known, regularly practiced, and voluntarily accepted by

those persons or collectivities (i.e. politicians and citizens) that participate in democratic

governance."10 Whether such relations of cooperation and competition develop or not depends on the

ability of collective actors to reach a consensus on three levels. First, consolidation of the democratic

polity requires the establishment of the consensus concerning the boundaries of political community;

this is the "stateness problem," faced by many newly democratized societies.11 Second, the basic

institutional set-up of the polity must be considered legitimate by all significant social and political

7Guillermo O'Donnell and Philippe Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule. TentativeConclusions about Uncertain Democracies, p.45.

8Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave, p.253.

9It should be emphasized that highly divergent types of democracy may be established and/orconsolidated which have in common only a very basic set generalized procedures. As Schmitter argues"no single format or set of institutions embodies modern democracy" (Interest Systems, p. 162). See alsoPhilippe Schmitter and Terry L. Karl, What Democracy Is ... and Is Not, Journal of Democracy, 1991,2, 3, pp.75-88 and Terry L. Karl and Philippe Schmitter, Modes of Transition in Latin America.Southern and Eastern Europe, International Social Science Journal, 1991, 128, pp.269-284.

10Philippe Schmitter. Interest Systems, p. 158.

11Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan offer a seminal analysis of this problem. See Linz and Stepan,"Political Identities and Electoral Sequences: Spain, the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia." Daedalus. Spring1992, pp. 123-139.

forces.12 To put it differently, the absence of sizable antisystemic parties and movements which act

as a disloyal opposition fosters consolidation.13 In brief, the consolidation of a newly established

democratic polity is very unlikely if the newly democratized society lacks the consensus on what

constitutes the state and if there are influential political forces opposed to democracy. Third,

successful consolidation requires transparency and predictability at the institutional level. The

institutional consolidation is completed when the following elements are in place: (1) the institutional

coherence and stability of the political system is assured by the constitution;14 (2) the state possesses

stability, autonomy, and capacity to implement its policies;15 (3) the party system has autonomy,

stability and capacity to compete for power and to influence policy-formation by the state; and (4)

public participation by citizens, groups and organizations within the civil society is unconstrained and

institutionalized.16

12Mainwaring observes: "Legitimacy is every bit as much the root of democratic stability as objectivepayoffs, and it is less dependent on economic payoffs than Przeworski or Lipset (1959) indicate." SeeMainwaring, "Transitions to Democracy and Democratic Consolidation: Theoretical and ComparativeIssues," in Issues in Democratic Consolidation: The New South American Democracies in ComparativePerspective. S. Mainwaring, G. O'Donnell and J. S. Valenzuela, eds., Notre Dame: University of NotreDame Press, 1992, p.306.

13See J. Linz, The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Crisis. Breakdown, and Reequilibration.Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press 1978, pp.27-38.

14As Schmitter observed "the core of consolidation dilemma lies in coming up with a set ofinstitutions that politicians can agree upon and citizens are willing to support" (Interest Systems, p. 159).

15We assume with Huntington that "the stability of any given polity depends upon the relationshipbetween the level of political participation and the level of political institutionalization" (Political Orderin Changing Societies. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968, p.79). For example, high politicalparticipation in a society with a low level of institutionalization of politics is strongly destabilizing. Wedefine autonomy, following M. Shafer, as "the extent to which the state is not merely an arena forconflict but is distinct from nonstate actors" (Winners and Losers. How Sectors Shape theDevelopmental Prospects of States. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994, p.6). State capacity isdefined, following K. Barkey and S. Parikh, "as the state's ability to implement strategies to achieve itseconomic, political, or social goals in society." They argue that "the state may acquire capacity throughinstitutions such as the bureaucracy, or through resources such as external ties to entrepreneurs andfinance capital [but it is also] determined by the state's relations to society" (Comparative Perspectiveson the State, (Annual Review of Sociology, 1991. p.526). See Shafer (1994:7-8) for a useful distinctionbetween absolute and relative capacity.

16On the distinction between organizations and institutions see Douglass C. North, Institutions.Institutional Change, and Economic Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1990, pp. 4-5.

Our primary focus in this chapter will be the role of protest actions in the institutional

consolidation. We begin with an assumption that democratization processes often entail disharmonious

and a-synchronous development of institutional domains of the polity. For example, the

deconstruction of authoritarian or (post)totalitarian regimes involves the weakening of the state power

and mobilization (by necessity often poorly institutionalized) of civil society. This combination tends

to "spill over" to the consolidation phase, which is facilitated by a different condition: the

simultaneous strengthening of the state, political society, and civil society.17 We will try to

determine whether during Polish post-communist consolidation such a simultaneous strengthening of

the three domains did indeed occur. We will also test a hypothesis that when institutional orders of

societies undergo redefinition, protest actions may become principal tools of identity formation and

institution building as well as important mechanisms through which the public sphere and the domain

of political are being reconstituted and new boundaries between the state and society established. In

brief, we suspect that popular protest is a crucial element of the post-communist state making and

remaking.18

17We accept Stepan's conclusion that the relationship between institutional domains of society is nota zero-sum game. The power and capacity of the state and other collective actors may simultaneouslyincrease or decrease. A successful consolidation of democracy involves parallel strengthening of the stateand civil society (Alfred Stepan, State Power and Civil Society in the Southern Cone of Latin America.in: Bringing the State Back In, edited by Peter Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer and Theda Skocpol, NewYork: Cambridge University Press 1985, pp. 317-343. In the similar vain, Stephen Fish notes that in thepost-communist Russia "the fragmentation and decay of old structures of power and authority mayactually inhibit (original emphasis) the rapid emergence of a genuine civil society.. A state that lackseffective economic and administrative functions, structures permitting the intermediation of interests, andcapacity for the universalization of law, can actually impede the emergence of a 'modern' civil society"(The Emergence of Independent Associations and the Transformation of Russian Political Society, in:The Soviet System. From Crisis to Collapse, edited by A. Dallin and G.W Lapidus. Boulder: Westview1995:154.

18As Ch. Bright and S. Harding emphasize: "As contests over state activities, boundaries, andstructures, popular protests, social movements, and ultimately revolutions must be included asstatemaking processes. [...] They are all mechanisms through which politicians and state managers, socialand economic elites, and popular groups contest - and in contesting, alter - what the state is, what it shalldo, and who shall have access to its resources" (Processes of Statemaking and Popular Protest: AnIntroduction, in: Statemaking and Social Movements, edited by Ch. Bright and S. Harding, Ann Arbor:University of Michigan Press 1984, p.310).

1. The three public realms and the regime transition

There are three realms within which public actions are generated, shaped and structured.19

For the sake of convenience we call these realms the state, political society and civil society.20 In

each realm politics are structured by different sets of institutions, social networks, identities,

principles of authority, and specific modes of collective action. Each realm tends to have its specific

public discourses, collective action frames, and modes of public participation.

In a stable democracy the three realms have relative autonomy, although the boundaries

between them are constantly renegotiated and changed. As Theda Skocpol noted, "politics in all its

dimensions is grounded not only in 'society'[...] The meanings of public life and the collective forms

through which groups become aware of political goals and work to attain them arise, not from society

alone, but at the meeting points of states and societies."21 During the rapid political change or

regime transition, the boundaries between the three realms become porous and highly contested. Old

and new individual and collective actors engage in intense political struggles, which often transgress

from one realm to another, thereby re-defining their boundaries.

Civil society, as M. Walzer put it, "is the home ground of 'difference,' a realm of

fragmentation made up of churches, ethnic groups, social movements, unions, professional

associations, organizations for mutual aid and defence."22 Public activity within the realm of civil

society is institutionally structured by work-related organizations (unions, professional associations.

"We understand politics broadly as various forms of collective action taking place within theestablished or emerging structures of authority and aimed at maintaining or changing the distribution ofpower and resources among individual or collective actors (groups, organizations and institutions).Politics is also about the (re)construction of actors' identities. For the useful discussion of difficultiesin delineating boundaries of the political and politics see Ch.S. Maier, "Introduction," in: ChangingBoundaries of the Political, edited by Ch. S. Maier, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1987, pp. 1-24. Politics of identity is well defined in Dirks 1994:32.

20These are three terms which have long history and are the subject of intense debates (see, forexample, J. Keane, Civil Society and the State. Verso 1988; J. Cohen and A. Arato. Civil Society andPolitical Theory. Cambridge: MIT Press 1992; A. Seligman. The Idea of Civil Society, New York: FreePress 1992). In this project we follow Stepan who argues that "it is conceptually and politically usefulto distinguish three important arenas of the polity: civil society, political society, and the state.Obviously, in any given polity these three arenas expand and shrink at different rates, interpenetrate oreven dominate each other, and constantly change" (Rethinking Military Politics, Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press 1988, p.3).

21T. Skocpol, Bringing the State Back In: Strategies of Analysis in Current Research, in: Bringingthe State Back In. edited by P.B. Evans, D. Ruschemeyer, and T. Skocpol, Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press 1985, p. 27.

22M. Walzer, The New Political Ideologies. The Economist. September 11-17. 1993. p. 50.

cooperatives), recreational associations, ethnic and religious organizations, and community and

neighborhood organizations.23 These institutions form complex horizontal networks, often based on

close social ties as well as active and personal participation. Those who do not want to participate

may be punished by a variety of social and moral sanctions applied by their group or community.

Refusal to join a strike in one's work place or a charity event in the local church may result in

rejection and marginalization. There are many routine modes of public participation within the realm

of civil society which include taking part in neighborhood and local projects, membership and

participation in neighborhood and local organizations meetings, affiliation with local churches etc.

These can be described as cooperative forms of public participation. We suggest, however, that

within the realm of civil society public participation often acquires a competitive and political

dimension that manifests itself as resistance and protest.24 These two forms of participation

correspond to Charles Tilly's distinction between reactive and proactive collective action.25 In short,

in all societies a multitude of fragmented interests and identities produced by individuals, groups and

organizations within civil society are defended and advanced through various forms of resistance and

protest. In conditions of political oppression diverse forms of resistance play the dominant role.26 By

contrast, in open political systems protest becomes a primary mode of civil society's politics.

Political society is an intermediate realm within which the double process of translation and

mediation takes place. It provides channels through which various societal interests and claims are

aggregated and translated into generalized policy recommendations. According to Stepan. through

political society "civil society can constitute itself politically to select and monitor democratic

government."27 For the state, however, political society is also an indispensable mediation

23S. Verba, N. Nie and J. Kim describe these organizations as "private organizations," rightlyemphasizing that membership is not always strictly voluntary (Participation and Political Equality, p.100).

24Ch. Tilly in his studies of collective action in France and Britain convincingly demonstrates thatover the last two centuries organizations of civil society were the typical vehicle of protest behavior (seeCh. Tilly, L. Tilly, and R. Tilly, Rebellious Century. Cambridge: Harvard University Press; Ch. Tilly,Repertoires of Contention in America and Britain, 1750-1830, in: The Dynamics of Social Movements,edited by M. Zald and J.D. McCarthy, Cambridge: Winthrop 1979; Ch. Tilly, The Contentious French.Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1986).

25According to Tilly, reactive collective action "consist of group efforts to reassert established claimswhen someone else challenges or violates them." Proactive collective action "asserts group claims whichhave not previously been exercised" (From Mobilization to Revolution. New York: Random House 1978.pp. 145-146). Tilly gives here an example of strikes for higher wages or better working conditions.

26See J.C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance. New Haven: Yale University Press 1990.

27A. Stepan, Rethinking Military Politics, p. 4.

8

instrument. Claus Offe points out that "contemporary political parties often act as organs of

communication for governments (when the party is in office) or for party elites aspiring to the office

of government."28 Thus through political society state actions and policies are disaggregated,

legitimized and transmitted to localities, groups, and organizations within civil society.

Political society is the realm in which complex political alternatives and choices compete and

are deliberated by political actors. A structured negotiation of competitive claims and actions is a

fundamental modus operandi of political society during which coalitions of political actors are built

and competition for political power takes place. As Stepan argues, political society "arranges itself

for political contestation to gain control over public power and state apparatus."29 In democratic

polities, it comprises universal suffrage, elections, competing political parties and legislative bodies.

According to Herbert Kitschelt, "elections, parties and legislatures are generalized institutions of

political choice; they are not specialized arenas for representing a specific set of citizens or deciding

any particular subject matter. They are involved in an uncertain and in principle, unlimited set of

citizens' demands for collective decisions."30 Public participation in the realm of political society

rests on the assumption of equal and universal rights of all adults to participate in its restructuring

through a periodical election process. This type of participation is formalized and usually

desocialized: in the act of voting a citizen is alone and the secrecy of his/her choice is guarantied.

Additionally, the election process involves another form of political participation which requires

cooperation and social involvement - campaigning.

In representative democracies political society plays two seemingly contradictory roles. "On

the one hand, [it] opens the political process to an indeterminate and, in principle, all encompassing

set of issues. [...] On the other hand, the resulting complexity of decisions making and the

corresponding risk of volatility in collective choices is reduced by closing the political process and

restraining the alternatives that can be practically considered by a sophisticated array of institutional

rules."31

28C. Offe, Disorganized Capitalism. Cambridge: MIT Press 1985, p. 7. According to Offe, whilethis two-way communication" is a proper role of political society, the problem of welfare statedemocracies is "the fusion of these channels of mediation through which actors within civil society actupon political authority, with those channels of communication through which, inversely the state actsupon civil society."

29A. Stepan, Rethinking Military Politics, p. 4.

30H. Kitschelt. The Formation of Party Systems in East Central Europe, in Politics and Society.1992, Vol. 20, No. 1, p.7.

31Ibid., p. 8.

The state is the realm of authoritative and bureaucratic politics. It must be considered,

following Stepan, "as something more than the 'government.' It is continuous administrative, legal,

bureaucratic and coercive system that attempt not only to manage the state apparatus but to structure

relationship between civil and public power and to structure many crucial relationships within civil

and political society."32 Imperative and bureaucratic-hierarchical decision-making lies at the heart of

state activities. Public participation in state actions is significantly limited with the exception of

polities where the institution of national referendum was incorporated into the decision making

process, such as Switzerland. Thus conventional assumptions about the impact of elections and party

politics on state activities are at least partially misleading.33 Moreover, the reverse process is

increasingly more prevalent - "the usurping of 'representative' function by the executive agencies of

the state (...] for actors within civil society."34 The main political actors within the state are

"organizationally coherent collectivities of state officials [...] relatively insulated from ties to

currently dominant socioeconomic interests."35 The most distinct characteristic of the state,

however, is its control of coercive resources and capability to implement its decisions within a

defined territory, despite public opposition or resistance.

In different political systems the center of political gravity can be found in civil society,

political society, or the state. In authoritarian and statist regimes the state is the most important arena

of politics and it has an almost exclusive capacity to structure political outcomes. Autonomy, political

resources, and freedom of action in the other two realms are seriously restricted if not abolished

altogether. The state often attempts to substitute a network of corporatist arrangements for

autonomous activities of civil and political society. In corporatist institutions, however, the variety of

interests and claims that are allowed to be articulated and represented is limited. In some types of

non-democratic regimes political and civil societies are almost completely destroyed or incapacitated.

This is the case with communist and neo-patrimonial regimes.36

32A. Stepan, Rethinking Military Politics, p. 4.

33According to R. Alford and R. Friedland, "the presumably most responsive sections of the stateare not significantly influenced by variations in voting turnout and party competition. Unfortunately,electoral participation is not highly correlated with power as measured by public expenditures and othermeasures of state responsiveness" (Political Participation and Public Policy, Annual Review of Sociology.1975, p. 432).

34C. Offe, Disorganized Capitalism, p. 8.

35Theda Skocpol, Bringing the State Back In, p. 9.

the distinction between authoritarian, totalitarian and neo-patrimonial regimes see Juan Linz,Authoritarian and Totalitarian Regimes, in Handbook of Political Science, edited by F.I. Greenstein andN.W. Polsby, Vol 3, pp. 175-411. The concept of incapacitation is developed by Jan Gross, Revolution

10

In contemporary representative democracies political society with its party system, legislative

assemblies and elections plays a dominant role. It selectively structures and channels claims advanced

by the actors in civil society as well as controls the expansion of bureaucratic politics and the

coercive capacity of the state. This point, however, must be qualified. Many students of modern

democracies argue that the decline of political society and the expansion of the state functions is

undermining the stability and vitality of the democratic state. Offe points out that both the neo-liberal

critics of the welfare-state and representatives of new social movements share common concern about

the erosion of non-state underpinnings of the political system. They argue that "the conflicts and

contradictions of advanced industrial society can no longer be meaningfully resolved through etatism,

political regulation, and the inclusion of ever more issues on the agendas of bureaucratic

authorities."37 While such views offer important insights into contemporary democratic politics, the

institutions of political choice still retain their centrality in the public life of democratic societies. The

importance and effectiveness of political society can be attributed to the fact that modern democratic

polities emerged as a result of a long evolutionary process, during which rich and transparent links

between the three realms were gradually established.

Situations in which civil society becomes the locus of political power are rare. They are

usually the result of the collapse of national level political institutions during revolutions, civil wars

or foreign invasions. Such cases are usually short-lived and the power of civil society is always

drastically curtailed with the re-establishment of national level state institutions and the recovery of

the coercive capacity by the state. The autonomous action of civil society is often romanticized by

social theorists who believe in the virtues of cooperation and direct participation. The disintegration

of the state and political society accompanied by the politization of civil society, however, often

produces aggressive mobilization and seems to delay the consolidation of the institutions of

representative democracy. The disintegration of the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia provide

some examples of the possible consequences of what happens when the bulk of political power shifts

to the realm of the amorphous and poorly institutionalized civil society.38

During rapid democratization taking place in former non-democratic regimes the locus of

political power shifts among the three realms. The first phase of democratization, that is the

from Abroad. Princeton: Princeton University Press 1991, pp. 232-240.

37C. Offe, Challenging the Boundaries of Institutional Politics: Social Movements Since the 1960s,in: Changing Boundaries of the Political, edited by Ch.S. Maier, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press1987, pp. 64-65.

38In regard to Gorbachev's Soviet Union, this phenomenon is noted by Mark Bessinger and LubomyrHajda, Nationalism and Reform in Soviet Politics, in: The Nationalities Factor in Soviet Politics andSociety, edited by L. Hajda and M. Bessinger, Boulder: Westview 1990, p. 316 and Stanley Fish, op.,cit., pp. 154-55.

11

deconstruction of the old regime entails the weakening of state power and political mobilization of the

civil society. When such a disharmonius situation continues during the consolidation phase, an

anarchic "transitory" polity may result. Conflicts and disjunctions between the three realms emerge,

as each of them experiences autonomous and rapid changes. In some cases the very survival of a

unified polity is at stake. Linz and Stepan noted that "in many countries the crisis of the non-

democratic regime is also intermixed with profound differences about what should actually constitute

the 'state'. Some political activists simultaneously challenge the old nondemocratic regime and the

existing territorial state itself."39

Thus, one of the greatest challenges in crafting democracy is to define the three public

realms, institutionalize (make predictable and stable) links among them and reduce the level of their

mutual antagonism.

While in the periods of regime transition all three realms undergo important transformations,

their character, scope and speed depends on legacies left by the preceding non-democratic system.

The distribution of power between the realms and their institutional strength and coherence under

non-democratic rule has important consequences for the democratization process. As Frances

Hagopian emphasized in her analysis of Latin American experiences, "to the extent that military

regimes altered the societal bases for political association and participation, the relationship of

political parties to their constituents, the networks of mediation through which states organize the

consent of their societies, and in some cases even the institutional framework for political

competition, their political legacies influence heavily the prospects for democratic consolidation and

hence need to be brought into sharper focus."40 During the post-communist consolidation, the

rebuilding of civil and political societies as well as the re-definition of the state and its power must

proceed simultaneously.

A conventional wisdom among the observers of East Central European transformations used

to be that building new democratic state institutions could be accomplished with a relative ease. Also,

the introduction of competitive elections and the formation of party-systems was seen as an

uncomplicated task. The re-creation of civil society, however, was to be a lengthy and difficult

process, spanning a generation or two.41 As far as Poland is concerned, these claims should be

revised: during the first five years of consolidation, the rebirth of civil society took place with

unexpected speed and intensity. The state, however, was not so much reformed, as greatly weakened.

The development of political society was slow, tedious, and often unpredictable.

39J. Linz and A. Stepan. Political Identities and Electoral Sequences: Spain, the Soviet Union, andYugoslavia, Daedalus. Spring 1992, p. 123.

40F. Hagopian, After Regime Change, p. 466.

4ISee R. Dahrendorf, Reflection on the Revolution in Europe. New York: Random House 1990.

12

We believe that many observers attributed weakness to East Central European civil societies

as a result of two assumptions inherited from classical theories of communism. First, they explicitly

or implicitly accepted the vision of a powerful totalitarian state, dominating politics and penetrating

all spheres of social life. It seems, however, that while communist states were huge bureaucratic

machines, controlling many aspects of their subjects' lives, at the same time they were

organizationally weak and highly ineffective. The transitory process exposed and amplified these

weaknesses, producing an extremely vulnerable new states, unable to secure order, police their

borders, collect taxes, maintain coherent policies, and effectively respond to various economic and

political pressures. Second, many observers accepted a vision of atomized and vulnerable societies in

which the institutional infrastructure of civil society was completely destroyed by decades of

communist rule. Civil society, however, proved to be highly resilient. In Poland at least, it survived

communist assault, developed specific modes of invisible "infrapolitcs,"42 challenged the regime

through the massive "Solidarity" movement, and emerged in a multitude of forms when public space

opened after 1989. Moreover, the former communist controlled mass organizations swiftly regained

autonomy, replaced their leaders, and re-established themselves as powerful representatives of group

interests.

2. The relative strength of the three realms during the post-communist consolidation in Poland

2.1. The state

Poland provides an excellent example of the disjointed and chaotic development of public

realms during the transitory period. Democratization opened political space for the formation of a

new political society, restoration of civil society, and a redefinition of the state's power and

functions. Yet, despite a flurry of debates, reforms and changes, institutionalization of the new

political system faced significant difficulties. As a result of the round-table agreements, the structure

of central state institutions was modified. The Council of the State was abolished and the office of the

President was established with important, though vaguely specified powers. Also the upper chamber

was added to the Polish parliament. The Polish state retained its dominant position in the country's

economy and politics and experienced relatively little change in its institutional dimension. The most

important change in the state structure was the reform of local administration, introduced in 1990.

42J. Scott defines "infrapolitics" as "a wide variety of low-profile forms of resistance that dare notspeak in their own name." He argues that "so long as we confine our conception of the political toactivity that is openly declared we are driven to conclude that subordinate groups essentially lack apolitical life or that what political life they do have is restricted to those exceptional moments of popularexplosion. To do this is to miss the immense political terrain that lies between quiescence and revolt andthat, for better or worse, is the political environment of subject classes" Domination and the Arts ofResistance, pp. 19 and 199.

13

which led to the administrative decentralization of the state and partial autonomization of local

politics.43 On the national level, however, institutional changes were surprisingly few. While the

Polish state has faced an unprecedented set of new challenges after 1989, the structure and functions

of other central state institutions were not significantly altered. Also, in the internal organization, "the

main emphasis has thus far been in streamlining and on limited, more or less ad hoc adjustments

rather than a fundamental revision of structures and procedures."44 It is paradoxical that during the

1989-1993 period Polish state grew bigger while, at the same time, it got weaker and frequently was

unable to perform its functions and fulfil people's expectations.45 Robert Putnam observed that "a

high-performance democratic institution must be both responsive and effective: sensitive to the

demands of its constituents and effective in using limited resources to address those demands."46

The difficulties of the Polish post-communist state may be seen as a serious deficit of performance

which produced a potentially destabilizing legitimization crisis.

The first cause of weakness in the new Polish state was its institutional design. The

relationships between the branches of the government and their prerogatives were vaguely defined.

Poland failed to enact a new constitution within the first five years of consolidation, thus many

fundamental systemic issues remained unresolved or were dealt with merely in a provisional fashion

by the limited constitutional act introduced in 1992. As a result Poland was plagued by the escalating

political conflict between the Presidency, government and parliament over their prerogatives and

responsibilities. Moreover, there was a significant legal chaos, since many old laws and legal

regulations inherited from the communist regime were still in force and coexisted with new

regulations introduced in response to emerging needs and pressures.

43Kubik stresses that "Polish administrative reform, initiated by a law adopted by Parliament onMarch 8, 1990, was the most extensive among the East European countries, at least until the end of1992." As a result, local communities were burdened/blessed with a number of administrativeprerogatives and responsibilities. Kubik argues that the extent of this reform had a significant impact onthe course of regime consolidation in Poland. See "The Role of Decentralization and Cultural Revivalin Post-Communist Transformations. The Case of Cieszyn Silesia, Poland, Communist and Post-comrnunist Studies. 1994, Vol 27 (4):331-55.

44Joachim J. Hesse, From Transformation to Modernization: Administrative Chnage in Central andEastern Europe, Public Administration 1993, 71, p. 227.

45See J. Kurczewska, K. Staszynska and H. Bojar, Blokady spoleczenstwa obywatelskiego: slabespoleczenstwo i slabe panstwo, in: Spoleczenstwo w transformacii. edited by A. Rychard and M.Fedorowicz, Warszawa: IFiS PAN, pp. 84-96; J. Kochanowicz, The Disappearing State: Poland's ThreeYears of Transition, Social Research 1993, 60, 4, pp. 821-834; Wojciech Taras. Changes in PolishPublic Administration 1989-1992, Public Administration 1993, 71, 12-32.

46R. D. Putnam, Making Democracy Work. Civic Tradition in Modern Italy, Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press 1993, p. 9.

14

Despite fundamental changes in the domestic and international political and economic

environments, the structure of the Polish government during the first five years of consolidation was

almost exactly the same as the one inherited from the old regime. After 1989, two more ministries

(Ministry of the Ownership Transformation and Ministry of Communication) were added to the 19

which remained after the 1987 reform and the overall number of central state's agencies grew from

32 in 1988 to 41 in 1993.47 Also, the number of professional employees in the central administration

and overall employment in the central administration increased notably between 1989 and 1993.48

There were also similar increases in local state administration. (See Table 1: Employment in State

Administration and Local Self-government, 1989-1993, page 31.)

The growing number of state employees can be attributed to the fact that during this time the

Polish state faced challenges of reorganizing old and building new spheres of state administration,

including the banking and tax systems, capital, labor and insurance markets, a new social security

system, new police and legal system, new regulatory institutions, etc. However, the new

administrative apparatus clearly did not come at the expense of the old bureaucratic structures and

often the reorganized institutions were bigger than their predecessors.49

Second, in comparison with state-socialism, the state's autonomy and relative capacity were

seriously limited by the introduction of the rule of law. External controls over administration by the

Constitutional and Administrative Courts and the Commissioner for Civil Rights Protection were

expanded and become more effective.50 "Real" parliamentarism and competitive elections imposed

additional constraints on state's freedom of action. Also, the newly independent media scrutinized the

state's policies in an increasingly effective way. Moreover, as a result of the reforms, the Party-state

Leviathan relinquished some of its power both "upwards" to the international regimes and

"downwards" to local self-governments. The constraints imposed by international lending institutions

such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund were especially effective in reducing the

47See T. Moldawa, Ludzie wladzy 1944-1991. Warszawa: PWN 1991, pp. 44-48 and RocznikStatystyczny 1993. Warszawa: GUS 1993, pp. 77-83.

48Rocznik Statystyczny 1991. Warszawa: GUS 1991, p. 68-9 and Rocznik Statystyczny 1992,Warszawa: GUS 1992, pp. 69-71.

49For example, the Office for the Protection of the State funded in 1990 employs 6,073 functionaries,while the Security Police abolished at the beginning of this year had 3,524 full time functionaries. SeeWprost. July 11, 1993, pp. 29-32.

50Poland was the only country in the Soviet bloc that established a set of institutions for externaladministrative control befor 1989. The Supreme Control Chamber (NIK) controlled by the Parliamentwas supplemented in the 1980s by the Administrative Court, the Constitutional Court, the State Tribunaland the Office of the Ombudsman.

15

state's capacity to freely implement policy changes which could increase the budget deficit and

inflation.

The third reason for the weakness of the state apparatus was the lack of governmental

stability, resulting from the frequent cabinet changes and subsequent efforts to replace both the

nomenclature inherited from the old regime and the appointees of the prior "post-communist"

governments. During the 1989-1993 period, the state administration experienced a substantial

turnover of personnel, especially at the top positions. According to Jacek Wasilewski's and Michal

Pohoski's study, only 42.4% of state administration officials, who were deputy ministers, directors

and deputy directors of departments in ministries in 1986, were still employed in state administration

in 1992.51 Old state functionaries who survived post-1989 changes could not feel secure, while the

newcomers brought into the administration by each governmental change had little professional and

organizational experience. Moreover, adding to their insecurity, government officials were targeted in

various political struggles; their ostensible privileges were criticized and they were frequently accused

of corruption and mismanagement. All attempts to introduce the institution of civil service failed.

The fourth source of the state's weakness was the declining popular trust in its institutions.

This decline was clearly reflected by public opinion polls conducted periodically since 1989. Table 2:

Net Confidence in Institutions and Organizations: 1989-1993 (page 32), demonstrates vividly the

declining confidence in selected state institutions and organizations.

After the initial surge of public trust following the 1989 elections and the formation of

Solidarity-led government, the polls registered a gradual drop in public confidence of over 50 points

for most state institutions. Also the Church and Solidarity trade union suffered significant decline in

confidence. Interestingly, the two exceptions from this trend were coercive institutions of the state -

the military and the police.

2.2. Political society

The formation of the party system in Poland was one of the most turbulent elements of the

early consolidation. At the beginning of 1993 Poland had 222 registered political parties.52 Although

the majority of these parties were not serious contenders for power, many did actually enter the

political process. The choice of the electoral system reinforced the initial fragmentation of political

forces. In its first fully democratic elections in 1991 Poland adopted a strictly proportional electoral

law and 111 parties participated in the electoral contest. Among these parties, 69 registered their lists

51See "Communist Nomenclatura in the Postcomrnunist Poland," unpublished paper presented at theFirst European Conference of Sociology, Vienna. August 26-29, 1992.

52The number of parties reflects a very liberal party registration procedure. In order to register apolitical party 15 signatures have to be collected under the registration form, three people have to appearin the District Court in Warsaw and the process is free of any charge.

16

in only one electoral district, 42 were present in at least two districts, and 27 registered their national

lists.53 As a result, the winner (Democratic Union) received only 12.3% of the votes and a

fragmented parliament was elected with 29 parties holding seats. Among these parties, 11 had enough

seats to be considered a partner in a potential ruling coalition. The electoral reforms prior to the 1993

elections reduced the number of parties entering the electoral process and forced many to join in

electoral coalitions. Still, there were 35 parties and coalitions represented in the national elections,

with 15 registering national lists. Only 7 parties and coalitions won seats in the lower chamber of

parliament but as a result of the existing electoral law, 35% of the votes went to parties which did

not win any seats. Given that only 52.1% of the eligible voters cast their ballots, the groups that did

not make it to the parliament can easily question the representativeness of this institution.

Polish electoral politics reflected the weakness of Polish political society. First, the political

spectrum was remarkably fragmented with larger political parties plagued by internal conflicts,

divisions, and frequent splits.54 Moreover, the majority of existing parties, including those

influential in shaping the country's politics during the first years of consolidation, had a surprisingly

low membership. Most parties had only a few hundred to a few thousand members.55 As a result,

party activities came to be monopolized by a narrow, newly formed political class organized into a

myriad of small political parties, which concentrated heavily on national level politics, creating a

political vacuum underneath. Political activities on the local level were often divorced from national

politics. As Kubik observed, "what is truly revolutionary about the ongoing changes is the fact that

national (central) level politics can be (and often is) irrelevant to local politics [and] the political

grouping that dominate national politics [...] are often absent from the local political scene."56

The second problem plaguing Polish political society was the absence of clear and stable

political cleavages. Multiple cleavage lines within the Polish political society were not clearly

53See K. Jasiewicz, Poland, European Journal of Political Research. 1992, 22, p. 497.

54V. Zubek, The Fragmentation of Poland's Political Party System, Communist and Post-comrnunist Studies 1993. 26, 1, 47-71.

55For example, the Liberal Democratic Congress one of the most influential parties whose leader K.Bielecki served as the Prime Minister has approximately 3,000 members. The Christian National Union,the most important representative of Catholic views which had several ministers in the last threegovernments and a Deputy Prime Minister in Suchocka's government has approximately 6,000 members.Seven hundred members were in Warsaw and one in every one hundred members hold a parliamentaryseat.(see M. Janicki, Czysto i ubogo, Polityka, Feb, 27, 1993 and Polityka, October 9. 1993, p. 15).

56J. Kubik, "Culture, Administrative Reform, and Local Politics: Overlooked Dimension of the Post-comrnunist Transformation." The Anthropology of East Europe Review. 1991 Vol. 10 ( 2): 12-27.

17

delineated and often shifted, although the process of their articulation was underway.57 For example,

the politically active cleavage between post-Solidarity and post-Communist forces cut across other

divisions, engendered by various visions of the pace and content of economic reforms, the

relationship between the state and the Roman Catholic Church, the definition of national interests, or

the basic foundations of democratic politics.58 These cleavages blurred other typical political

divisions based on ideology (Right-Left), regional diversity (center-periphery), or class interests. In

the 1989-1993 period, the unclear cleavages were additionally complicated by frequent changes in

positions and programs presented by specific parties. Many observers of the Polish political scene

attributed the low electoral participation to the vague and confused positions advocated by major

parties.

One of the most interesting puzzles of the Polish post-communist politics was the low level of

participation in consecutive elections. Despite of the drama of regime change, the rise of political

parties, highly charged political and ideological conflicts, fundamental political and economic reforms

and frequent government changes and elections, many Polish voters withdrew from the official

political process. This gradual withdrawal from political participation predates the 1989 transition.

During the last decade, electoral participation in Poland gradually declined. As Ekiert argued

elsewhere, the low voters turnout in elections which followed the imposition of martial law in 1981

can be attributed to active resistance which took a form of confrontational non-participation in

elections organized by the state.59 Approximately 25-30% of the electorate responded to appeals to

boycott the elections issued by clandestine Solidarity organizations. The opening of the political

system and the introduction of a genuine democratic mechanism in 1989 did not, however, reverse

the decline in electoral participation. Even the 1989 "funding" elections did not produce high

"Herbert Kitschelt "Emerging Structures of Political Representation in Eastern Europe," paperpresented at the conference on the Social and Political Bases of Economic Liberalization, organized bythe SSRC and funded by the Pew Charitable Foundation, Warsaw, September 23-26, 1994. For a briefanalysis of these cleavage lines see Kubik's chapter.

58See Ekiert, "Peculiarities of Post-Communist Politics in Poland," Studies in ComparativeCommunism. 1992, 25, 4, pp. 341-361. See also T. Szawiel, Partie polityczne w Polsce: stan obecnyszanse i zagrozenia, in: Polska 1989-1992. Fragmenty peizazu, Warszawa: IFiS PAN 1993, pp. 39-57and M. Grabowska and T. Szawiel, Anatomia elit politycznych. Partie polityczne w postkomunistycznejPolsce 1991-93. Warszawa: Instytut Socjologii UW 1993. For an overview of various conceptualizationsof the Polish post-communist field see Kubik 1994; Kitschelt 1992 and 1994.

wSee, G. Ekiert, "Recent Elections in Poland and Hungary: The Coming Crisis of RitualizedPolitics," Center for Research on Politics and Social Organization Working Paper Series, Departmentof Sociology, Harvard University, No. 0014. 1989.

18

electoral turnout.60 Table 3: Voters Participation in Elections in Poland: 1984-1993 (page 33),

illustrates the decline of electoral participation.

Shortly before the 1993 parliamentary elections, in the poll conducted by Pentor, 91% of

respondents declared their lack of interest in the electoral campaign. Moreover, despite a multitude of

political parties, the poll conducted by Demoskop in 1994 revealed that 67% Poles declared that non

of the existing parties represented their interests. The decline of formal political participation was also

illustrated by the strikingly low membership in political parties.

This lack of interest in the formal political process went hand in hand with the rising

pessimism and frustration, registered by the public opinion polls. There is no space here to present

more systematic analysis of the available data; a few examples will have to serve as an illustration. In

the CBOS' poll conducted in August 1993, only 17% of respondents declared that things in Poland

were moving in the right direction while 65% claimed that things had taken a wrong turn.

Corresponding numbers in December 1992 were 16% and 65%.6l In a similar poll conducted in July

1993, 44% of respondents declared that for the people it does not matter whether the government is

democratic or not. In 1992 only 21% of Poles believed that local authorities represent their interests.

Public opinion polls also indicated a massive decline of trust in public institutions. Among all state

institutions and organizations rated, the approval rate for both chambers of the parliament has been

the lowest - almost three times lower than the approval rate for the police and military.62 Also, the

general population's knowledge and interest in politics is very low. A surprisingly high number of

people were unaware that the former Polish Prime Minister, Hanna Suchocka, was a member of the

Democratic Union. The majority of Poles were unable to match the names of well known politicians

with the parties they belonged to. Such results are surprising given the importance of national level

politics in shaping transitional policies; it is an indication that political participation at the level of

situation departs from experiences of other democratizing countries where, according to G.O'Donnell and P. Schmitter, "founding elections are [...] moments of great drama. Turnout is very high.Parties advocating cancellation, postponement, or abstention are swept aside by the civic enthusiasm thatattends such moments" (Transitions from Authoritarian Rule, p. 62). In fact, voter turnout in foundingelections in Spain in 1977, for example, was 79.1% and decreased in 1979 elections to 68.3% (see M.Caciagli, Spain: Parties and the Party System in the Transition, West European Politics. 7, pp. 84-98).

61CBOS. Nastroje Spoleczne w Sierpniu '93. Stosunek do Strajkow. Komunikat z badan. Warszawa.Sierpien 1993. Other results quoted in this paragraph come from opinion polls conducted by the CBOS.OBOP and Pentor which were reported in Gazeta Wyborcza, Rzeczpospolita, and Wprost.

62The approval rate for the parliament declined from almost 90 percent in November 1989 to 22percent in the spring of 1993. Moreover, in November 1992 only 1 percent of respondents agreed withthe statement that democracy in Poland works well, while 43 percent agreed that it works badly and maysoon collapse.

19

political society was very weak. Although there existed significant regional and social differences in

levels of formal political involvement and participation, the overall picture was bleak.

2.3. Civil society

Given the relative weakness of the state and political society, civil society became the

strongest and most rapidly developing realm of the polity. It was characterized by the clear

organizational continuity. Organizations which existed under the communist rule swiftly regain their

independence, changed their leaders and adopted successfully to a new democratic environment.

These included professional associations, trade unions, and voluntary associations. For example, in

1985, Polish artists were represented by 14 associations with combined membership of 16.9

thousand. In 1992, the same 14 organizations represented the artistic community and their

membership stood at 19.3 thousand. Similarly, 105 other professional associations survived the

regime transition with no significant membership loses. There is also continuity in recreational

associations. For example, the number of sport clubs increased from 1866 in 1985 to 1997 in 1992.

While the majority of old organizations survived, since 1989 thousands of new organizations and

movements were formed locally and nationally. A comprehensive data base "Jawor" listed 4515

associations in 1993.63 Supported by variety of international organizations and foundations the NGO

sector expanded rapidly. It includes, for example, about 400 environmental organizations. There were

58 churches and some 150 registered religious denominations64 with hundreds of organizations and

charities. According to another source, by the end of 1992, there were more than 2,000 nation wide

voluntary associations registered in the Warsaw District Court." This number did not include

associations whose activities were limited to the regional or local level and were registered by

provincial courts. Moreover, there were hundreds of youth organizations, social and cultural

movements, business associations, ethnic minorities organizations, and other self-help societies. The

number of registered foundations increased from 200 in 1989 to over 3,500 in 1993.

Trade unions form a powerful sector of Polish civil society. The development of the trade

union movement represented very well this distinctive merger of old and new organizations. In

contrast to other post-communist societies, Poland has a highly pluralistic, competitive, and politically

divided trade union sector. There are 1,500 trade unions among which 200 formed nation wide

organizations. It was not unusual that the employees of one factory or firm were represented by more

63"Jawor 1993," Civic Dialogue NGOs. Warsaw 1993.

64Rocznik Statystyczny 1991, pp. 57-58.

65Polska '93, Warszawa: Polska Agencja Informacyjna 1992, p. 148.

20

than 10 different union organizations.66 Poland has two dominant trade union federations: Solidarity

(with the membership around 1,7 million) and the post-communist All-Poland Alliance of Trade

Unions (with the membership around 4 million). There is a number of smaller and usually more

radical federations, such as Solidarity 80 with approximately half a million members. Moreover, the

organizational structure of the trade union movement is mixed, for it combines the regional structure

of Solidarity with the sectoral organization of other major unions.

These numbers illustrate that civil society was able to recover from the four decades of

communist rule with an astonishing speed and intensity. Its organizations and actors played an

increasingly visible and vocal role in the country's politics, often confronting both the parliament and

the government.

3. Collective Protest in Poland, 1989-1993

Declining trust in state institutions and their effectiveness and low participation in the formal

political process were paralleled by a growing acceptance of various forms of protest: the "protest

potential" of Polish society was on the rise. "Protest potential," as defined in the influential study of

political participation, "is the individual propensity to engage in unconventional forms of political

behavior as a means of political redress."67 Polish sociologists included questions designed to test

the "protest potential" similar to those used in Political Action in several studies of political attitudes

conducted since 1980. The results are presented in Table 4: Net Approval of Specific Forms of

Protest (page 33).

It is clear that most forms of protest were gradually gaining more legitimacy as appropriate

ways of expressing collective grievances, especially after 1989. Strikes, demonstrations, and boycott

of state decisions have gained the highest degree of acceptance since 1984. The high level of

acceptance of disruptive protest, and especially strikes, can be linked to legacies of the Solidarity

movement, which symbolically elevated a strike to the most noble form of resistance against the

unjust authorities and made it a part of a routinized repertoire of political action.68 These results

example, Polish miners are represented by 19 union and the employees of the Polish StateRailroad (PKP) by 26 unions. The competition between unions for new members and influence oftenleads to higher militancy and escalation of protest actions because, as S. Tarrow points out, organizationsin competition for the same constituency "try to outbid their competitors for support with more radicaltactics" (Struggle. Politics, and Reform, p. 20).

67Samuel Barnes, Max Kaase, et al. Political Action: Mass Participation in Five WesternDemocracies. Beverly Hills: SAGE 1979, p. 59.

68This fact supports Tilly's argument about the repertoires of collective action. He argues that "apopulation's repertoire of collective action generally includes only a handful of alternatives. It generallychanges slowly, seems obvious and natural to the people involved." The repertoire of collective action

21

make Poland one of the most contentious nations in the world. Comparative data on acceptance of

unconventional political action is presented in Table 6: Acceptance of Unconventional Political Action

in Selected Countries (page 34).

Another dimension of the Polish public's attitudes toward protest was the "repression

potential," defined as "the tendency to grant authorities increasingly severe instruments of control to

contain correspondingly severe challenges by protesters, strikers, or other unorthodox activists."69 It

was tested by the authors of Political Action and used by Polish sociologists in their research on

political attitudes. The results of Polish surveys are presented in Table 5: Net Approval of State

Actions Against Different Forms of Protest (page 34).

The results reported in Table 5 demonstrate a gradual and consistent decline in the

"repression potential" of the Polish authorities. Only a small minority of Poles approved of the use of

force against protesters and strikers. This very limited acceptance of repressions was a clear legacy of

the four decades of repressive rule. Tellingly, the new Polish state did not have popular "permission"

to employ harsh measures against protestors. Quite to the contrary, it had even less public consent to

intervene against disruptive political action than did the old communist state. Such a situation has

important consequences for the post-communist governments, for it restricts their range of legitimate

responses to protest actions.

According to the authors of Political Action, "three components of political action - protest

potential, conventional participation, and repression potential - form the basic "parameters of license"

for protest."70 It is however obvious that public opinion surveys do not provide sufficient knowledge

about actual protest actions. As Tarrow observes, "unless we trace the forms of activity people use,

how these reflect their demands, and their interaction with opponents and elites, we cannot

understand either the magnitude or the dynamics of change in politics and society."71 The data

presented in this section come from a systematic record of actual protest events which took place in

Poland between 1989 and 1993. We will argue that during this period, collective protest emerged as

the most important form of participation in public life.

available to a population is limited by several factors including: the efficiency of a particular form inadvancing a group's goals, acceptance of certain forms and repression of others by the authorities,familiarity of a particular form to a group which "has a heavy bias toward means it has previously used."and cultural acceptance of some forms of collective action by the population (From Mobilization toRevolution. New York: Random House 1978, pp. 154 and 156).

69Samuel Barnes, Max Kaase, et al. Political Action, p. 87.

70S. Barnes, M. Kaase, at al. Political Action, p. 60.

71S. Tarrow, Democracy and Disorder. Protest and Politics in Italy 1965-1975, Oxford: ClarendonPress 1989, pp. 7-8.

22

During the 1989-1993 period, collective protest in Poland was intense. Protest actions ranged

from single isolated strikes to nation-wide protest campaigns involving hundreds of schools, hospitals.

and enterprises as well as thousands of workers and public sector employees. They included one-

hour-long warning strikes as well as protracted and desperate strike campaigns that lasted for months.

The repertoire of protest was very diverse. It consisted of both violent and non-violent street

demonstrations, a variety of strikes, dramatic huger strikes, huge rallies, boycotts, occupation of

public buildings, blockades of roads and public spaces, rent strikes, and various forms of symbolic

protest. Protest activities spread to all regions of the country and involved all social groups and

categories, with workers, public sector employees, peasants and the youth as the most active

participants. Our research indicates that Poland had the highest incidence of protest among the East

Central European countries we studied.72 (See Table 7: Post-1989 Protest Events in Poland,

Hungary, Slovakia and Former East Germany, page 35).

There are two conventional views on collective protest and popular opposition in post-1989

Poland. According to the first, the transfer of political power to the coalition of Solidarity-led forces

and the subsequent far-reaching reforms were carried out with nearly full support of the whole

society. However, this support ebbed rapidly after the monetary and budgetary discipline imposed in

1990 began exacting growing social costs and dislocations. According to the second view, while the

Solidarity trade union extended a protective umbrella over Mazowiecki's and Bielecki's governments,

the strikes and demonstrations were provoked by the post-communist OPZZ union federation or

emerged spontaneously. It has been further asserted that Solidarity's patience ran out only in 1992,

when it also began actively opposing the government's policies through collective actions. The

statistical data available in Poland and the data we collected put both views in doubt.

The most striking discovery that emerges from our own and other studies is that during the

period of 1989-1992 the number of protest actions remained surprisingly constant. Moreover, the

magnitude of protest (discussed below) increased. The data on strikes collected by the Main Statistical

Bureau show that in 1990 there were 250 strikes in Poland. In 1991, the number of strikes increased

to 305. Our database, which includes all protest actions reported by the six main Polish newspapers.

72In order to support this contention systematic comparisons with other countries of the region mustbe completed. We have already finished the data collection process in Slovakia, Hungary, and theformer East Germany. According to our knowledge the only systematic compilation of protest eventsso far was conducted by Jan Stena in Slovakia. This project was limited, however, to the period of June1990 through May 1991. The result which shows 336 protest events may suggest that perhaps Poland'smagnitude of protest is not so unique (see, Jan Stena, Anatomia protestu a jeho empiricke typy,Sociologia 1992, 24, 4, 249-265).

23

presents a similar picture. (See Table 8: The Number of Protest Events in Poland 1989-199373, page

35.)

While the number of protest events has been relatively constant during the five year period,

the amount of large-scale, coordinated protest campaigns increased considerably.74 Moreover, the

number of protest actions whose scope was non-local went up too. (See Table 9: The Scope of

Protest Actions, page 36.)

Judging by the growing number of protests with large numbers of participants (above 2000),

the amount of people who engaged in contentious collective actions also increased.75 (See Table 10:

Protest Actions According to Numbers of Participants, page 36.)

Furthermore, available data on protest activities reveal that the duration of protest actions was

expanding. According to GUS (Main Statistical Office), the number of workers on strike doubled

between 1990 and 1991 (from 115,687 to 221,547) and the number of days lost due to strikes tripled

(from 159,016 to 517,647). Both the number of workers on strikes and the number of days lost

increased even further in 1992, although it declined in 1993. Our data also suggest that during the

1989-1993 period, protest actions involved not only more participants, but there was a significant

increase of protest actions lasting over one month. (See Table 11: Duration of Protest Events in

Poland, page 37.)

Even though we are not able to construct a precise index as yet, the method of calculating

protest magitude proposed by Tilly, who multiplies the size, duration and frequency of collective

protest,76 allows a preliminary assessment of prtoest magnitude. The data presented here led us to

conclude that during the first five years of the post-communist consolidation the magnitude of

collective protest in Poland increased .

We discovered to our surprise that protest actions were organized predominantly by the

organizations belonging to civil society, such as trade unions (including peasant organizations). (See

Table 12: Organizations Leading or Sponsoring Protest Actions, page 38.)

73The number of protest events recorded in our database differs from figures found in other sourcesdue to a specific definition of the protest event we accepted. For the purpose of our project we assumethat a protest event may include the activities of several separate groups or organizations. The activitiesof different groups are considered to be a part of the same protest event if: (1) they relate to the samegrievances and (2) take place at the same time without any considerable delays. Our conceptualizationsand definitions are influenced by Sidney Tarrow.

74If protests actions are officially (i.e. outwardly or publicly) directed or coordinated by one decision-making center, they constitute together a protest campaign.

75These numbers include only those protest events for which we have exact information regardingthe number of participants.

76See Ch. Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution, pp. 95-97.

24

During the period 1989-1993, of all civil society organizations, trade unions were the main

driving force behind collective protest. Among trade union federations, Solidarity was most active. In

1991 and 1992 there was however a significant increase in protests organized by other trade unions.

This can be explained by the competition among the growing number of union organizations, that

emerged in Poland during that period.

Post-communist collective protest in Poland was decidedly nonviolent - a startling contrast to

Latin America, where the so-called "IMF riots" exacted a heavy toll in casualties (150-190 dead) and

property damage.77 Striking (including strikes and strike alerts) was the most popular form of protest

employed with the exception of 1990. Demonstrations, marches and rallies were the second dominant

form. Protest letters and statements followed. The next most common form of protest were more

disruptive actions such as occupation of public buildings and blockades of roads and public places.

(See Graph 1: Protest Strategies, page 39.)

As Table 13: Ultimate Targets of Protest (page 40) illustrates, the institutions of the state (the

government, parliament and president) were targeted by the protesters increasingly more often than

other targets. Given the predominance of the economic demands, this finding indicates that protest

actions responded to the continuing substantial involvement of the state in the economy. Additionally,

the protesters seem to have been driven by an expectation shaped by the old regime, that the state is

responsible for all aspects of economic and social life and, therefore, should solve all problems. It

may also signify that the "us-versus-them" conceptualization of politics, in which the "state" is seen

as the main antagonist of the "society" was re-gaining its influence after a short decline in 1989.

Table 13 illustrates also two trends: the growing number of protests targeted ultimately at all

branches of the government, while the number of protests directed against the management fluctuated

without any appreciable growth or decline. We suggest that this increasing universalization of protest

targets may be also interpreted as a growing politization of protest.

In order to find other indices of the increasing politization of protest, we looked at the

number of economic and political grievances in every year. The numbers presented in Table 14:

Types of Demands (page 40) illustrate another major finding of our study: during the 1989-1993

period, protests had predominantly economic character; Poles protested mostly to battle for

improvements in their living conditions. As a detailed examination of demands reveals, "wage

increases/material demands" was by far the most frequently reported category. The number of

77See J. Walton, "Debt, Protest and the State in Latin America, Power and Popular Protest in LatinAmerican Social Movements, edited by Susan Eckstein, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991and Bela Greskovits, "Is the East Becoming the South? Where Threats to Reforms May Come From?,"paper presented at the XVIth World Congress of the International Political Science Association, August21-25, 1994, Berlin.

25

political demands increased in an erratic manner; the increase was, however, significant enough to

support the generalization concerning the growing politization of protest.

We also searched for a confirmation of growing politization in the pattern of data collected in

response to the question "On whose behalf were the demands made?" Table 15: Collectives on

Whose Behalf Demands Were Made (page 41) contains selected result.

Whereas the protesters' identity was predominantly and consistently "particularistic," the data

presented in Table 15 indicate an increasing usage of the more general identities, such as "nation"

and "society." This trend may also be interpreted as a growing politization of collective protest. This

politization through generalization produced an identity which was mainly "civic" in character; the

predominant general identity the protestors subscribed to was "society." Such identities as "nation,"

indicating subscription to some form of nationalism, or "social category," which could mean some

form of class consciousness, were used far less frequently.

The growing politization of collective protest in post-communist Poland (1989-1993) is

therefore well documented; it is, however, a peculiar politization. What was increasingly politicized

was not political society, but civil society. In fact, the participation of political parties in collective

protest was inconspicuous (see Table 12).

During the four year period of 1989-1993, Poles had five different governments and were

asked to participate in three parliamentary, one local and one presidential elections. The data we have

already presented suggest that while the formal political participation was relatively low, political

participation through protest and the involvement of civil society organizations in politics was

growing. We will now see whether the cycles of electoral politics parallel the cycles of protest during

this period. When the aggregate data on protest are compared with electoral cycles, they reveal a

regularity. The number of collective protests decreases always before elections, and increases

immediately afterwards. Graph 2: Ongoing Protest Event and Elections, 1989-1993 (page 42)

illustrates the correlations between cycles of electoral politics and cycles of protest.

4. Conclusions

4.1. Protest and the institutionalization of the three domains of the polity.

In this chapter we have presented data on several dimensions of public participation in post-

communist Poland, including formal political participation, protest and repression potentials of Polish

society after 1989, and cycles of collective protest between 1989 and 1993. We demonstrated that the

first five years of consolidation in Poland produced: (a) a state that was bigger but weaker than the

Party-state of communism; (b) a political society that was disorganized though arguably increasingly

26

more consolidated (structured);78 and (c) a civil society that was increasingly more active and

politicized. This last finding confirms a generalization, that during a regime transition, when the

boundaries between the institutional realms of polity are unclear and contested, organizations of civil

society penetrate political arenas with greater frequency than in more stable polities.79

Contentious collective action was the common if not predominant mode of participation in

civil society. Thus we conclude that many Poles who were uncomfortable with routine parliamentary

democracy and dissatisfied with party politics, turned to contentious collective action as a mode of

public participation. Some of them turned to militant populism, finding in its dichotomous master

frames a guide for their actions, but most of them engaged in protest (strikes and demonstrations) to

put forth demands related to their everyday (mostly "economic") concerns. For them, it seems,

collective protest was a mode of civic action based on an acceptance of the existing order, intending

only to correct the governmental - mostly economic - policies.

The growing politization of collective protest did not, however, acquire an "oversymbolized"

form, but rather a more pragmatic one; demands remained primarily economic throughout the whole

period. Nor did the politization manifest itself through the intensification of protest-sponsorship by

political parties. It occurred, first of all, through the generalization of protestors' identities and

through the growing "seriousness" of the addressees (or targets) of their actions. In brief, as the years

went by, the protestors acted more often on behalf of "the whole society" and targeted with

increasing frequency the country's highest authorities. This tendency may be interpreted as a growing

dissatisfaction with political parties as channels of interest articulation and representation. The post-

communist party system in Poland might have become more consolidated and structured,80 but its

ability to articulate and represent people's interests - in light of our research - did not increase.

The second important set of conclusions concerns the relationship between civil and political

societies as well as the specific, institutionalization of collective action in the former. In most cases.

78See Herbert Kitschelt, "The Formation of Party Systems in East Central Europe," Politics andSociety. Vol. 20(l):7-50, "Party Systems in East Central Europe. Consolidation or Fluidity?," paperpresented at the 1994 Annual Meeting of the APSA and especially "Emerging Structures of PoliticalRepresentation in Eastern Europe," paper presented at the conference on the Social and Political Basesof Economic Liberalization, organized by the SSRC and funded by the Pew Charitable Foundation.Warsaw, September 23-26, 1994.

79There were many examples of political actors crossing the boundaries between the realms. Polishtrade unions ran candidates in elections and aspired to an independent parliamentary representation. Infact, it was Solidarity trade union's parliamentary representation which orchestrated the non-confidencevote in Suchocka's government and forced the new elections in 1993. Also some political parties actedas social movements by, for example, organizing demonstrations against the government in which theywere the official partner.

Herbert Kitschelt, 1994; Gabor Toka.

27

Poles' civic activities (such as collective protests) were organized by already established organizations

(mostly trade unions). But very often such civic activities occurred as contentious collective action

rather than inter-organizational negotiation and mediation: instead of engaging in well-instiutionalized

inter-organizational games (negotiations, lobbying, etc.), such organizations as trade unions were very

quick to organize or sponsor contentious collective actions (strikes, demonstrations). In a sense, then.

civil society (at least its significant segment) was poorly institutionalized, i.e. the rules of routine

conflict resolution were not established and/or legitimized. This weak institutionalization was not

however the result of organizations' passivity, but rather of their tendency to employ non-institutional

forms of participation in public life i.e., protest. In brief, their politics were a-institutional.

The analysis of this "a-institutionalism" can be facilitated by introducing Jepperson's

important distinction between two modes of society's reproduction: through institutionalization and

through action. He writes:

"Here I wish to concentrate on just one contrast: between institutionalization and 'action,'...astwo different reproduction forms. A social pattern is reproduced through action if personsrepeatedly (re)mobilize and (re)intervene in historical process to secure its persistence. /.../'Action' is a much weaker form of reproduction than institutionalization, because it faces allthe 'logic of collective action' problems well established in the literature (e.g., Olson1965). "81

Following Jepperson's suggestions we posed two questions: What was the mix of

"institutionalization" and "action" in the reproduction of the Polish post-communist reality? How was

the regime's consolidation influenced by this particular "mix"?

Our data indicate that in Poland, post-communist society reproduced itself through action

more often than in any other society of East Central Europe. This action however was not

spontaneous; it was organized mostly by existing organizations, mainly trade unions. What we found

in Poland, therefore, was a "hybrid" form (unspecified by Jepperson) of contentious action by well-

established and institutionalized organizations. Moreover, protest activities became a routine mode of

conflict resolution thereby the emerging set of norms and rule should be referred to as contentious

institutionalization. It seems, additionally, that this high involvement of well-established "protest"

organizations (such as Solidarity) in organizing society's activism accounts for relaxation of the

Olsonian collective action dilemma.

The reasons for the high ratio of "action" to "institutionalization" may be predominantly

historical. If there was a place in Eastern Europe where state-socialism failed due to "action" rather

than "inter-organizational deals," it was Poland. Polish society's repertoire of contentious action was

extensive and well rehearsed; the "tradition of action" was developed and transmitted (also

81Ronald Jepperson, "Institutions, Institutional Effects, and Institutionalism," in Walter W. Powelland Paul DiMaggio, eds., The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis, Chicago: The Universityof Chicago Press, 1991, p. 148.

28

unreflectively) as a "natural" mode of participation in public life to a degree unknown in other East

European countries.

Before the more systematic comparative studies are completed, it is difficult to assess the

impact of this reproduction through action, occurring predominantly in the domain of civil society, on

the consolidation of the new regime. Samuel Huntington's classical warning must be however

carefully considered:

Political stability ... depends upon the ratio of institutionalization to participation. As politicalparticipation increases, the complexity, autonomy, adaptability, and coherence82 of thesociety's political institutions must also increase if political stability is to be maintained.83

According to our research, in the case of Poland the ratio of institutionalization to

participation was high, but both had uncommon features: (1) the organizations which institutionalized

participation were not political parties or state institutions but trade unions and other associations of

civil society and (2) participation, though institutionalized, tended to take the form of contentious

collective action. We suspect that this pattern of: (a) increasingly politicized, (b) gradually

intensifying contentious collective action, occurring mostly (c) within civil society, may have

contributed to the destabilization of the Polish polity and, in particular, slowed down the development

of political society, limiting its scope of support and possibly delaying (pace Kitschelt) its

institutionalization.84 But, paradoxically, the very same pattern may have contributed to the

constancy of the radical economic reforms. Opposition to the reforms was ineffective for it was either

channelled through the medium of inconclusive (as our data indicate)85 contentious collective action

(civil society) or it was articulated be several small parties in an uncoordinated, thus impotent,

fashion. Additionally, the protest vote proved to be ineffective because the parties that ran on the

anti-Balcerowicz platform, once in power did not modify the economic program associated with his

name in any significant way.

82For the definitions of these terms see Samuel Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies.New Haven: Yale University Press 1968, pp. 12-24.

83Huntington, Political Order. 1968. p.79.

84For a complex definition of the level of institutionalization see Huntington 1968: 12ff. "Scoperefers simply to the extent to which the political organizations and procedures encompass activity in thesociety" (Huntington 1968:12).

85The efficacy on the collective contentious action is notoriously difficult to gauge. Our data baseshows a low efficacy of protest in Poland.

29

3.2. Identity re-construction and institutional building through collective protest actions.

Charles Bright and Susan Harding, reminiscent of Charles Tilly, observed that:

"contests over state activities, boundaries, and structures, popular protests, social movements,and ultimately revolutions must be included as statemaking processes. [...] they are allmechanisms through which politicians and state managers, social and economic elites, andpopular groups contest - and in contesting, alter - what the state is, what it shall do, and whoshall have access to its resources."86

Did popular protest, which developed on such a massive scale, became a crucial component

of the state building and re-building in post-1989 Poland? It is not easy to answer this question

because the direct effects of social protest are not easily measurable. It is very striking, though, that

very few contentious collective actions stated as one of their objectives the revolutionary overthrow of

the post-1989 socio-political order. As our data base demonstrates, a demand to "modify/reform

existing state or public institutions" was voiced only in .6% of protests in 1989, 4.6% - 1990; 4.1% -

1991; 1.3% - 1992; 2.0% - 1993. A more radical demand to "abolish/replace the post-1989 political

order" was practically never voiced. As we pointed out earlier the tenor of the post-communist

protest in Poland was decisively reformist. Protesters did not intend to engage in state-building;

instead they wanted to influence reformist policies.

Furthermore, our data base does not provide much evidence for our initial hypothesis that

through protest actions people would forge new identities and set up new organizations. The decisive

majority of protest actions were organized by existing organizations, mobilizing people in the name of

existing identities. The only exception (discussed in a separate chapter) were youth protests, whose

politics, rhetorics, and imagery indicate that the generation gap in Poland is so huge that the

reproduction of the polity and society may be endangered.

3.3. Structural (institutional) conditions of collective protest's efficacy

In Spring 1993, the Solidarity trade union began a coordinated protest campaign designed to

force die government, led by post-Solidarity parties, to relax its economic policies. This campaign

was successful beyond all expectations: the Suchocka government failed. But success came only when

a massive protest campaign was combined with the vote of no-confidence in the Parliament, initiated

by Solidarity's Parliamentary caucus.

Summarizing the experiences of the Third World countries which attempted major economic

adjustment programs, Joan Nelson argues that:

Labor alone rarely can stall or drastically modify adjustment programs, although in may winlimited concessions. Even in countries where unions are large and well-organized,governments have often faced down their opposition. But where union opposition combines

86Charles Bright and Susan Harding, Processes of Statemaking and Popular Protest, p. 5.

30

with much broader protest, most commonly from the urban popular sector but sometimes alsofrom business, programs have indeed been drastically modified or abandoned.87

Solidarity's 1993 success suggests another combination of factors: to succeed, a well-

coordinated protest action must be supported by a political action carried out through institutional

channels. In brief, (the organizations of) civil society must act together with (the organizations of)

political society if they want to maximize their chances of influencing state politics and policy-

making.

87Joan M. Nelson, Conclusions, in: Economic Crisis and Policy Choices, The Politics of Adjustmentin the Third World, edited by Joan M. Nelson, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1990, p. 350.

31

Grzegorz EkiertDepartment of GovernmentHarvard University

Jan KubikDepartment of Political Science

Rutgers University

REBELLIOUS CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE CONSOLIDATION OF DEMOCRACY IN POLAND.1989-1993

Table 1: Employment in state administration and local self-government: 1989-1993'

central state'sagencies

total in centraladministration

local stateadministration(a)

local self-government

total stateemployment

1987

38

45,463

29,859

95,897

171,219

1988

32

42,525

28.610

96,716

167,851

1989

35

42,934

26,385

92.260

161,579

1990

37

46,062

29,167

83.583

170,895

1991

39

60,794

32.550

77.551

194,849

1992

40

68.728

36.011

90,110

194.849

1993

43

88.561

26.813

108,333

223,707

Sources: Rocznik Stacystyczny, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, Warszawa: GUS. (a) For 1987-1989 localstate administration include those employed in 49 provincial offices (urzedy wojewodzkie). Since 1990. it includesthose employed in 49 provincial offices and in 254 newly created regional offices (urzedy rejonowe). Data do notinclude employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (employment rose from 145,014 in 1990 to 181.494 in 1993),Ministry of National Defence (employment and the size of the armed forces decreased from 363,400 in 1990 to314,400 in 1993) and Ministry of Justice (with employment of 39,739 in 1993) with the exception of employeesof the Ministerial office (431 in 1991, 469 in 1992. and 474 in 1993).

Table 2: Net Confidence in Institutions and Organizations: 1989-19942

2All data are from CBOS' surveys on the representative sample of the Polish population. Netconfidence is the difference between those who think that the activity of a particular institutionor organization is consistent with well-being and interests of society and those who think it isnot.

33

Table 3: Voters Participation in Elections in Poland: 1984-19933

Elections

I round

II round

1984local

74.9%

1985nation

78.9%

1988local

55.0%

1989nation

62.7%

25.0%

1990local

42.3%

1990presid

60.6%

52.4%

1991nation

43.0%

1993nation

52.1%

1994local

33.8%

Table 4: Net approval of specific forms of protest4

Forms of protest

Petitions, letters

Posting posters

Strikes

Street demonstration

Boycott of state decisions

Occupying public buildings

Actively resisting police

1981

39

-8

-2

-50

-26

-52

-50

1984

61

1

-3-3

-14

-72

-41

1988

60

15

-12

-24

1

-67

-48

1989

50

-4

-15

-35

-16

-71

-39

1990

68

38

22

1

4

-63

-45

1992

84

41

47

39

22

-55

-47

3Sources: J.P. Gieorgica.PolskalokalnawewiadzvPZPR, Warszawa: UniwersytetWarszawski 1991, RocznikStatystyczny 1991. Warszawa: GUS 1991.

4Sources: W. Adamski. Afiliacje zwiazkowe. stosunek do protestow i wartosci obywateiskich iako przejawkonfliktu interesow. in: W. Adamski at all, Polacy 88. Dynamika konfliktu a szanse reform, Warszawa 1989, pp.192-193; K. Jasiewicz. From Protest and Repression to the Free Elections, in: W. Adamski ed.. Societal Conflictand Systemic Change. The Case of Poland 1980-1992, Warszawa: IFIS PAN 1993, p. 131; CBOS. Opinia publicznao roznych formach protestow spolecznych i skierowanych przeciw ni represjom. Warszawa, February 1992. Netapproval is the difference between those who think that citizens should have the right to use a specific form of actionand those who mink they should not.

Table 5: Met approval of state actions against different forms of protest'

Types of Action

Police action against streetdemonstrations

Harsh penalties forresisting the police

Ban on protests anddemonstrations

Using the military to breakup strikes

1981

-65

-57

-35

-77

1984

-51

-47

-31

-67

1988

-58

-53

-29

-73

1989

-74

-66

-43

-84

1990

-51

-55

-50

-83

1992

-70

-65

-70

-91

Table 6: Acceptance of unconventional political action in selected countries5

country

POLAND

Britain

Finland

France

Germany

Italy

Switzerland

USA

Demonstrations

67%

4 1 %

57%

52%

44%

43%

65%

68%

Boycotts

56%

35%

4 1 %

43%

34%

30%

44%

62%

Occupations

19%

12%

16%

28%

11%

14%

32%

24%

5Sources the same as for table 2. Net approval of state action is the difference between those who support thestate's right to employ a specific repressive measure and those who who do not.

6Source: E. Hann Hastings and P.K. Hastings, eds.. Index to International Public Opinion. 1982-1983.Westport: Greenwood Press 1984 and S.H. Barness, M. Kaase, at al.. Political Action: Mass Participation in FiveWestern Democracies. Beverly Hills: Sage 1979.

35

Table 7: Post-1989 protest events in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and former East Germany

Poland

Slovakia

Hungary

Former EastGermany

1989

314

122

222

1990

306

50

126

196

1991

292

82

191

292

1992

314

116

112

273

1993

250

47

148

271

1994

40

44

195

Table 8: The number of protest events in Poland. 1989-1993 (by category)3

Year

Single ProtestEvents

Series of ProtestEvents

Protest Campaigns

N = Total Numberof Protest Events

1989

24678.3%

4113.1%

278.6%

314

1990

26185.3%

278.8%

185.9%

306

1991

23580.5%

175.8%

4013.7%

292

1992

25681.5%

175.4%

4113.1%

314

1993

20280.8%

62.4%

4116.4%

250

7 Data for Slovakia. Hungary, and the former GDR include only those protest actions held before the electionsin each country. (Parliamentary elections were held on September 30-October 1. 1994 in Slovakia, ana on May 8and 30. 1994 in Hungary. General elections -ere held on October 16, 1994 in Germany).

8The number of protest events recorded in our database differs from figures found in other sources due to aspecific definition of the protest event we accepted. For the purpose of our project we assume that a protest eventmay include the activities of several separate groups or organizations. The activities of different groups areconsidered to be a pan of the same protest event if: (1) they relate to the same grievances and (2) take place at thesame time without any considerable delays.

Table 9: Scope ox protest

36

Table 10: Numbers of participants

37

Table 11: Duration of protest events in Poland

Table 12: Organizations leading or sponsoring protest actions

Sponsoring Organizations

Political parties

Solidarity Trade Union

OPZZ (post communistfederation)

Other labor unions

Solidarity 80

Peasant organizations

Interest groups/ Socialmovements

Radical political/extra-parliamentarymovements

data unavailable

N = all protest events

1989

206.3%

4915.6%

1.3%

154.8%

309.6%

63.2%

5015.9%

?27.0%

15850.3%

314

1990

299.5%

5217.0 %

72.3%

123.9%

1317.0%

165.2%

4615.0%

4314.1%

8828.8%

306

1991

51.7%

9030.8%

103.4%

3010.3%

3211.0%

124 . 1 %

4414.9%

155.1%

4816.4%

292

1992

165.8%

9631.5%

3310.5%

4012.7%

3310.5%

247 . 6 %

3110.0%

237.3%

4715.0%

314

1993

124.8%

9538.0%

187.2%

3514.0%

145 . 6 %

ii

3.8%

3212.8%

135.2%

145 . 6 %

250

Graph 1 : Protest Strategies1 9 8 9 - 1 9 9 3

Table 13: Ultimate targets of protest

Table 15: Collectives on whose behalf demands were made