Development of Parties and Party Systems in ... - lah@sam.sdu.dk

expected, much due to the many splits and “wars in the top” on the Polish Right. The experiencefrom being activists in opposition to the old system, phrases like “civil society against the state” andthe image of a united society fighting against the authorities and their imperial supporters, i.e. theSoviet Union, were no longer a decisive factor after the fight against the old system had been won.Furthermore, transformation and democratisation in Poland has been influenced by agents andstructures external to the Polish state constituting important structural causes for the collapse of theold system and the formation of the new. The influence of external agencies such as internationalfinancial organisations and human right movements was mediated through domestic social andpolitical institutions 39 . As far as the first years are concerned we mostly had to do with a political”muddling through”. The “party’ist” type of democracy has been less pronounced in Poland than inthe Czech Republic and Hungary because of low party institutionalization, fragile multiparty systemand party fragmentation. Parties in all CEEC’s tended to be cadre configurations, not massorganisations. Under those circumstances non-democratically elected institutions like trade unionsand church and national banks may obtain a stronger political position, thereby limiting theautonomy and the consolidation in the political sphere, and the significance of political parties andparty systems.From the outset the polarisation of Polish politics followed four lines:• between Solidarity and post-communists, i.e. on the structural level• inside the Solidarity movement (“the wars in the top”), i.e. on institutional level• for or against the president (Walesa), i.e. on actor level• for or against the Balcerowicz plan I, i.e. the economic chock-therapy, i.e. on policy-levelThe first type of polarisation was dominant just at the time of the “break through” in 1989 and hasnever been de-freezed. The dominant model underlying Solidarity, that of civil society againsttotalitarianism, undermined Solidaritys own struggle as Solidarity was not able to go beyond theculture and the history going back to 1980-81 and identify new conflicts and alternative futuresunder post-communism. Later in the 1990s, i.e. after the formation of the formation of the SLD-PSL government in 1993, a new political divide, “for and against the president” (Walesa) gainedmomentum. The “cohabitation” between AWS led government and post-communist president hasbeen difficult and never found the optimal form. However, the later president AleksanderKwasniewski did not make the same serious mistakes as Lech Walesa. In short, structural factors,i.e. the legacy of the past, soon obtained a distinct subjective side. To better understand the meaningof Solidarity, we also have to include the internal constitution of the movement itself, i.e.institutional factor.At the 1991 election an extreme multiparty system emerged with no less than 27 different politicalgroups represented in parliament. The non-party system characteristics were striking until the 1993election. Adversary politics, governmental overload, overparliamentarization, party’ism, party splits39 F. Steves, “Poland and the international system: external influences on democratic consolidation”, Communist andPost-Communist Studies 34 (2001):339-352.44