The multiplying parties and intense political activity were signs of healthy engagement of the population and elites alike, at least in those early days. But the complexity of the institutional landscape would make governing difficult. In 1991, a hundred organizations fielded candidates, and twenty-nine parties won seats. In the first eighteen months after the first free election there were four prime ministers. The average tenure of a government in the first five years was ten months. The electoral laws were revised in 1993, raising the threshold for party participation to 8 percent. Since then, there have been five or so major parties.
Still, from 1991 to 2015, no party had won a majority and all governments ruled in coalition. And the country’s political landscape has experienced considerable electoral volatility, alternating between center-right and center-left governments. That has made it difficult to sustain a consistent policy course.
Early on, Poland was also rocked by crises related to the treatment of former communists and their role in future governments. Wałęsa himself was accused of “defending the post-communist system” in his appointment of government ministers.
And the former communists did fare well in the years that followed democratization. Their main party won a plurality in the Sejm in 1993. Its leader, Aleksander Kwasniewski, was a longtime communist and had taken part in the Round Table negotiations on the side of the government. He was later elected as president, replacing Wałęsa.
Tensions remained, though, as the new Poland tried to resolve questions of the past. There were numerous resignations due to charges of corruption and even one charge of conspiring for a military coup. But the hardest cases involved well-regarded figures whose names appeared in archives suggesting that they had maintained steady contact with the secret police during communist rule.
Sometimes the sin had been simply to agree to talk to the secret police or to answer questions when asked, but in the charged atmosphere of the early 1990s, that was enough to brand someone as a collaborator. And sometimes the charges were more substantial and troubling.
In the most notorious episode, in 1992, the interior minister handed over a list of the names of deputies, senators, and civil servants who, according to his ministry, had been “agents” of the security services. The “Portfolio Affair” implicated dozens of people, including some who had been members of anticommunist opposition groups. In the confusion that followed, Wałęsa said that the lists were doctored and called for the resignation of the government of Jan Olszewski. The members of that government, in turn, formed a new party.
These accusations and counteraccusations would dog Polish politics for years to come. In 2007, the Archbishop of Warsaw resigned over revelations that he had cooperated with the secret police during communist rule. A second prominent Catholic clergyman did the same the next day. And several months later, a former minister committed suicide in the face of similar charges.
Poland, like every other country in transition, found it difficult and divisive to find justice for the past and reconcile it with the need to move forward. Poland’s democratic transition was thus not smooth, but it was smoother than most. It is fair to say most Polish leaders in these crucible years were not just committed to democracy; most wanted to anchor the country in a democratic Europe by seeking membership in the European Union. And the high regard and affection that Poles felt for the United States drew them to integration in NATO too, an association that would carry protection from Moscow—just in case.
One of the underestimated factors in the mostly successful transitions in Central and Eastern Europe was the role that the European Union and NATO played as north stars for democratic change. In order to gain membership, those countries had to follow a careful and specific map for institutional reform. Many democratic transitions are heavily influenced by single, overwhelming personalities like Boris Yeltsin in Russia. They never take the next step toward the development of institutions that can withstand the vagaries of particular leaders. In the Russian case, the highly personalized and powerful presidency meant one thing with Boris Yeltsin as its occupant. Vladimir Putin would mean quite another.
In Poland, the lure to be included in NATO and the EU put the emphasis for reform in the right place—on institutional change. The effort to gain membership provided a careful and specific set of requirements for institutional reform.
Poland’s association with the European Union had begun just a few months after Solidarity’s electoral victory with a trade and cooperation pact. Together with Hungary and Czechoslovakia (soon to be two countries, Slovakia and the Czech Republic), Poland formed the Visegrad Group, which sought full integration into European institutions. The same group would simultaneously seek membership in NATO.
The EU accession process forced countries desiring membership to conform domestic legislation to European standards in thirty-one issue areas, or “chapters.” These included economic issues like the freedom of movement of capital and goods, taxation, and agricultural reform. On the political side, everything from consumer and health protection to justice and home affairs to cultural policy had to be reformed and judged consistent with EU requirements. Political institutions were also under scrutiny, and there have been cases of direct intervention from the EU to warn an aspirant that antidemocratic practices can derail the path to membership.3
NATO added yet another set of institutional requirements related to defense but touching on domestic reform. Such was the insistence on “democratic and civilian control” of the military as one foundation of stable democracy.
In 1997, Poland was invited to join NATO. It became a full member of the European Union seven years later, in 2004. After World War II, Poland had been where it first became clear that the Soviet Union would accept only communist governments in Eastern Europe. It took roughly fifty years, but the country was now fully integrated into a democratic continent.
In the twenty or so years since, there has been a good deal of debate about the decision to offer membership in the formerly “Western” institutions to Moscow’s former client states. NATO in particular has drawn fire for moving the battle lines of the Cold War eastward toward Russia’s borders.
But it should be remembered that NATO at the time of its creation had two purposes. One was to stop Stalin’s military forces from threatening the part of Europe that was free of Soviet influence. That was accomplished by a huge conventional force presence and the extended deterrence that American nuclear weapons provided.
That was not, however, NATO’s only purpose. Those who created it believed that it would provide a security umbrella for the reconciliation of old enemies in a democratic peace—in short, to provide a new environment in which France and Germany would never have cause to fight again. Believing deeply in what political scientists now call the “democratic peace,” they thought that an association of free peoples would prevent war.4 This emphasis on liberty as an antidote to conflict was at the heart of a postwar strategy that relied on democratizing Germany and integrating Europe politically and militarily. And it succeeded brilliantly.
The completion of the European project could not be achieved, however, until Central and Eastern Europe could be a part of it. That is why a Europe “whole and free,” as George H. W. Bush put it, required an open door to the new democracies of Europe. That path provided an impetus for domestic reform, and it provided, as the framers of the European institutions had expected, an institutional home for old enemies to become allies. Just as few would have taken the odds on a permanent peace between Germany and France in 1945, many expected open conflict between Hungary and Romania or Turkey and Bulgaria over ethnic and territorial differences that had been submerged under communist rule.
Thanks to its relatively rich institutional profile at the time of the democratic opening—and its integration into Europe—Poland is both fully democratic and fully European. At least as of this writing.
Is Polish Democracy in Danger?
The work of building a stable democ
racy is never really done. The institutions are constantly challenged, sometimes in small ways, and often in more fundamental tests. The United States has been through Watergate and a contested presidential election in just the last forty years. The institutions were strong enough to withstand the turbulence.
Poland is now going through one of those periods of testing, and its young democratic institutions are most certainly at risk. In part, this is to be expected as a phase in democratic consolidation. Yet that does not fully explain the situation that the Poles face.
Every democracy rests upon a foundation of societal attitudes and values. The genius of democratic institutions is that they can absorb the contest between competing views. The political system permits the expression of all of them in debate, elections, and judicial decisions.
In Poland today, the resurgence of deeply conservative social attitudes, including religious piety, is clashing with evolving and more liberal European values and beliefs. As discontent with the European Union has grown on the continent—even leading Great Britain to exit—Poland too has found its Euroskeptics. Some Poles feel that Europe is too socially liberal and disrespectful of its national traditions. There are those who now want a divorce. Too many Poles feel that wages are not rising fast enough and that inequality is growing. Polish workers who have crossed borders to find work in Germany or Ireland or the UK say that they experience discrimination and prejudice. Disaffected Poles blame their own leaders and they blame Europe.
These circumstances have fostered the emergence of right-wing parties that are strongly nationalistic and religiously fundamentalist. While this is a broader trend across Europe, relatively young democracies like Poland are particularly vulnerable to the rise of populists who can give voice to such grievances. Those leaders have then tended to challenge the fragile institutional order—amassing greater power in the presidency and seeking to weaken other forces.
In October 2015, the populist Law and Justice Party scored a stunning victory in parliamentary elections. For the first time since liberation, a single party holds a majority in the parliament and the presidency under Jarosław Kacyziński. Since taking power, Law and Justice has carried out several popular changes, such as reversing the decision that increased the retirement age. It has raised the child benefit for families with two or more children and increased the minimum wage. These populist policies reflect underlying demographic trends. Poland’s population is declining and aging, and older people are demanding security. And the Catholic Church has long urged the government to encourage couples to have more children.
But other steps are more worrying and could threaten Poland’s democratic constitutional order. The most serious of these has provoked a crisis between the government and the Constitutional Tribunal—one of four judicial institutions. While Poland has a Supreme Court, it does not engage in judicial review as in the United States. That is the role of the Constitutional Tribunal, which judges “the constitutionality of laws.” This means that it is the most important of the judicial institutions in constraining executive power.
The Law and Justice Party first raised eyebrows just after taking power in 2015 when it refused to seat justices legally appointed by the outgoing Civic Platform government. The new leaders compounded their actions by appointing replacements for two additional judges before their terms expired. The Constitutional Tribunal refused to swear them in. This led the president of the tribunal—an ally of the government—to do so over the objection of other members of the court. Poland essentially had two sets of judges.
Law and Justice then moved to modify the tribunal’s operations, eventually passing legislation through the parliament that it dominates. Again, the tribunal reacted, declaring the new laws unconstitutional. There has been a standoff between the government and the tribunal ever since—and this part of the judiciary is essentially not functioning.
In response, the European Union has adopted a resolution calling the actions a “systematic threat to the rule of law in Poland.” Poland is subject to action under Article 7 of the EU treaty, which could sanction the country and suspend its voting rights. Hungary has a veto, however, and its prime minister, Viktor Orbán—a burgeoning political strongman in his own right—has threatened to block any such steps.
There is also a tremendous tug-of-war over the control of state media. The government has created the National Media Council with the right to hire and fire personnel for state television and radio. Saying that private media is too responsive to ratings, officials have argued that state media should instead foster patriotism. There are, they complain, too many shows like Dancing with the Stars.
Many suspect, of course, that this rationale is really a subterfuge. The real purpose is to make the media a mouthpiece for the regime—something that it does clumsily at times.
When visiting Poland in 2015, President Obama reminded the government that it must live up to its democratic principles—a gentle rebuke to the actions of Law and Justice. The state media altered his comments. It appeared as if the president only complimented the Poles on their democracy. Of course, the American press reported the outrage, and so did the free Polish press, much to the embarrassment of the government.
And while private media has been immune so far, many worry that it is only a matter of time until the government encroaches on that space too. A law that would limit foreign ownership (Poland’s three largest private media companies are owned by Germans) is of particular concern. And the government is reducing advertising dollars to these outlets. This goes to the heart of one of the private media’s weaknesses in Poland—indirect dependence on the government for resources. If foreigners cannot own the outlets and the government will not spend on them, the private media could simply wither away.
Still, there are clearly limits to what Law and Justice can do. An effort to outlaw abortion has thus far failed. Poland already has the most restrictive laws in the European Union, but an outright ban drew large protests. Eighty-five thousand Facebook users flooded a page named “Women for Women,” and several hundred people walked out of mass when priests pressed congregations to support the measure.
One scholar of Poland argues that the fight over abortion is not really about abortion but about the role of the church in politics.5 Poles, she argues, are extremely religious, but that does not mean they want the church to dictate policy. If accurate, this would be a watershed development in such a deeply Catholic country.
Poland’s democracy is not likely to be destroyed by the current challenges. Still, the careful balance between state authority and political freedom is once again in play. The country has achieved all of the milestones that we associate with democratic consolidation: repeated peaceful elections; a relatively independent judiciary; civil-military stability; a free press; a vibrant civil society; and respect for human rights.
Yet the current circumstances in Poland remind us that democracy’s development is never a straight line. Rather, it is a step-wise process that will often include steps backward along the way. Some have argued that Poland’s democratic forces became complacent—believing that their democratic consolidation was irreversible. The Civic Platform, it is said, failed to see that the rapidly rising expectations of the population were not being met. And pro-Western leaders failed to see the growing distance between some of the cultural values of Brussels and those of the Polish heartland.
That said, Poland’s democracy is far from lost. I was in Warsaw in June 2016 and participated in a forum with the former foreign minister, Radek Sikorski. The conversation was mostly about geopolitical affairs—but no one seemed reluctant to talk about Poland’s challenges either.
One could see that the independent Polish press and civil society are fighting back, publicly and vigorously. Articles appear daily in the press and on the Internet challenging the policies of the government and calling attention to those that seek to expand its authority. The atmosphere remains open and free for now.
Poland’s history
suggests that it can handle the turbulence that it is now experiencing and emerge strongly democratic on the other side. But there is no guarantee, and that is always the case. The defense of democracy is never finished.
Chapter 4
UKRAINE: “A MADE-UP COUNTRY”?
We didn’t just lose a town, we lost our whole lives. We left on the third day. The reactor was on fire. I remember one of my friends saying, “It smells of reactor.” It was an indescribable smell.… They turned Chernobyl into a house of horrors.
—NIKOLAI KALUGIN, PRIPYAT, UKRAINE1
The Chernobyl tragedy unfolded one hundred miles north of Kiev near the Ukrainian city of Pripyat. Some ten million people were put at risk for radiation exposure and the environmental and economic damage has been estimated at $235 billion. Ukrainians were the victims of a badly designed Soviet reactor that lost containment of radioactive materials, spewing toxic and deadly fumes into the air.
The awful events of that time in 1986 are a kind of metaphor for the fate of Ukrainians: For much of their history, decisions of epic proportion—and their sometimes disastrous results—were made in Moscow, not in Kiev. The Ukrainian people have thus been anxious to control their future.
The Russians and the Ukrainians are ethnically the same—they are Slavs—and they speak similar but not identical languages. Russians tend to overstate the links between the cultures and ignore the distinctiveness of Ukrainian national identity. Ukrainians resent this and sometimes overstate their uniqueness. These questions of identity have led, not surprisingly, to uncertainty and conflict about what actually constitutes Ukraine. Russians and Ukrainians have had very different answers to that question.
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