The paper investigates legal funding of the right to petition in Poland. It starts from a comparative background and it introduces the institution in a wider context, as a transparent and accessible for citizens legal solution, that has become an essential instrument of contemporary direct democracy and civic society. The author discusses regulations of the 2014 Acts on Petitions with reference to the Constitution of Poland and organisation of the Sejm and the Senate proceedings. Moreover, the study has placed the right to petition in a fieldwork of Polish system of human rights protection and Polish legal system in general. Finally, the paper presents results of opinion polls on direct democracy and civic engagement in Poland to discuss them with reference to previously presented construction of the right to petition as a legal institution. The author concludes with a relevant question on its further development in times of deep polarisation of Polish politics and during the Constitutional Crisis in the county. 

The Polish Political Science Yearbook, WSB University in Bydgoszcz and Center for Local Government Studies in Bydgoszcz invite all scholars, researchers and professionals to participate in the PPSY Bydgoszcz International Seminar "Local Government: Experiences, Challenges & Models" which takes place in Bydgoszcz (Poland) on May 8, 2018. The conference supports a special section of the current Volume 47 of 2018 of the journal and its objective is to discuss challenges of security and stability in Central Europe and to present current advancements in regional security studies.

Deadline for application: April 25, 2018, with the Online Form.

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The paper considers the relationship between remembrance narratives on national heroes and proliferation of political attitudes, values and behaviours during democratisation. It discusses the impact of interpretations of the past on the development of civil society in the context of public education as an instrument of identity politics. Comparing the experiences of Chile, Estonia, Georgia, Poland, South Africa and Spain, the authors present the role of national heroes in the legitimisation of behaviours and attitudes, new elites and national unity. The discussed results prove that the establishment of a pro-democratic system of civic education increases chances for successful consolidation of democracy in post-authoritarian countries.

From the point of view of social policy, the need of security is considered as the indispensable part of functioning and development of every society. Citizens’ participation avers that the inhabitants will have the possibility of taking part in making decisions about their own surrounding, which results in development of the sense of security. The actions taken in the social space initiate the existence of the selfaware civil society. This article’s main aim is to discuss the possibilities of assuring the social security through civil commitment and their active participation in the public life. The formal instruments that occur in the system of Polish law (i.e. a participation in the open debate, a participation in the elections, a legislative initiative) have been analyzed. Those instruments enable to the residents the participation and codecision making and, what follows, they contribute towards forming broadly defined security.