This article describes why the Polish government has pushed for an invocation to Christian traditions in the European Union Constitution. It is ar- gued that this is a rather 'unfortunate' outcome of the political alliance between the Catholic Church and the Polish left, especially between President Alek- sander Kwas ́niewski and the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD). This alliance al- lowed the SLD to legitimize their rule in the post-socialist Poland, and it was a result of a political competition between them and the post-Solidarnos ́c ́ elites. As a result, John Paul II became the central integrative metaphor for the Polish society at large, which brought back in the marginalized as well as allowed the transition establishment to win the EU accession referendum in 2003. The arti- cle (which was written when Leszek Miller was still Prime Minister) demon- strates how this alliance crystallized and presents various elements of the cult of the Pope in Poland that followed. Finally, it argues that the worship of the Pope is not an example of nationalism, but of populism, understood not as a peripheral but as a central political force, and advocates for more research on the 'politics of emotions' at work in the centers and not in peripheries.
The geopolitical location of Poland in Central Europe determines the role of platform between the countries of Western and Eastern Europe. This location nowadays and very probably access to Eropean Union's structures and the NATO in near future will support the development of economic relations in Eastern Europe and will enable an additional source of income for the country by transit including through the sea ports. To make this development real it's necessary to expand the transport infrastructure for all means of transport because its present weakness is a barrier for goods transportation and it negatively influences the development of the region and the country - it's irrevocable condition of effective transport policy performing to consider the transit policy. The analysis of changes in transit services realization in Polish ports makes conclude that the transport and transit policy is inefficacious or even there's no such a policy. The statistical data show that the turnover broke down in 1991. The evident transit decreasing in railway transport and inland shipping caused by modification of Polish geopolitical location, economic transformation process in Central Europe, the fall of Soviet Union and Council for Mutual Economic Aid had the unprofitable effect on reloading of goods and transit reloading in Polish ports in the years 1991-96. After 1991, the Ukrainian and Belarusan transit determined by geopolitical factors has appeared. After independence regaining by Ukraine this country faced with the problem of reconstructing transport connections with foreign countries, especially in the direction: Odessa - Gdańsk and Gdynia. The substantially important for Polish- Ukrainian co-operation will be constructing of the transport track linking ports of Black Sea via Lvov and Lublin to ports of Gdańsk Bay: "Via Intermare". This assignment will enable to increase activity of regions crossed by the track and also will strengthen economic relations between Poland and Ukraine. The economic crisis in Central Europe caused not only transit decreasing but also competition among the transit countries. In this competition Poland is rather weak competitor because of insufficient transport infrastructure. Also teh changes of geopolitical location highly influenced the amount and directions of cargoes reloaded in Polish ports. These negative processes are a result of lack of univocally defined aims and instruments of the transit policy. ; Marcin Polom
The general aim of the paper is a systenatization of concepts and also an analysis of some aspects of the process of forming institutional infrastructure in Europe after the collapse of centrally managed economic system. Characteristic feature of such transformations is that they concern mainly the sphere of non-material components of economic subjects' surrouding. This involves difficulties in monitoring them and in interpreting them in a strict way. Europe needs a transformation of all the elements of its institutional infrastructure. In teh case of such institutions-organizations as European Union or NATO - an evolution is expected towards their more universal character. Within the institutions of codified principles the developing of European political infrastructure (i.e. agreements serving increased co-operation of all States of the region) is more particularly desirable. The element that unites transformations of institutions-organizations and institutions-formali zed principles is the fact that both of them are undertaken fully consciously. Also changes within institutions-non-formalized principles are of much importance for the process of European integration. The changes are the result of very complex and time consuming economic and social developments. The need for such changes involves more particularly the societies of former Eastern Europe which, under specific conditions of centrally planned economy, have developped institutional system quite difficult to adept it to the market economy. ; Digitalizacja i deponowanie archiwalnych zeszytów RPEiS sfinansowane przez MNiSW w ramach realizacji umowy nr 541/P-DUN/2016
Internal identity of a region is a factor that promotes political stability.Western Europe is a particular example here. The significance of regions, which is clearly emphasised in Europe, may become a prerequisite for their mutual assimilation. This causes numerous problems but also contributes to increased interdependence between nations and regions. The potential of regional identity may be treated as a factor that reduces the consequences of the revival of national or nationalistic tendencies on the one hand, and those of intensified globalisation on the other. Adecade of contradictory experience in the formation of regional identity in Central Europe confirms this hypothesis. The emergence of clear regional structures as well the reinforcement of a new regional identity of Central European countries in politics and then in economics may diminish the level of various hazards ranging from political ones to environmental. ; Tożsamość wewnątrz regionalna jest czynnikiem sprzyjającym stabilności. Szczególnie znaczący jest tutaj przykład Europy Zachodniej.Wyraźnie zarysowana pozycja regionów w Europie może służyć jako przesłanka do ich wzajemnego upodabniania się, co powoduje wiele problemów, ale zarazem zwiększa współzależność nie tylko między państwami, ale i między regionami. W takim przypadku procesy globalizacji nie musza mieć charakteru "bezadresowgo". Potencjał regionalnej tozsamości można traktować jako fenomen, który redukuje skutki odrodzenia narodowych i nacjonalistycznych tendencji z jednej strony oraz intensyfikacji globalizacji – z drugiej. Dziesięcioletnie i skrajnie sprzeczne doświadczenia formowania regionalnych tożsamości w Centralnej Europie potwierdzają słuszność tej hipotezy. Krystalizacja regionalnych struktur i umocnienie nowej regionalnej identyczności państw Europy Centralnej – najpierw w polityce, a potem i w ekonomii – może obniżyć poziom różnorakich niebezpieczeństw, zaczynajac od politycznych, a kończąc na ekologicznych.
The article starts with a series of questions concerning the relations between particular levels of adjustment and the forms and contents of the youths' participation in culture. Having commented on basic dilemmas of contemporary adjustment, the author distinguished and discussed five basic types of the youths' participation in culture, determined according to the criterion of the level of social adjustment. The first (the lowest) level consists in participation in massand pop-culture in institutional frames, with the elements of revolt and individualism. A characteristic feature of the second level of adjustment is the past association with local cultural institutions and the present participation in cultural institutions of more universal character. A determinant of the third level of adjustment is cultural superficiality and syncretism. The essence of the fourth level of adjustment is the continuity of interests and the past participation in school extracurricular activities. Finaly, a characteristic symptom of the fifth (the highest) level of adjustment is the autotelic (in the past) and pragmatic (at present) character of the reading habit. The article ends with the confrontation of the adjustment levels with the character of the youths' participation in culture. In that part the author synthetically discusses the stages and periods of adjustment in relation to the types of participation in culture. Here, the author distinguished eight types of participation in culture, starting from the simplest one (habitual), characterized by the mere participation in mass culture, and ending with the fullest and comprehensive participation, characterized i.a. by one's own creative activity. 10
Kaliningrad - a Russian enclave located on the Baltic Sea, neighbouring with Poland and Lithuania, is a worldwide political and legal oddity. The position of Kaliningrad is unique historically, economically and geopolitically. The region has a status of a f r e e economic zone and since 1996 of a special economic zone Economic problems appearing after dispersion of the USSR specifically affected an economic collapse of the enclave. The district of Kaliningrad belongs to the most militarised regions of Russia. Russian generals stress that the military and strategic role of the Kaliningrad district is much more important for Russia than its economic meaning. The shift of NATO eastwards and accession to the European Union of the countries f r om the close neighbourhood of Kaliningrad not only will not sharpen sufficiently complicated inner problems of the district, but they will allow the region to get softly into 'the situation of new Europe' without secession from Russia. According to the Governor L. Gorbenko, there are justified grounds to call Kaliningrad the Russian gate to Europe. As whole Russia will not be able to join the European community, so, according to A. Tuczyński, it can afford to create such a legal system and such conditions to make Kaliningrad (as an inseparable part of Russia) able to j o in it. Yet guarantees by Moscow are indispensable here. Whereas in Moscow Kaliningrad is perceived as a region of a future economic growth. According to evaluations by Scandinavian and German political scientists, the enlargement of NATO and the European Union eastwards will positively affect the district of Kaliningrad in a longer run. Searches how to solve the problem of the Russian enclave should be still carried out especially in Russia itself and in the District of Kaliningrad. Warsaw, Berlin, Stockholm and the European Union in their policies towards Kaliningrad adhere to the principles of inviolability of borders, disarmament and economic growth. Only 'europeisation' i.e. inclusion into European economic and cultural structures, and according to J. Zaleski - 'baltication' of Kaliningrad is the only wise solution. This opinion is also shared by the author of the paper. Russia, which so far has not officially shown such a readiness, may become convinced, by means of diplomatic negotiations, to recognise the only reason for the further fate of the enclave and make it the Russian region within the European Union. Despite signing the agreement between NATO and Russia, the road from resignation from confrontation to a universe cooperation with the North Atlantic Treaty will be very long. Only economically strong and integrated Baltic Europe has an opportunity to be present on the map of united Europe in the 21st century. ; Marcin Polom
The article is focused on the pattern of marital attitudes expressed symptomathically by the attitude towards marriage and the planned age of concluding marriage. An attempt to identify the patterns of marital attitudes of 4264 unmarried youths (aged 18 - 34) has been conducted on the basis of empirical material obtained in years 1985 - 1987 from the whole territory of Poland by the random- -quota method. The results indicate that in Polish conditions marriage gains in importance in the (hierarchy of socially accepted values and is generally accepted by the unmarried youths. Marital plans were declared by 94% of youths. A basic determinant of the pattern is the pisychoisociological factor, while demographic factors (age, sex) and the environment only modify its functioning. A peculiarity of the pattern is a high concentration of preferred age of concluding the marriage. Women plan to get married between 20 - 24 years of age, while men between 25 - 29 years of age. It justifies the opinion that in the future the tendency to conclude early marriages will be preserved and that relatively high birth potential will be retained. Among Polish unmarried youths a formal marriage is preferred by 92,7°/o of respondents. It allows to expect a domination of children born in wedlock, a tendency which should be approved. Polish youths wish to live in institutional marriages based on interpersonal relations created by friendship and emotional ties. ; Digitalizacja i deponowanie archiwalnych zeszytów RPEiS sfinansowane przez MNiSW w ramach realizacji umowy nr 541/P-DUN/2016
The paper presents the results of an investigation carried out to determine how the public opinion and the knowledge learnt from the results of public surveys have influenced the members of the 2nd term Parliament of the Republic of Poland. The role of such surveys and their position among other sources of information expressing public opinion to the MPs has been analysed and the extent of the use of such knowledge determined. The degree of trust among members of the Polish parliament in the results of public opinion polls has been examined and their attitudes to the possibilities of manipulation in the survey investigated. Further, the views of the politicians with regards limitations put on the publication of survey results before elections and the possible use of pre-election surveys results in election campaigns has been presented. Finally, the opinion of MPs on the influence of such results on the attitudes and way of thinking of politicians and their electorates has been determined. ; Digitalizacja i deponowanie archiwalnych zeszytów RPEiS sfinansowane przez MNiSW w ramach realizacji umowy nr 541/P-DUN/2016
The article aims at presenting basic problems of decision-making independence of an enterprise arising in connection with the present (instituted in 1982) economic reform which opened new and hitherto unknown possibilities for an enterprise to shape independently its own activity at short and long range. The considerations are laid in a historical background, helping to accentuate innovatory and progressive conceptions of the reform and to expose the facts of retaining or rejecting some solutions introduced by previous reforms. The starting point has been provided by the thesis about limied decision-making independence of an enterprise as long as the national economy functions under the conditions of socialized basic means of production and the active role of the central plan. However, the above does not settle explicitly the question of the range and types of independence; the latter may be shapd in various ways. Accepting fully an extensive, and as broad as possible, independence of an enterprise in current and developmental matters, the author carried out the detailed analysis of three main decision-making spheres: 1) the decisions concerning production and exploitation, 2) the decisions concerning supplies and sales, 3) the decisions concerning property and income. The results of the analysis are to inform the management of new opportunities and prerogatives of its decision-making activity and of the problems to be autonomically overcome and solved by means of decision-making measures. ; Digitalizacja i deponowanie archiwalnych zeszytów RPEiS sfinansowane przez MNiSW w ramach realizacji umowy nr 541/P-DUN/2016
The reconstruction of public administration is one of the most important structural tasks. Decentralization through Self- government is the most advanced form of the enforcement of public administration. However, it is not a sufficient reorganization undertaking. For decentralization to be efficiently implemented, certain general conditions should be met. One of them is a deep reconstruction of t he central government administration, which in its present form is not correlated with a new political structure of the State, its new tasks and with a new position of Government (as set forth in the Constitutional Act of 17 October 1992). Besides, there exists a need to provide for a smooth course of, and correlation between, the making of politics by the Government and the functioning of the administrative apparatus. In such a context, a new conception of creating districts (powiaty) as a new unit of territorial division and self-governmental authority seems premature. It needs to be added that the position of a district in the draft Law is not unequivocal. In particular, it is not clear to what extent the district bodies are to represent the district community, and to what extent they will only be the executors of certain tasks set forth in the Law. ; Digitalizacja i deponowanie archiwalnych zeszytów RPEiS sfinansowane przez MNiSW w ramach realizacji umowy nr 541/P-DUN/2016
Perspectives of the world oil market areclosely related to the possible tendencies of price ruling of that natural resource. To describe it, the author constructs a system considering all the main elements subject to changes in time, which are essentially related to the ruling of oil prices. Pricing strategies of the oil states are adopted as the initial variable. Its variants can be specified on the grounds of the formulated subsystems of independent and dependent variables. The first of subsystems comprises features relatively unchanged over time and common for all the states-producers of oil. The maeroeconomic target of the oil states economies is considered here as well as the long-run target in their export sectors and stimulating functions of price variables. This subsystem is supplemented by the conditions limiting free price-ruling within the framework of certain stimulating functions. The second subsystem considères the effect of three categories of determinants: internal (relations of export incomes to expenditures of the oil states, acquired level of productive forces in those states, conditions for realization of the accelerated economic development, freedom to "manipulate" resources), external ones (relation of demand to oil supply) and correcting (quality of oil, transport distance, extra economic factors, the volume of demand aparat of main oil importers). They constitute proper criteria of variating procedure. Defining the probability of appearance of one of the presented variants in practice and its effect on the level of oil prices requires a permanent observation of changes in the respective analysed factors and taking account of them. And that is the premise adopted by the author of the article. ; Digitalizacja i deponowanie archiwalnych zeszytów RPEiS sfinansowane przez MNiSW w ramach realizacji umowy nr 541/P-DUN/2016
The article aims at describing the regional differentiation of the turnout and of the support for major political parties in the parliamentary elections of 19 September 1994. Having analysed the aforesaid differentiation, one may note voividships with a consistently high (Wielkopolska, Małopolska) and consistently low electoral turnouts. Compared to the elections of 1991, the support for the Democratic Left Alliance has grown considerably throughout the whole country except the Zamosc voivodship, whereas the support for the Democratic Union has increased only in 7 voivodships (including the Poznań voivodship). One of the principal axes of competition was between peasant parties (PSL, PSL-PL) and townspeople parties (the Democratic Union, the Liberal Democratic Congress, the Labour Union). ; Digitalizacja i deponowanie archiwalnych zeszytów RPEiS sfinansowane przez MNiSW w ramach realizacji umowy nr 541/P-DUN/2016
The article presents the results of the April 1985 survey conducted by the Department of Sociology of Labor and Organization of the Institute of Sociology of the Warsaw University and by the Center of Public Opinion Surveys by the Polish Radio and Television on the relation of the Polish society to the economic reform. The research considered questions of a social reaction to the methods of reforming system of management: a mature of that reaction and its group and environmental differentiation. It can be generally stated that the public opinion which views the state of our economy as poor has doubts whether the implemented economic reform can be the means to draw the country out of the crisis. It is stated that the reform fails mostly in the domain of prices, quality of goods and material situation of the workers. Majority of the surveyed can visualise threats to the reform not in the objective economic difficulties but in decission errors on various levels. A part of society seems to be confused. They consider factons which can be the reason of a slow pace of the reform to be its result, mousing lacks of the reform they fail to quote their reasons. lt is important that the workers can see the profits derived from the reform for their enterprises and they express the opinion that it is needed there. That conviction can be observed strongly among those Who declare their contacts with the reform in their everyday work. It can be concluded that the Polish society visualises the reform not as the isolated socio-economic process, but as the integral part of overall far reaching changes both in the State and in the economy which should be implemented in the near future. ; Digitalizacja i deponowanie archiwalnych zeszytów RPEiS sfinansowane przez MNiSW w ramach realizacji umowy nr 541/P-DUN/2016
The purpose of the article is to turn the readers' attention to the threats and dangers of functioning of the democratic system. The starting point for the considerations is the conception of a famous Italian sociologist Gaetano Mosca (1858-1941), a co-author of the sociological theory of elites. Gaetano Mosca was opposed to the introduction of a general right to vote and was against granting the voting rights to women. Besides, he was a strong opponent of proportional electoral regulations, and he stressed the role of electoral committees and the significance of a strong middle, class as a support for the democratic government. The article points to the topicality of some Mosca's views on the system of representative democracy. However, the article's main concern is to indicate some dangers for the emerging Polish democracy. In particular, the author points to: 1) the danger of indifference and weak political understanding among the Polish electorate; 2) the necessity to put forth alternative programmes (to make it possible to vote for particular programmes rather than for particular persons); 3) advantages and disadvantages of proportional and majority electoral regulations (the author is in favour of proportional regulations with a minimum threshold); 4) the necessity of reconstructing the middle class. Besides, the author stresses the dangers specific for the functioning of democracy at a local level. The topicality of many Gaetano's views on the functioning of democratic systems is the best proof of advantages flowing from the studies on the classical sociological thought. ; Digitalizacja i deponowanie archiwalnych zeszytów RPEiS sfinansowane przez MNiSW w ramach realizacji umowy nr 541/P-DUN/2016
Please visit: http://krzysztoffirlej.pl/; krzysztof.firlej@uek.krakow.pl ; Przedstawiony artykuł nakreśla problematykę możliwości w zakresie przygotowywania właściwej konkurencyjności dla jednostek organizacyjnych funkcjonujących w polskim agrobiznesie do warunków istniejących w Unii Europejskiej. Polskie przedsiębiorstwa już od początku wczesnych lat dziewięćdziesiątych rozpoczęły trudną drogę przystosowania, przekształceń strukturalnych i organizacyjnych umożliwiających im konkurencję na wewnętrznym rynku krajowym, jak i w przyszłym unijnym. W tym celu zostały wyasygnowane przez Unię Europejską i rząd polski specjalne środki finansowe, które miały za zadanie realizację powyższych zamierzeń. Niestety środki przeznaczane na ten cel były zbyt małe, niemniej jednak umożliwiły wsparcie tychże działań podejmowanych przez nasz kraj. ; The article discusses the possibilities of enhancing the competitiveness of the organizational units in Polish agribusiness in the context of their adaptation for the requirements of the European Union. Since early 1990s, Polish companies have been faced with the difficulties of adaptations as well as structural and organizational transformations, which are to enhance their competitiveness, first on the Polish market, and then within the European Union. In order to accomplish these goals, special funds have been assigned by the European Union and the Polish government. These funds were insufficient, nonetheless they allowed our country to instigate action in this area. ; Krzysztof Firlej
