There are also theoretical issues such as: adequacy of this discipline of knowledge to the analysis of the realities of public action in Poland. This issue arises due to the fact that public policy emerged as a discipline of knowledge in the Anglo-Saxon tradition, on the basis of its specificity. Moreover, the theories evident in public policy science have been developed in the West, mainly in America. The local realities were the basis. Therefore, the question arises whether we should build our theories or adapt those that have been developed elsewhere. Meanwhile, we do not have many or even most elements of the Anglo-Saxon tradition, even in terms of the size of our analytical achievements. We are not even inclined to conduct such an advanced analysis of social and economic phenomena. Hence, it seems important to me to ask about the theoretical potential of this discipline in relation to the analysis of public activities in Poland.
The article presents methodological theories, application of which, when adopting the political and legal research perspective, makes it possible to analyse the impact of comitology on the shape of law adopted in the European Union. The author assumes that in consideration of equally complex decision-making centers as comitology committees, whose structural element is their location between two levels – the Community and the national level, it is impossible to limit to only one research method. The purpose of the article is an attempt to demonstrate that the most reasonable approach to comitology research is to use institutional and legal analysis, which is based on theoretical assumptions combining political and legal sciences and to supplement it to explain phenomena occurring within the comitology committees by applying the assumptions of the theory PAT (Principal–Agent Theory), the Scharpf's theory of legitimacy of power, Wessels's fusion theory and analysis of empirical data. This approach is designed to enable the examination of normative acts, in which legal basis of functioning of the comitology institutions (i.e. the EU founding treaties, comitology regulations and judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union), as well as to highlight a number of issues relevant to the practical aspect of the functioning of comitology committees.
The ethical analysis of The Theory of Moral Sentiments as well as 'n Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations presents A. Smith's (1723-1790) works in a completely new light than it is conventionally presented in the neoliberal interpretation. One of the most important issues appears to be the classification of moral sentiments. He divides them into social, neutral, and antisocial. The neutral sentiment - the so-called 'self love' forms the basis of acting in the best interests of oneself and as such it constitutes the foundations of the development of entrepreneurship. This can be transferred into an antisocial sentiment, i.e. selfishness. In such a case it has a devastating influence on economic activity, social life as well as public life. For this reason A. Smith shows the importance of the social emotion of sympathy understood as empathy and the acceptance of the behaviours that are acknowledged as proper. As the findings of his analysis clearly show, selfishness was the characteristic trait of the businessmen at that time, i.e. merchants and the owners of manufacturing plants. With reference to the works of A. Smith we should therefore identify and then describe all the psychological as well as economic mechanisms that in effect postpone or minimise the chances of the transformation of self love into selfishness, i.e. the activities based on rational economic grounds into the ones that are driven by mere greed. The interpretation of the issue presented in the article questions the conventional neoliberal interpretation. The latter reiterates that in the works of A. Smith the most important ones are the sentences taken out of the context that define the state as a night watchman and the market that is controlled by the invisible hand. The ethical analysis holds that in the opinion of A. Smith alone, one of the most fundamental problems of capitalism lies in the fact that self love should be realised within the boundaries set by the community. The Theory of Moral Sentiments is so vital then, in which he analysed sympathy, social sentiment, and selfishness, i.e. an antisocial emotion, along with 'n Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, in which he addressed the issue of collective selfishness.
The article aims to discuss the relationship between social policy and public policy and to identify its most important elements. Social policy is linked historically on the one hand with the economy and on the other - with sociology and political sciences. Theory of public policy exposes the role of public administration in achieving its objectives and allows for wider recognition of the tasks by linking them with other specialties. This makes it possible to achieve in practice synergistic effects of actions taken, and at the theoretical level - a more comprehensive assessment of the analyzed problems. The history of social policy in Poland, especially of the Institute of Social Economy shows that such a broad approach to social policy has been characteristic also in the past.
This article presents conclusions from observation of the first Citizens' Assembly organized in Wrocław (Poland) in 2020. The analysis starts with placing the panel within the most recent developments in a democratic theory followed by an empirical case study based on covert non-participant observation, document analysis and personal interviews. In conclusion, the paper shows that while citizens' assembly is a promising method for engaging citizens in decision-making process, it poses numerous challenges, especially in terms of framing, organizing and moderating the educational and deliberative stages of the process.
Social sciences, understood as critical and not neutral by nature, they should be equipped with specific competencies and sensivity. C. W. Mills these comptence define as sociological imagination - which is study of the relationship of history and biography, Giddens interpreted it as three basic senses: historical, anthropological, critical. The translation into political science would be a political theories imagination, it consist,, among over things like a: historicity of political phenomena, antisubstansialism, research self-awareness. Definition of political theories imagination I propose in the context of Wiktor Marzec's paper Rebelion and Reaction, which is a study from field of historical sociology, it's in itself a lot of inspiration for theorists of politics: research, theoretical and methodological. It is worth considering -in this context- fundamental categories of political science, like political subjectivity and the political, also revalidate in their range.
The examination of public policy in Poland should refer to the terms, analytical categories as well as theories, which have already been postulated in this research field. The article aims to present an overview of the development of public policy theories in the long run. To begin with, the typological and stages approaches were presented. The theories of public policy were presented as two broader classes based on the differentiation into rational and interpretative paradigms. The application of the first one was examined in greater detail in the area of defining the choices of the ways to address public issues. The interpretative paradigm was presented mainly in connection with the argumentative approach as well as an attempt to combine the rational and interpretative approaches in the context of a rational discussion. The overview ends with the presentation of a few ways of organising the public policy research field through the research questions, the research areas, the theoretical-methodological framework as well as the archetypes of the public policy analysts' activity.
The author of the article poses a few questions and proposes some answers concerning cultural applicability of the partnership and dialogue institutions. The core of the mentioned problem revolves around the ability of cultural adaptation of the formal EU norms. The theory and method used in the analysis is aim-functional which is oriented on the research into concrete cultural enclosing of formal institutions. The empirical thread of the argument is the Polish case of partnership and dialogue institutions in the European structural and investment funds. The text presents an attempt to supplement a discussion about the direction and shape of the public policy with significant threads which are often being pushed to the margin of analytical attention and public practice. On one hand, the goal, method and style of narration refers to the patterns of the participatory models of public policy known from the publications of Western authors. On the other, to the Polish empirical analyses and theoretical generalizations. The main thesis is simple as repercussion of day and night, but still seems not well understood: the predominance of cultural institutions over formal ones. It brings result in requirement of modifying the mutual relations towards more partnership and deliberative.
Polish political science is accused of not being as global as Polish sociology, or of not taking the scientific method and scientific theory very seriously. In contrast to the three basic social sciences (psychology, economics and sociology), political science is more limited to description and humanistic interpretation. One may ask why Polish political science, as it results from the above accusations, deviates slightly from the positivist pattern. The hypothesis suggests that this may be related to the education of the founders, the first managers of political science (directors of institutes, representatives of political science in the Central Commission of Scientific Degree). As it turns out, they were mostly lawyers, and to some extent historians. Graduates of basic social sciences were rare. Political science also lacks (considering textbooks) influential methodologists. As a consequence, there are fewer social methodological subjects in political science studies than in the other aforementioned fields of study.
The aim of this paper is to examine the importance of generational dialogue in the Georgian political tradition. The research statement of this paper is that the generational dialogue in Georgia, which is not particularly rooted in the political tradition, is currently flat and unconstant. In addition, due to the current situation of Georgia related to the democratization of the state, a new chapter for Georgian generational dialogue can be opened. To analyze this research problem, I have used a number of research methods based partly on secondary and primary sources, i.e. expert interviews were conducted online with Georgian researchers from the Ivane Javakhivshvili Tbilisi State University and Ilia State University. The paper is a snapshot of the theory of generational dialogue, and it presents the work of Polish scientists. Moreover, it examines the generational dialogue in the post-Soviet area, and this analysis can be developed in further scientific publications. The study of generational dialogue is essential for analyzing the perception of democracy and democratization among the generations in Georgia.
