Various aspects of the term Catholic Church can be considered: theological, sociological, legal or politological. For the purpose of this article the defi nition of the Church as formulated by political science will be essential, although in this discipline various connotations exist. The Church is referred to as a denomination, religious community, an interest group or a political entity. Among authors writing about the Church as a denomination are Wolfgang Ernst Böckenförde and Heindrun Abromeit. Both of them focus on the spiritual-religious aspect of Church activities, at the same time emphasizing that political activity is not the principal aim of the Church. Broader theories of Church activities as an interest group are presented by Carolyn M. Warner and Dietrich Hierlemann. Classifying the Catholic Church as an interest group C.M. Warner claims that this institution makes eff orts to get preferential treatment by political authorities, and its goal is to gain certain resources from the economic and political systems. The Church attempts to lobby democratic governments through political parties and other means, as it intends to have an infl uence on the educational system, impose its moral values on society through legislation, or retain certain tax reliefs. The Church tries to provide its members with certain collective goods (such as answers to moral and philosophical dilemmas), affiliation-based (e.g. cult site), or individual incentives (e.g. sacraments). The Catholic Church, therefore, in addition to an organized religion, can be referred to as an untypical interest group D. Hierlemann similarly states that the Church acts as a representative of interests and a lobbyist that attempts to make infl uential contacts, establish good relations with decision makers and play for resources. The Church acting in the secular sphere is subject to the same priciples as other associations (Verbände). This entity tries to promote its interests in the political process. In reference to theories describing the functioning of associations in the lay-political area we can examine the activities of the Church within the political system. From this perspective D. Hierlemann analyzes various forms of lobbying done by the Catholic Church in Poland.

A study of the Euro-barometer performed at the end of January and beginning of February 2009 showed that not even 34% of the surveyed in all the 27 countries of the European Union declares the desire to cast their vote in the approaching election to the Euro-community. 15% of the respondents answered that they would de! nitely not vote in the coming election. The participation in the European Parliament Elections has fallen from election to election. This tendency persists and no signs of improvement of the situation can be seen. In 1994, 56.8% of the entitled to vote participated in the elections in all the member countries. Ten years later, only 45.6% of voters cast their votes. New member countries with low level of interest in European matters have considerably contributed to the fall in the level of legitimisation of the European Parliament.

Analyzes of individual election campaigns in which the Solidarna Polska party took part showed the dominant position of Law and Justice on the right side of the political scene. Jarosław Kaczyński’s party, receiving 37.58% of votes in the parliamentary elections in 2015, as the first after 1989, independently took over the governments. Zbigniew Ziobro’s party undertook program activities and initiatives that would distinguish it from the PiS and contribute to the fact that it would become an alternative to right-wing voters. Unfortunately, she did it without much success. Solidarna Polska managed to win a small electorate, and support not exceeding 5% did not make it a strong party dominating the right and threatening Law and Justice.

  Parliamentary elections in Italy, which took place on 24 – 25 February 2013 in a very specific political circumstances caused by economical crisis and the internal situation of the Italian State.The fall of the Silvio Berlusconi’s government and replacement it with a technical government did not improve the internal situation of the country, and indeed it has deepened. The withdrawal of support by the Popolo della Libertàto the government of Prime Minister Mario Monti has caused the need for early parliamentary elections.
  On the political scene appeared new political parties, including Movimento Cinque Stelle (Five Stars Movement), which stood out from the traditionally corrupt politics and proposed a new form of campaign, using such means as the Internet, blogs, and tour around the country. The new group has also set up outgoing Prime Minister Mario Monti called Scelta Civica (Civic Choice) aided by the smaller parties which were in the Parliament and supported of the European Union austerity policies. In addition, in the election participated the Democratic Party, the Northern League and the Popolo della Libertà (People of Freedom). In total, their participation in the elections reported 215 political parties.
  Elections minimally won leftist Democratic Party with a score of 29.54% (Chamber of Deputies). Surprisingly Popolo dellaLibertà of Silvio Berlusconi received 29.13% (Chamber of Deputies). But the biggest winner was the Five Star Movement, which won 25.55% of the seats, while the biggest loser was the group of Mario Monti, because he received only 10.54% of votes. The result above shows that the creation of the coalition will be very difficult. Political class will have to regain the trust of the society to be able to make the necessary reforms to cure the economical situation of Italy and they should focus on the problems of the country and not the Silvio Berlusconi’s excesses.

W artykule na podstawie literatury scharakteryzowano aktywność wyborczą najmłodszego elektoratu (18–24 lata) w wyborach parlamentarnych w 2015 roku. Podkreślono znaczenie poparcia młodzieży dla wyników wyborów. Następnie przedstawiono wyniki własnych badań przeprowadzonych na losowo dobranej grupie studentów uniwersytetów w Lublinie i w Olsztynie. Uwagę zwrócono na absencję wyborczą studentów, jej przyczyny oraz na odpowiedź, kogo poparliby w wyborach (i dlaczego), gdyby wzięli w nich udział. Ponieważ niegłosujący (non voters) studenci głównie wskazali komitet wyborczy Kukiz’15 i komitet wyborczy KORWiN, należy uznać, że te dwa ugrupowania najwięcej straciły na braku frekwencji młodych, studenckich wyborców.

Celem artykułu jest wskazanie rozwiązań dotyczących zapewnienia bezpieczeństwa społeczności lokalnych zawartych w dokumentach programowych następujących partii politycznych: Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, Platforma Obywatelska RP , Nowoczesna Ryszarda Petru, Zjednoczona Lewica, Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe, Partia Razem, Koalicja Odnowy Rzeczypospolitej Wolność i Nadzieja, a także ruchu społecznego, a obecnie stowarzyszenia Kukiz 15. Autor wyróżnił najważniejsze składowe bezpieczeństwa społeczności lokalnych; należą do niego: bezpieczeństwo przestrzeni (infrastruktura drogowa, miejsca wypoczynku, architektura, oświetlenie); bezpieczeństwo publiczne jest rozumiane jako gwarancja niezakłóconego funkcjonowania zarówno obywateli, jak i instytucji; bezpieczeństwo ekologiczne; dostęp do usług, świadczeń, instytucji; bezpieczeństwo ekonomiczne społeczności lokalnej.
W tekście autor postara się odpowiedzieć na pytanie, czy w programie partii politycznych bezpieczeństwo społeczności lokalnych było wyartykułowane i stanowiło wyróżniony fragment programu. Jak dużo związana z nim problematyka zajmowała miejsca. Na jakich elementach bezpieczeństwa skupiały się środowiska polityczne podczas wyborów parlamentarnych w 2015 roku.

Iraq 2018 – a strategic choice. The background, implications and importance of Iraq’s parliamentary elections of 2018

The parliamentary elections of May 2018 may become a landmark for Iraq on both internal and geopolitical levels. This paper analyses internal and international preconditions of Iraqi parliamentary elections in the context of possible implications of the election results for the international position of Iraq and internal stability of the state. The international context is shaped by security situation in the region, the increased engagement of Saudi Arabia, American efforts to isolate Teheran and the internal situation in Iran as well as the growing rivalry between centers of Shia Islam in Najaf and Qom and the different models of socio- political organization they propose. In the internal dimension, the election results – while surprising for the establishment and the majority of observers – are the outcome of many variables: the systemic crisis related to the Kurdish independence referendum, the disputable position and the future role of the Popular Mobilization Units in the political system and security apparatus. The increasing social pressure may require the reform of the Iraqi political system. The results of 2018 elections – as well as the dynamics and nature of popular protests unfolding since 2015 – show that the majority of Iraqis that are engaged in this new social movement demonstrate an anti-interventionist attitude and support the integrity of the state. The widespread protests indicate that the status quo based on the sectarian quota sharing system adopted in 2005 is being questioned, as well as the common notion that religion and ethnicity are the main political motivations in the Middle East. This article aims to demonstrate that due to the co-occurrence of specific processes and phenomena in the international environment and in Iraq itself (in area of civic-awareness that has resulted in creation of a social movement), a process of political emancipation has begun that may lead to reestablishment of Iraq as a sovereign entity in international politics.

The paper deals with specific links between presidential and parliamentary elections in contemporary France. The main goal is to demonstrate that the timing of the two types of political events is a significant factor preserving the configuration of a pro-presidential majority fact as one of the possible variants of French semi-presidentialism. This raises the question of the role of both elections as instruments for controlling the process of setting up a space of political rivalry that could be perceived as optimal from the viewpoint of ruling camps. The author analyses possibilities to provide the convergence of presidential and parliamentary elections under the conditions of a seven-year presidential term as well as after its shortening to five years in 2000. Hence, of particular importance is the impact of some mechanisms used in this field on the institutional logic of the French political system. Specific application of constitutional tools and some normative changes introduced in previous years cause the extent of the aforementioned control to be now much greater than in the first decades of the Fifth Republic. Looking at the convergence of both types of elections from the perspective of the evolution of the existing political system, the author argues that it is legitimate to divide the whole period of the Fifth Republic into three sub-periods: 1. the absence of electoral convergence (1958–1981); 2. partial electoral convergence (1981– –2002); full electoral convergence (since 2002). Due to the acceptance of the pro-presidential paradigm, the latter formula is now definitely preferred and supported by legal regulations, which affects the flexibility of French semi-presidentialism (significantly reduced, but not fully eliminated, probability of cohabitation).

Artykuł jest próbą odpowiedzi na pytanie o podobieństwo wyników wyborów do sejmików województw i następujących po nich wyborów do Sejmu RP. Trzy nakładające się na siebie cykle wyborcze w latach 2006–2015 pozwalają na bardziej systematyczną ocenę zjawiska nacjonalizacji regionalnych systemów politycznych. Po przedyskutowaniu różnych czynników, kształtujących odmienność wyników wyborów różnych szczebli, autorzy dokonują przeglądu literatury na temat nacjonalizacji systemów partyjnych. Omawiają również konstrukcję wskaźnika niepodobieństwa, używanego do badania nacjonalizacji – i jego dekompozycję pozwalającą na dokładniejsze wskazanie przyczyn odmienności wyników wyborów różnych szczebli. Badanie pokazuje, że w ciągu ostatniej dekady wzorce głosowania w wyborach regionalnych stawały się coraz bardziej odmienne od wzorców głosowania w wyborach do Sejmu. Najważniejszym czynnikiem wpływającym na zróżnicowanie wyników wyborów pozostają różnice w poparciu najbardziej stabilnych partii politycznych występujących na obu arenach rywalizacji.

The article analyzes the election programmes of the two largest political parties in Poland, namely, Law and Justice and the Civic Platform (Civic Coalition) from the 2019 parliamentary elections, referring to the proposals of these parties to change the functioning of the state, in particular the scope of legislative, executive and judicial power. The conclusion summarizes the presented programme proposals, considering whether their implementation would be possible under the current political conditions.

Przedmiotem niniejszego artykułu są wybory parlamentarne w Republice Litewskiej. Podjęto się analizy przebiegu i uwarunkowań instytucjonalnych wyborów, które odbyły się na Litwie w październiku 2020 roku w czasie trwającej pandemii Covid-19. W artykule przeanalizowano takie elementy, jak: wyniki wyborów na Litwie w 2020 r., nowe regulacje wyborcze, a także zaimplementowane nowe techniki głosowania w czasie pandemii. Oprócz tego poruszono także zagadnienia przebiegu kampanii wyborczej, która prowadzona była w warunkach obostrzeń i ograniczeń, które miały zwiększyć bezpieczeństwo wyborców oraz zmniejszyć transmisję koronawirusa SARS-CoV-2.

The COVID-19 pandemic was a determinant of the operation of state institutions whose activity was focused on ensuring state’s capacity to exercise its functions and at the same time on efforts to contain the spread of SARS-CoV-2. These challenges were the same for all European (and non-European) countries, albeit the methods of limiting the transmission of the virus and of minimising its negative consequences varied depending on the strategy adopted. The paper focuses on an analysis of its impact on how parliamentary elections in Serbia are organized and held. The author intentionally omits circumstances that accompany regional (to the parliament of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina) and local elections held in parallel.

The problem of media visibility of politicians and political parties is at the heart of the interest of political communication researchers. Theoretical reflections and empirical studies focus on numerous media presence determinants. At the same time, attempts to identify the media visibility of political actors in specific periods, such as the particularly important for democracy period of the election campaign preceding the parliamentary election, are relatively rare. This study is intended to fill that gap. It proposes a simple research tool in the form of a media visibility index, which makes it possible to calculate and compare the visibility of electoral committees in selected media during the election campaign. The tool was used to determine the visibility of electoral committees taking part in the 2019 parliamentary elections in Poland in two TV news services “Wiadomości” and “Fakty”, and three weekly opinion magazines “Newsweek”, “Polityka” and “Sieci”. The data to calculate the index was gathered through manual content analysis of the studied media conducted six weeks before the day of the parliamentary elections.

Parliamentarism in the Context of Political Transit: The Czech Republic’s Experience

For the first time in the Ukrainian political science, considers the development of parliamentarism in the Czech Republic in a context of political transit in a comprehensive manner. It indicates the ambiguity and complexity of the process of parliamentary democracy’s functioning in the country. The main stages of the Czech parliamentary institutions’ establishment have been identified. The key tendencies and the peculiarities of the current Czech parliamentarism modernisation have been defined. The constitutional and legal status of the Parliament of the Czech Republic has been outlined and its place in the existing checks and balances system determined; the Czech Parliament party structuring characteristics have been determined and the most important factors of the coalition formation potential of parliamentary fractions have been revealed; based on the empirical indicators, the party system’s stability and efficiency in the Czech Republic have been investigated. The fundamental principles of the liberal parliamentarism concept (Ch.L.Montesquieu, John Locke, John Mill) have served as the theoretical and methodological basis for these article, which considers the power division to be the main principle of the state system, in which the executive power is accountable and subject to the legislative power. In order to achieve the tasks, the author used general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction) as well as special politilogical methods. The methods of induction and deduction have been used in formulating the concept of “political transit” and its constituent elements. The comparativehistorical method gave the defender of the thesis the opportunity to understand the main directions of parliamentary institutions’ development at different historical stages of the Czech statehood and identify the factors that influenced the change in their status. The system method allowed to assess the constitutional and legal status of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, primarily its place and role in the political system of society and the relationship with other bodies of state power. On the whole, we can assume that the experience of the parliamentarism functioning in the Czech Republic is of great practical significance for Ukraine and other post-communist states, since it gives a stimulus to the society and ruling elites of these countries to further improve and develop their political institutions.

Soft marketing. evolution of audiovisual political advertising in Polish parliamentary campaigns 2005–2019

The article discusses the problem of the evolution of audiovisual political advertising in Polish parliamentary campaigns in the years 2005–2019, taking a closer look at the presentation of programmatic issues, centralized personalization, and the rhetorical functions of spots. The content analysis of the election spots results in a fairly unchanged marketing standard of election offers, appropriate for all parties (regardless of their size), expressing an attempt to combine sensitivity to important voters’ needs with an extensive symbolic layer, emotionally engaging for image purposes. In most spots, the emphasis on psychological and social benefits at the expense of functional (economic) benefits prevails. The change in campaigns concerns only the increase in the importance of appeals attacking political opponents. However, their role remains secondary, regardless of the party’s position on the political market.