From Solidarity To Sellout

In the 1980s and 90s, renowned Polish economist Tadeusz Kowalik played a leading role in the Solidarity movement, struggling alongside workers for an alternative to "really-existing socialism" that was cooperative and controlled by the workers themselves. In the ensuing two decades, "really-existing" socialism has collapsed, capitalism has been restored, and Poland is now among the most unequal countries in the world. Kowalik asks, how could this happen in a country that once had the largest and most militant labor movement in Europe? This book takes readers inside the debates within Solidar

The book takes an in-depth look at a hitherto unexplored part of the oeuvre of prominent Polish economist and historian of economic thought Tadeusz Kowalik: his thesis that the systemic transformation that took place in Poland in the late 1980s was a de facto "epigonic bourgeois revolution". Since Kowalik actually never extended his argument to support this thesis, the aim of the book is to answer the following question: If some important reflections on the revolutionary character of the Polish transformation scattered throughout Kowalik's works were to be found, would they together constitute a convincing justification for the thesis of the "epigonic bourgeois revolution"?

Moving from the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 to the present day, this book traces the trajectory of the six East Central European former satellites of the Soviet Union (Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria) that have joined the European Union. It seeks in particular to explain these countries’ disenchantment with the “return to Europe” in spite of their significant advances. The book proceeds country by country and then devotes chapters to some contemporary issues, such as minorities, migration, and the relations of these “new” members with the European Union as a whole. The book eschews theory and is intended for a general audience, including students at all levels in political science and history classes devoted to the EU and to contemporary Europe, and to an academic and practitioner audience interested in world affairs and the evolution of the European Union. The book strives to fill a persistent knowledge gap in the English-speaking world concerning East Central Europe, and to offer fresh insights about the region in the context of contemporary geopolitics.

The 2010’s was a critical period in the continuing, established trend of the spread of democracy worldwide: from the Arab Spring countries of Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Yemen to the unfolding turmoil of Myanmar and Ukraine, by way of the upheavals in Burkina Faso, Senegal and Ivory Coast, social mobilisation against autocratic, corrupt, or military regimes has precipitated political transitions that are characteristic of "democratisation." This book examines the state of democratisation theory and practice that reopens and revives the democratic transition debate, exploring the factors that lead to the demise of autocracy, the pathways and processes of change, and the choice for an eventual consolidation of democracy. For all its insights and shortcomings, the framework of transitology – a body of literature that has comparatively and through case-study analysis, examined common patterns, sequences, crises and outcomes of transitional periods – has been largely eschewed. The essays, written by international democratisation specialists, tackle the series of questions raised by a body of literature that remains highly useful to understand contemporary political turbulence and transformation, considering numerous crucial issues. This work will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners of governance, democratisation, comparative politics, international relations, political science and more broadly, history.

In this unique, panoramic account of faded dreams, journalist John Feffer returns to Eastern Europe a quarter of a century after the fall of communism, to track down hundreds of people he spoke to in the initial atmosphere of optimism as the Iron Curtain fell – from politicians and scholars to trade unionists and grass roots activists. What he discovers makes for fascinating, if sometimes disturbing, reading. From the Polish scholar who left academia to become head of personnel at Ikea to the Hungarian politician who turned his back on liberal politics to join the far-right Jobbik party, Feffer meets a remarkable cast of characters. He finds that years of free-market reforms have failed to deliver prosperity, corruption and organized crime are rampant, while optimism has given way to bitterness and a newly invigorated nationalism. Even so, through talking to the region's many extraordinary activists, Feffer shows that against stiff odds hope remains for the region's future.

Thirteen former presidents and prime ministers discuss how they helped their countries end authoritarian rule and achieve democracy. National leaders who played key roles in transitions to democratic governance reveal how these were accomplished in Brazil, Chile, Ghana, Indonesia, Mexico, the Philippines, Poland, South Africa, and Spain. Commissioned by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), these interviews shed fascinating light on how repressive regimes were ended and democracy took hold. In probing conversations with Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Patricio Aylwin, Ricardo Lagos, John Kufuor, Jerry Rawlings, B. J. Habibie, Ernesto Zedillo, Fidel V. Ramos, Aleksander Kwasniewski, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, F. W. de Klerk, Thabo Mbeki, and Felipe González, editors Sergio Bitar and Abraham F. Lowenthal focused on each leader’s principal challenges and goals as well as their strategies to end authoritarian rule and construct democratic governance. Context-setting introductions by country experts highlight each nation’s unique experience as well as recurrent challenges all transitions faced. A chapter by Georgina Waylen analyzes the role of women leaders, often underestimated. A foreword by Tunisia’s former president, Mohamed Moncef Marzouki, underlines the book’s relevance in North Africa, West Asia, and beyond. The editors’ conclusion distills lessons about how democratic transitions have been and can be carried out in a changing world, emphasizing the importance of political leadership. This unique book should be valuable for political leaders, civil society activists, journalists, scholars, and all who want to support democratic transitions.

In Poland in the 1940s and '50s, a new kind of Catholic intended to remake European social and political life—not with guns, but French philosophy This collective intellectual biography examines generations of deeply religious thinkers whose faith drove them into public life, including Karol Wojtyla, future Pope John Paul II, and Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the future prime minister who would dismantle Poland’s Communist regime. Seeking to change the way we understand the Catholic Church, World War II, the Cold War, and communism, this study centers on the idea of “revolution.” It examines two crucial countries, France and Poland, while challenging conventional wisdom among historians and introducing innovations in periodization, geography, and methodology. Why has much of Eastern Europe gone back down the road of exclusionary nationalism and religious prejudice since the end of the Cold War? Piotr H. Kosicki helps to understand the crises of contemporary Europe by examining the intellectual world of Roman Catholicism in Poland and France between the Church's declaration of war on socialism in 1891 and the demise of Stalinism in 1956.

Football fans and football culture represent a unique prism through which to view contemporary society and politics. Based on in-depth empirical research into football in Poland, this book examines how fans develop political identities and how those identities can influence the wider political culture. It surveys the turbulent history of Poland in recent decades and explores the dominant right-wing ideology on the terraces, characterised by nationalism, ‘traditional’ values and anti-immigrant sentiment. As one of the first book-length studies of fandom in Eastern Europe, this book makes an important contribution to our understanding of society and politics in post-Communist states. Politics, Ideology and Football Fandom is an important read for students and researchers studying sport, politics and identity, as well as those working in sports studies and political studies covering sociology of sport, globalisation studies, East European politics, ethnic studies, social movements studies, political history and nationalism studies.