The Polish Crisis and Myrdal's Model of Circular Causation

In: Political studies, Band 36, Heft 3, S. 463-474

Abstract

After analyzing the structural nature of the Polish crisis, Karl Gunnar Myrdal's model of economic underdevelopment as due to a self-reinforcing rather than self-correcting social process (Economic Theory and Underdeveloped Regions, London: Duckworth, 1958) is applied to that country. Poland's cumulative backwardness is a permanent rather than a transient feature of her economic, administrative, & political life, & affects the mass public as well as the leaders & middle-rank officials. Many of those who seek reforms do not support the political system, while many who support the political system do not favor reform. The predicament of how to break the vicious circle of self-perpetuating backwardness poses intractable problems for the reformers. 1 Figure. HA