This work is an attempt to determine the axiological basis for the constitutional system of the Republic of Poland. Summing up the findings concerning the fundamental values of the state political system underlying the solutions of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland of 2 April 1997, we can conclude that it should have the following attributes: to be the common good of all the citizens, a democratic state implementing the idea of the sovereignty of the Nation and civic society, a state that is ruled by law, independent and sovereign, secular, diligent and efficient, implementing the concept of separation of powers. The constitutional values referring to the status of “human and citizen” are: the dignity and freedom of the person, equality and solidarity of all persons, an individual’s personal, social and legal security and the protection of their freedoms and rights. In accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, the axiological foundation of the socio-economic system is social market economy based on three pillars: 1) freedom of economic activity, 2) private ownership, 3) solidarity, dialogue and cooperation of social partners. The list of these values should be complemented with the social values which determined the adoption of the concept of social market economy, social justice and social security of citizens.

The problem of the lack of “generational replacement” in Poland is particularly evident on the local self-government level. For years, there has been an ongoing public debate on the adoption of legal solutions introducing term-limits for the office of commune head, mayor and president of the city. Politicians of Law and Justice returned to their idea from 2005 and, shortly before the local elections of 2018, decided to prepare new regulations in this respect. They argued that the adopted solutions create real prospects for implementing projects by young politicians and activists. However, the issue was hotly debated and the initiators’ motives were put into question. There is no doubt that a two-term limit in local selfgovernment units has always stirred up emotions. A lot of self-government officials perceive it as a regulation which violates the provisions of the Constitution of the RP. The aim of this paper is to present the public debate on the adopted solutions and discuss their assumptions.

W prezentowanym artykule omówiona została ewolucja ideowo-polityczna Stowarzyszenia PAX w pierwszych miesiącach tzw. „festiwalu Solidarności” (sierpień–grudzień 1980). Przedstawiono podstawowe założenia ideologii i programu ruchu katolików postępowych w okresie, gdy kierował nim nieprzerwanie do zakończenia II wojny światowej Bolesław Piasecki, i ich rewizję po jego śmierci. Skoncentrowano się zwłaszcza na lansowanych przez stowarzyszenie koncepcjach „socjalizmu całego narodu”, samorządności, demokratyzacji, poszerzenia „bazy rządzenia”, wypracowania płaszczyzn do porozumienia narodowego (od Ruchu Porozumienia Narodowego do Wielkiej Koalicji). Analizie poddano również relacje pomiędzy PAX a niezależnymi związkami zawodowymi (NSZZ „Solidarność) oraz aparatem partyjno-rządowym. W programie PAX „Solidarność” nie była typowym związkiem zawodowym, ale społecznym (ogólnonarodowym) ruchem rewindykacji praw obywatelskich, dlatego przewidywano, że powinien on uczestniczyć jako podmiot w podejmowaniu decyzji państwowych, tworząc nową „oś pionową” struktur państwowych. W okresie „festiwali Solidarności” z niezależnymi związkami zawodowymi związało się wielu członków PAX. Stowarzyszenie włączyło się czynnie w pomoc przy zakładaniu struktur związkowych.

The subject of this study is to present principles of the system determine political character of the state and the system ruling in it of power. The analysis is covered constitutional regulations referring to the following principal principles: principle of the sovereignty of Nation, principle of democratic legal state, principle of freedom and of laws of individual, principle of the division of authorities, principle of the political pluralism, principle of the supreme position of the Constitution, principle of the decentralization of the official authority, principle of the decentralization of the official authority. The work is based on the legal-dogmatic method.

The essay describes the concept and evolution of a countersignature and prerogatives of the President of the Republic of Poland. The countersignature is a special signature (a consent) of a member of the Council of Ministers which is necessary to validate the President’s legal (official) act. Prerogatives are enumerated in a constitutional act as presidential competences, which do not require a signature of a member of the Government (a countersignature). The author claims that the institution of independent presidential competences was invented by Polish lawyers and used for the first time ever in the Polish Constitution of 1935. Further, the author describes the evolution of the institution of a countersignature and prerogatives in the Polish political system. It is said that nowadays the number of independent competences does not have such significant importance as it is claimed in constitutional law and in reality prerogatives do not strengthen the political position of the President significantly. His/her power depends on whole relations between the authorities described in constitutional provisions.

Uznaje się, że polityka jest częścią życia społecznego, dlatego jest również częścią kultury. W drugiej połowie XX w. kultura polityczna stała się obiektem analiz politologów w świecie oraz w Polsce. W związku z tym zaczęto postrzegać kulturę polityczną, jako komponent kultury w dosłownym znaczeniu przez pryzmat ogółu materialnych i niematerialnych wytworów życia społecznego. Stało się to asumptem do rozszerzenia się definicji kultury politycznej o takie składniki, jak instytucje polityczne oraz system socjalizacji oraz edukacji politycznej. Celem tego było wzmocnienie demokratycznego systemu politycznego poprzez przesunięcie z elementów indywidualnych na ogólnospołeczne.

Views of the National Party (1928-1939) merit special attention, given both the Party’s prominent role in the political life of interwar Poland and the interesting combination of various elements derived from diverse ideological trends within the Party’s programme. The ideological legacy of the National Party reflected, to a large extent, the key constituents of the National Democracy’s political thought, such as nationalism, representation of all social classes, national integrity and the concept of the nation-state. The National Party underwent major evolution and was subject to internal divisions which makes the image of its political thought much more complex. Based on an analysis of the National Party’s political thought, several conclusions can be formulated. The National Party developed its own views regarding political systems. These were, to a large extent, determined by their own system of values based on the national idea. The National Party’s political system projections were mainly inspired by (1) the successes of the “new type” states; (2) pressure from totalitarian systems; and (3) the influence of the economic and spiritual crisis. The National Party leaders wanted to make the political system more efficient. Nonetheless, views in favor of directly imitating any foreign political systems could hardly be found in the Party’s political thought. The National Party’s ideologists and journalists invariably stated that there was no pre-defined political system, but its form had to be adjusted to the specificity and unique character of a given national body. Although inspiration was drawn from external political systems, the Party’s political thought did not lose its independence.

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.

Russian system of local government

Local democracy and local government are popular terms and they are playing as the most important dimensions in the viability of any modern democracy. Alexis Tocqueville, who wrote a major book about democracy, considered local government as the mainstay of local democracy. He also saw local democracy as a school of political education and a safety valve of democracy for the entire nation. Most of the European countries have attempted to incorporate these concepts into their political and development process. In article author analyses the role of local government in Russian political system. Objective of the article is to identify and characterize the main stages of development of local self-government in Russia.

The model transformations of Polish public administration after 1989 were the result of the necessary and inevitable consequence of events related to erosion and the collapse of the „real socialism” system. Its internal decomposition, as a result of social reality inadequacy, created a situation in which it was possible to undertake deep systemic reforms in Poland. Democratization of the government system in Poland was an extremely complex process generating numerous problems and showing the scale of adversity in all spheres of social life. All political and structural changes in Poland after 1989 were also possible due to propitious external, international conditions. Especially the collapse of the USSR brought certain possibilities for Poland and other countries in Central and Eastern Europe to regain full sovereignty, which was later expressed in membership in NATO, the Council of Europe, and then European Union accession. As a result of the systemic and political transformation process, the administration has become an extremely important cell in the democratic legal order and the entity responsible for the implementation of a significant part of public tasks at the local, supra-local and regional levels.

Artykuł dotyczy procesu tworzenia systemu partyjnego w Wielkiej Brytanii. Występowanie odmiennego funkcjonowania partii politycznej Wielkiej Brytanii ma związek z prawem stanowionym. Artykuł dotyczy: procesu instytucjonalizacji partii politycznych, funkcji partii politycznych w Wielkiej Brytanii na podstawie ustaw: ustawy o rejestracji partii politycznej 1998 (Registration of Political Parties Act 1998), ustawy o partiach politycznych, wyborach i referendach 2000 (Political Parties, Elections and Referedum Act 2000), ustawy o partiach politycznych i wyborach z 2009 (Political Parties and Elections Act 2009) i ustawy o systemie wyborczym w wyborach parlamentarnych oraz o okręgach wyborczych (Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011). Zwrócono uwagę na system normatywny instytucji rządu większościowego w koncepcji partii politycznych i reform konstytucyjnych rządu. Przedmiotem zainteresowania stał się system dwupartyjny Wielkiej Brytanii i rola organów państwowych. W artykule dostrzeżono różne prawne, jak i praktyczne skutki reform konstytucyjnych w systemie parlamentarno-gabinetowym.

In the presented article, I try to answer the question whether in the Roman state there is a possibility to find the roots of the constitution. In Roman state the constitution as a separate normative act did not exist, the separate jurisdiction of public law was not created, and a constitutional law was primarily based on the custom and political practice. However, in the preserved source material, among others, Cicero’s and Polybius’ statements can be found, which refer to the political issues. On the basis of their analyses, I try to prove that the ideas of constitutionalism and constitution, of course in a substantive sense, date back to the ancient Rome.

The article concerns the issues of state security both in legal terms and from the perspective of security science. In the first part, it presents a proposal for understanding the concept of state security based on the Polish Constitution. The article is also a contribution to the discussion on the correctness of terminology relating to the analyzed issue. The second part concerns the analysis of a new military phenomenon which is a hybrid war. The purpose of the considerations is to show its impact on state security.

Applying systems analysis in political science research is still one of the important dimensions of political science methodology. Reconstruction of the functional model of the social system seems to be an attractive proposition for policy researchers. Signed by the name of Jeffrey Charles Alexander, the American version of neofunctionalism is one of the responses to the crisis of traditional forms of structural functionalism. The main purpose of the reconstruction of T. Parsons’s theory was its revitalization consisting in restoring the possibility of its application in contemporary social research. The reinterpretation of the classical approach was to a large extent “forced” by harsh criticism of the current approach and focused especially on attempts to overcome the limitations contained therein, which manifested in the impossibility of correlation of functional theorems with newly developing research currents Jeffrey Alexander restored relevance and emphasizes suitability for interpreting and explaining political processes and phenomena. Understanding the concept of functions and functional relations in the political environment allows for effective application in the analysis of contemporary political systems. Therefore, changing the method of functional analysis is a useful methodological tool in developing a political theory.

Celem artykułu było przedstawienie zagadnienia związanego z ograniczeniem liczby kadencji włodarzy w Polsce. Analizie poddano dane empiryczne, pochodzące z badań ankietowych, w których zapytano respondentów o to, czy opowiadali się za ograniczeniem możliwości sprawowania funkcji wójta, burmistrza oraz prezydenta miasta do dwóch kadencji. Zmiennymi, które wzięto pod uwagę, były: udział ankietowanych w wyborach samorządowych w 2018 roku, deklarowany udział w wyborach parlamentarnych, deklarowane poglądy, deklarowana religijność oraz wiek respondentów. Badania ankietowe zostały przeprowadzone w okresie od grudnia 2018 r. do lutego 2019 r. w ramach ogólnopolskiego projektu badawczego pt. „Preferencje polityczne. Postawy – identyfikacje – zachowania” realizowanego od 2009 r.

W niniejszym artykule przedstawiono główne cechy tureckiego modelu systemu prezydenckiego, a także historyczne uwarunkowania pozycji prezydenta w strukturze organów państwa w Turcji. Praca składa się z trzech części. W pierwszej z nich omówione zostały podstawy parlamentaryzmu, co jest kluczową kwestią dla ukazania kształtu tureckiego systemu przed reformą. Kolejnym zagadnieniem omawianym w tej części artykułu jest proces ewolucji prezydentury od pierwszych lat powstania Republiki do zmian wprowadzonych po wyborach prezydenckich i parlamentarnych w 2018 r. W drugiej części pracy wskazano uwarunkowania zmiany systemowej. Wreszcie w ostatniej dokonano analizy nowego systemu, określanego jako prezydencjalizm „w stylu tureckim”, i ukazano jego charakterystyczne cechy.

Since the first quarter of 2020, the whole world has been struggling with the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. More and more governments are introducing restrictions and bans for security reasons, with the aim of limiting the transmission of the virus and reducing health risks for citizens. The scale of the problem is best illustrated by the rising numbers of infections and deaths. In addition to the epidemic threat worldwide, the pandemic has brought to light many other problems and challenges. One of them is growing crisis of democracy around the world. Using a systemic approach, the article sets out to analyse the state and problems of contemporary Lithuanian democracy under pandemic conditions, focusing also on indicators of democracy and public opinion polls. It evaluates, inter alia, the state of Lithuanian democracy, the political system and its openness to citizens.

The current study assumes that the notion of sustainable development, typical for the discourse on environmental protection, can be also applied to political research and indicates that institutions play a very important role in the process of creating and maintaining the balance of the political system, the aim of which is to build sustainable relations between different participants in its space. The European Union, which seems to feature characteristics of a hybrid organization and displays strong tendency to increase complexity, is examined. The EU institutions have a very important and often difficult role to play in sustaining intergovernmental and supranational influence and therefore often find themselves in contradictory situations. The intersecting efforts to deepen integration and at the same time the need to protect sovereignty do not allow for straightforward achievement of sustainable development of the integration system. Therefore, a distinctive feature of this system is the maintaining of sustainability rather than the actual achievement of sustainable development.

Political stability is a key category in general political theory and in the analysis of political systems. The correct determination of the semantic scope of this concept and its proper operationalization seem to be of fundamental importance for both theoretical and empirical scientific considerations. The text draws attention to two basic variants of stability (invariability and flexibility) and two basic aspects of the concept of stability (phenomenon and potential). The conceptual ordering of the issue of political stability, supported by a literature review on the subject, aims to provide a basis for formulating the most adequate approach to the study of political systems stability. The main purpose of the text is therefore to operationalize the concept of stability and, moreover, to indicate the possible research consequences of adopting the proposed perspective.

This article aims to analyze disputes and discussions on the powers of the President of the Republic, which have been happening since the establishment of the Czech Republic in 1993. These occurred when the President tried to interpret the provisions of the Constitution, took actions beyond their framework, or considered that his powers did not impose an obligation to act automatically. The disputes over the President’s powers were, therefore, not the result of theoretical discussions on the constitutional order of the Czech Republic, but were the result of the President’s involvement in the political life of the country, and above all, the decisions that did not correspond to the opinions and actions of the government. Disputes did not have an impact on a permanent change in the constitutional order. For example, there was no reason for an amendment to the Constitution that would extend, restrict, or clarify those powers.