The problem of thorough and ultimate decommunisation in Ukraine got suddenly valid during Euromaidan on the turn of 2013/2014 and after its termination. It became a component of post–revolutionary reforms in the field of policy of memory. A year after Euromaidan Ukraine’s parliament adopted four “decommunisation laws” on 9 April 2015. One of them concerns the condemnation of the Communist regime and prohibition the propaganda of his symbols. The author analysed contents of the law and focused on the results of decommunisation, which included the cleansing the public space from Soviet–era legacy. Full implementation of the law was planned for the year. During this time the goal was almost fully implemented regarding the renaming of many locations and districts. The communist names of thousands streets, squares, urban districts were changed, although this process was delayed. The process of renaming of many institutions, industrial plants and press titles was very slow. 

The paper presents results of the qualitative–to–quantitative narrative analysis of the transitional remembrance policy in South Africa during Nelson R. Mandela’s presidency. It refers to findings on the structure of political applications of historical interpretations to the issue of national identity reconstruction during democratisation. Therefore, the paper considers a degree in which remembrance story–telling was used to legitimise, justify, explain and promote the Rainbow Nation, the inclusive and non–racial vision of South Africa’s ’ideal self’ based on Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s theology of Ubuntu hoping. It investigated these relationships on eight levels – legitimisation of new elites, presence of former elites, transitional justice, social costs of transformations, promotion of new standards, the symbolic roles of democratisation, need for national unity and the new state’s identity in international politics. Moreover, the paper introduces a draft comparison with other cases of transitional remembrance policy – Chile, Estonia, Georgia, Poland and Spain – and it offers the structural model of the use of historical interpretations in South African transition, as well as discussing it with reference to the general model of the transitional remembrance policy. 

The exclusive interview with Mr Lech Wałęsa, the legendary leader of “Solidarity” Trade Union, the Noble Peace Prize Laureate in 1983 and the President of Poland from 1990 to 1995, on the state of democracy in Poland and Europe, presents Mr Wałęsa’s perspective on challenges that contemporary political leaders have to face. It discusses four major areas: a historical consideration of Poland’s post-communist transformation, a today’s perspective on democracy in Poland, an evaluation of country’s role in united Europe and a discussion of processes that threaten democracy in Poland and Europe. In the interview, Mr Wałęsa shares his hopes and fears, and he presents main ideas for the new political times. His assessments do not focus only on the today’s state of democracy, but he also tries to consider how the democracy may look like in the future. As a result, the Polish Political Science Yearbook publishes a unique conversation with the legend of the struggle against Communist dictatorships in Europe that shows Mr Wałęsa’s personal remarks on the democracy, the globalised World and modern technologies. 

The aim of the article is to present the results of the research conducted by author in Poland and Russia last years, as well as to analyse the ways for improvement the situation in civil society in these countries. The author postulates the need of new understanding of the role of non–governmental organizations in times of crises, which happened in Europe and in the world in recent years (the world financial crisis, migration crisis, political crises in Poland and Russia, the crisis of European integration, etc.). Presented in this article research demonstrates, that mass–media, governments and ordinary people in Poland and Russia see the role of non–governmental organisations primarily in the social problems solving. Moreover, different other studies analysed in the article demonstrate the weakness of non–governmental sector and civil society in these countries. Author concludes that non–governmental organizations have to work in coalitions, because this way they can receive support from other institutions in the network and promote their activities on a larger scale. Networking, federations and coalitions of non–governmental organizations are the significant force in society. It is very important especially in a context of social development of Poland and Russia and overcoming the consequences of crises. 

The leading aim of this paper is to portray the constitutional institution of compensation liability for unlawful acts of public authorities in Polish law related to the development of general principle concerning democratic rule of law. Compensation for damages brought upon the citizens by civil servants constitutes a basic pillar of contemporary democratic state, because it guarantees acting by public authorities in compliances with law and deepen trustfulness. It is also said that the state of the above–mentioned institution indicates the development of democracy. 

Trade unions in Poland have not built the stable and long–term relations with political parties as are observed in Western democracies. By analysing the historical and symbolic background of the transformation to a democratic civil society and free market economy, political preferences of working class, trade union membership rates, and public opinion polls, we argue that, in case of Poland, the initial links between political parties and trade unions weakened over time. Polish trade unions never had a chance to become a long–term intermediary between society and political parties, making the Polish case study a double exception from the traditional models. 

The discussion about justification for the very existence of Senate, as it was the case in previous years, also took place prior to the 2015 parliamentary elections. Postulates for the second chamber of parliament to be abolished are the inseparable element of election campaigns in Poland. Announcements of total abolishment or change of: form, competencies or number and the election principles for members of Senate, although they found their expression in the 2015 election programs of some of the political parties, but they were never applied after elections. The single member Senate constituencies secured seats almost exclusively for candidates supported by one of the two strongest political parties, that is the Law and Justice (PiS) and the Civic Platform (PO). Even if in the result of 25 October 2015 elections four independent candidates were elected for senators, three of them used support of political parties, using a rule well proven four years earlier: there is not senator without a political party protector. The 40% support for PiS which turned into 61% of seats indicates that the election system for Senate leads to overrepresentation of election winners. 

The right for electing the representatives of authority bodies is one of the fundamentals of democracy. This right entitles citizens for active public participation through expressing their support (votes) for candidates, which will respectively represent their voters in certain institutions. Polish electoral law, which regulates the local self–government elections is very controversial. The existing legal rules were changed many times since 2011. Among the subjects being discussed one can mention electoral campaigns, candidate registration rules and organization of elections. Frequent changes in the electoral law result in misunderstandings and unwillingness to participate in elections. Their effect is low voter turnout and a large number of invalid votes. To sum up considerations over a political model of large cities, it is worth to indicate that during the last 25 years of operation of Polish local government none of political models of big cities was adopted. 

Over the last few years the idea of civil society in Poland have grown substantially. This increase allowed local communities to influence the legal and administrative changes leading to a gradual shift in the decision–making processes of local governments. The article presents system of public participation in spatial planning, Revitalisation Statute and Participatory Budget to show how legal changes increase possibilities of local community participating in Poland. 

Peace is non–violence and there is only one way to achieve it: peace as structural and interpersonal non–violence. The daily non–violence is as instructive as the spectacular actions of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Peace education is better based on demonstration what we “can” than to postulate of what we should do. The Peace Studies prefer a resource–oriented approach to education instead of a deficit–oriented. Our central thesis is that the youth is living in a kind of transculturality, the best conditions for peacebuilding. Considering the increasing sensitivity we expected that latest in 2075 we will make the war a taboo. The central key to solve conflicts nonviolently is conflict transformation in trusting a spiritual third power in between the opponents, even secularized people. The peace education has to help us to discover the third in nonviolent activities. There is a lot of difficult issues that the non–violence has to reflect in future, including elimination of the extreme violence, reconciliation, an impact of economy, the peacebuilding’s relevance of structural measures.