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Aims and Scope

The Polish Political Science Yearbook (PPSY) is an international, open access, and peer-reviewed journal publishing high-standard research on political science, international relations, and public policy. The PPSY serves as a forum for academic scholars and professionals to support the latest analytical and methodological advancements and promote current work in political science and Polish studies.

For full aims and scope please visit section "About the journal"

In 2011, the long-awaited fourth issue of the book System wyborczy w Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej was published by the Lex publishing house. The issue includes the codification of election law, which was enacted in 2011.The authors of the presented issue are two outstanding Polish constitutionalists.

Korupcja polityczna jest zjawiskiem mogącym wpływać na proces rozliczalności wertykalnej. Jej oddziaływanie jest związane z wpływem na 3 komponenty: informacyjny, ewaluacyjny i administracyjny. Rządzący na poziomie lokalnym mogą osłabiać efekty rozliczalności wertykalnej, wpływając na jej przebieg. W przypadku wystąpienia korupcji politycznej najskuteczniejszym sposobem przeciwdziałania efektywności rozliczalności wertykalnej jest instrumentalne kreowanie komponentu informacyjnego. Odbywa się ono poprzez asymetrię informacyjną i zarządzanie niepewnością komunikacyjną. W przypadku komponentu ewaluacyjnego mechanizm osłabiania rozliczalności zakłada odejście od modelu głosowania ekonomicznego na rzeczy aksjologicznego lub socjotropicznego. Relatywnie najsłabsze możliwości osłabiania procesu rozliczalności wertykalnej występują w przypadku komponentu administracyjnego i odwołują się do intencjonalnych zmian elementów systemu wyborczego.

Pathologies and abuses accompany elections and are connected with the electoral system both in its narrow and broad sense. Moreover, they stem from a human nature and a degree of democratic principles consolidation. Cohabitation is conditioned by the electoral system and, in the case of the proportional allocation of seats, it arises more often than in the majority system with single member constituencies. The phenomenon itself is not always pathological. However, such an adverse situation develops when it comes to clashes, neither substantive nor creative, between the municipal bodies and, in consequence, the interests of the local community are jeopardised. Elections at the municipal level are also accompanied by other pathologies and abuses including: coercing votes when voting by proxy, adding voters to an electoral roll, bringing residents to a polling place, paying for one’s votes, preying on the naïvety of voters which can take grotesque forms or brutalising an election campaign caused by the mediatisation of local policy. The above-mentioned phenomena were examined and presented in the paper based on the analysis of statistical data, articles from the local press and, most essentially for the discussed subject, a rich material collected thanks to the in-depth interviews conducted by the authors.

The article concerns the analysis of procedures connected with election petitions in Poland on the basis of the constituencies under the jurisdiction of the District Court in Toruń. It should be mentioned, however, that research is currently being conducted in other courts, which even at the preliminary stage appears to corroborate the results of the analysis presented in the article. The research focuses on the guarantees of the efficiency of the electoral petition in Poland. The election petition is the most important instrument which is available to verify the validity of elections. The Constitution does not regulate this matter, entrusting the legislator with this task. The possibility of submitting an election petition implements the principle of the external judicial review of the progress of an election or referendum, which can be initiated upon the request of a legal entity entitled to submit the petition. Considering the role of the petition proceedings as well as the values which remain protected within the procedure of settlement, the legislator should demonstrate the utmost care to increase their efficiency. However, the regulations concerning election petitions are scattered around the whole Electoral Code. Furthermore, for an election petition to be justified, there must be a cause-effect link between the law violation and the results of an election, with the burden of proof placed on the petitioner. The overall result is that in judicial practice only in few cases have grievances in election petitions been considered justified.

Badanie determinant frekwencji wyborczej stanowi ważny obszar zainteresowań teorii wyboru publicznego. Celem artykułu jest ocena wpływu ordynacji wyborczej i polaryzacji sceny politycznej na frekwencję wyborczą. Przedstawione badanie empiryczne obejmuje wybory do parlamentów krajowych w 51 państwach w latach 1961 – 2014. W oparciu o dane pochodzące z projektu EMP zmierzona została polaryzacja sceny politycznej. Modele regresji dla wszystkich państw oraz dla Europy Zachodniej wykazały, że system wyborczy ma wpływ na poziom frekwencji wyborczej. W obu przypadkach systemy większościowe charakteryzują się niższą frekwencją niż systemy proporcjonalne. Mocny test zawierający efekty stałe dla krajów nie wykazał wpływu polaryzacji sceny politycznej na wielkość frekwencji. Brak związku przyczynowego pomiędzy polaryzacją a frekwencją może wynikać z istnienia wielu mechanizmów współzależności tych zmiennych, które zostały opisane w teoretycznej części artykułu.

The aim of this article is to assess the susceptibility of chosen components of Polish political system on centralized personalization of the election to the Sejm. The method applied in this process is the qualitative-quantitative content analysis. The construction of the tool that could objectively measure this influence in any democratic country poses an extremely difficult task. For this reason, the author proposed his own catalog of variables, based on the criterion of the relevance of their impact on the process of personalization. This list includes the following determinants: the position of Prime Minister, the electoral system, competencies and the manner of creating the position of the President, the financing of political parties and the role of the mass media. Out of the above-mentioned variables, especially the Prime Minister’s competences and the election system are the key factors that influence the level of centralized personalization, due to which they were graded higher in the assessment of susceptibility.

(Dis)proportionality of the Polish Local Elections

Studies on disproportionality of proportional electoral systems proves prove that district magnitude is a key variable determining deviations from proportionality in election results. This paper will shows how district magnitude affects electoral disproportionality by employing empirical data from Polish local elections in 2018. The analysis will prove that Polish “proportional” electoral system to local councils leads to highly disproportional results.

Changing the electoral systems as a research problem

The aim of the article is to review the main research issues related to the analysis of changes in electoral systems. Since the nineties of the twentieth century, the issue has become a popular research. Based on the literature review, attention was drawn to research on entities involved in changes to electoral systems, the motivations underlying these decisions, awareness of the political consequences of participants into the effects of changes in electoral systems, factors shaping electoral reform processes.

Evolution of selected elements of the political system of the first and second republic of Lithuania

The roots of the Lithuanian political system precede the emergence of the modern Lithuanian state in 1918 by several decades. For over a hundred years before independence, Lithuania was an integrated part of the imperial tsarist Russia, and in 1940–1991, a union republic of the USSR. After regaining independence in 1991, while shaping the new political system, the Lithuanian political elite decided to refer to the systemic and institutional patterns from the short period of the functioning of democratic governments in the First Republic of Lithuania. The aim of the study is to analyze the evolution of the Lithuanian political system and the individual elements influencing its changes in the years 1920–1926 and 1990–2020. As a result, it was possible to demonstrate the similarities and differences in particular periods of the evolution of democracy, which was extremely helpful in indicating the directions of development of political systems and their individual elements.

Current Limitations and Possible Ways to Increase the Level of Representativeness of Elections to the Sejm of the Republic of Poland

The problem of distortion of the representativeness of elections to the Sejm of the Republic of Poland is widely noticed. Now, the vote of the inhabitants of one constituency may weigh less that in another. The aim of this paper is to present de lege ferenda postulates to increase the level of representativeness of Sejm elections. The authors carry out a legal analysis and a classical systemic analysis, pointing out the deficiencies of the current electoral system and proposing solutions. There are research questions: (1) Does the current electoral system ensure that elections to the Sejm are truly representative? (2) Is it possible to ensure that elections to the Sejm are truly representative? The conclusions of the analysis show that the problem under study appears to be increasingly serious for the democracy and civil society, but there are legal solutions that can increase the level of representativeness of Sejm elections.

Why can’t it be done differently? Limited voter representation in provincial assemblies (sejmiki) in the period of 2014–2024

The problem of distorting the representativeness of elections to provincial assemblies in Poland is widely noted. The local government elections in 2024 confirm the indicated state of affairs. In many situations, the natural electoral threshold significantly exceeds the statutory threshold, and large groups of citizens do not have their representation in the sejmiks, while the largest groupings are overrepresented. The authors of this article set out to compare the number of voters without representation in provincial assemblies after the introduction of the Electoral Code, i.e. in the 2014, 2018 and 2024 local elections, despite having voted for groupings that exceeded the statutory electoral threshold. The authors, using institutional-legal analysis and classical systemic analysis, also propose a simple way to solve the pointed out significant problem for the representativeness of the elections, which is the abandonment of the division of provinces into smaller electoral districts.