Governance or Self-governance in Poland? Benefits and Threats 20 Years Later

The 1989–1990 revolution that took place in Poland as well as in the rest of central and east Europe led to fundamental changes at the local level. The aim of the decentralization reforms was to establish new governing structures and governance practices and to create local self-government as a strong local actor, autonomous from central control. The administrative, fiscal, and political decentralization was to change drastically the role of the central state by providing local authorities with a new set of responsibilities, fiscal resources, and the decision-making power to implement them. Such a shift also implied major clashes over power, resources, and group interests. Why then do such tensions continue to persist? What are the processes through which the central state is returning to the local level? This paper argues that the return of the central state and its increasingly visible presence at the local level is caused by persistent conflicts surrounding the form, structure, and function of the Polish state. These conflicts are aided by a weak civil society and fragmented party system. This paper will examine the case of Poland and ways through which the central state has been (and still is to the present day) imprinting its presence on local spaces of democracy and governance during the last two decades.     

The wall in the ballot box: The Berlin election of 1995

The Berlin election of October 1995 produced very different results in the eastern and western halves of the city, and although the end result was a continuation of the Grand Coalition, it was the PDS and Bündnis 90/Die Grünen who stole the limelight once the votes were counted. This article attempts to account for the performance of the parties in each half of the city and considers the political consequences for them. It concludes by considering what the election can tell us about the public mood in Berlin and about political trends in the Federal Republic in general. What emerges is a ‘wall in the ballot box’, a practical manifestation of die Mauer im Kopf which clearly continues to exist five years after the first all‐German election.     

The PDS in the new German party system

The success of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) cannot be explained solely with a rising tide of GDR nostalgia and/or with the efficiency of PDS members as service providers and advocates at the grass‐roots level. We stress the importance of the PDS as the main political representative of a specific socio‐economic and cultural milie in the former GDR. Furthermore, the article traces the evolution of the PDS from a populist voice of protest of the losers of unification to the beginnings of a new political party. As such it defines its identity more as a radical left‐wing party with strong social libertarian characteristics than a traditional socialist party. The party programme and the electorate of the PDS display remarkable similarities to the fundamentalist wing of the West German Greens in the 1980s, although differences as to the origins of the left‐libertarian ideas remain important. While the PDS seems to have strengthened the significance of the new politics agenda in post‐unification Germany, it is still too early to conclude whether this agenda is firmly rooted in the party or whether it is simply a vehicle to electoral success.     

The Tunisian Revolt: Learning from the Mistakes of the Iranian Revolution

The Great Arab Revolt of 2011 has moved swiftly from the peaceful overthrow of autocrats in the nation‐states of Tunisia and Egypt to brutal repression in the tribal societies of Libya, Syria, Bahrain and Yemen. Meanwhile, the wired youth bulge of the Middle East that brought change is dissipating into an impotent diaspora while the organized interests of the old regimes and the once‐suppressed Islamists charge ahead to power. This section examines the revolt, the reaction and the power struggles in its aftermath.