Między warcholstwem a klientelizmem. Polskie obciążenia

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to analyze the evolution of the Polish political scene and the Polish political class with reference to certain features of the Polish “national character” and the his-torical heritage connected with the oligarchic political system of the end-stage Nobles’ Com-monwealth. I argue that in a society composed of people who display propensity for factious-ness and clientelism, the political scene evolves in a three-stage cycle: fragmentation, consol-idation, and fixing on the level of a dual system (two centralized “leader parties”), which hampers the development of a civil society and makes it difficult to hold any serious political debate.