Suchergebnisse

The category of the system of government in Poland requires reference to 'the governance style' of the right, and to the tendency that has appeared in international politics in recent years to call it populist nationalism. The objective of this paper is to show that in the case of Poland after 2015, the thesis of the retreat of democracy has no factual grounds, and it can be countered through the use of evidence. The system of government in Poland after the Law and Justice party came to power cannot be described as a contradiction to democracy. Citizens are not being manipulated and deceived. They are aware of the content of decisions made by the executive branch. The opposition is able to act freely, and it is supported by independent private media. There are many veto points in the political system. The government can count on public support that is stronger than that of the governments from the period before 2015.

Parliaments are dual institutions by nature, as they connect society with the legal structure of the state power. An analysis of the structural properties of contemporary legislative bodies indicates the particular importance of the factor of internal organization, which makes it possible to distinguish a symmetrical bicameralism. The case of Italy is attractive for researchers of political systems for many reasons. One of them is a fact, that both chambers hold the identical legal and political positions, have the same five years' terms of office and identical scopes of authority. The proportional voting system guaranteed (with two exceptions) that the legislative branch was a mirror image of society, allowing the meeting of various ideologies, including the most radical ones. Italy's bicameral parliament manifested its ability to absorb a peaceful confrontation between the opposite poles of the political life in the conditions of a politically and culturally divided society.

In terms of law, federation is a complex political, economic, administrative and social system, whose individual components enjoy a significant level of independence. Political authority is organized so as to protect the identity of national, ethnic, linguistic and cultural minorities living in the territory of this multidimensional federal structure. From the constitutional point of view, federalism has two principal functions. Firstly, it unifies a state that was once disintegrated, thus allowing for the establishment of a political union and of some form of authority, which is a prerequisite of forming a somewhat broader identity; alternatively, it unifies various states. This function consists of the unification of what used to be separated and disintegrated. The other function concerns the task of maintaining the unity of those who underline the legitimacy of the authorities and reject their governance, because they feel harmed and oppressed by the political regime, or they believe that their interests are not guaranteed in the framework of a constitutionally determined autonomy. This is usually connected with their striving to become separated. In this case, federalism is a reaction to the threat of the state's disintegration, when different identities emerge in its internal structure, although they are not mutually excluded, and they do not exclude one another from this state yet. Then, federalism becomes a form of identification of various subjects with the federal state in a broader than local perspective. The second function of federalism refers us to the issue of a state comprising numerous nations, languages, cultures and religions. Modern democracy is both a political ideology and a political system. It generates increasing dissatisfaction with the way it operates on a practical level. The choice between a unitary and a federal approach does not mean a choice between a democratic or nondemocratic system, yet, from the long-term historical perspective, it appears that a federal system cannot operate without democracy, despite the obvious tensions between a democratic ideal and political reality.