This article examines Poland's process of regionalization since the late 1990s. It identifies several factors that led Poland to introduce self-government at the regional level both earlier and to a greater extent than its neighbors in East Central Europe. The analysis then turns to the competences and financing of the Polish regions, or voivodeships. Although Poland has taken steps to decentralize, it remains a unitary state.
The importance of decentralization in the process of democratization in East Central Europe is examined by John Bachtler et al., Transition, Cohesion and Regional Policy in Central and Eastern Europe (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2000), Emil J. Kirchner, ed., Decentralization and Transition in the Visegrad: Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia ( New York: Macmillan, Basingstoke , and St. Martin's, 1999), Joachim Jens Hesse, ed., Administrative Transformation in Central and Eastern Europe: Towards Public Sector Reform in Post-Communist Societies (Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers, 1993), and Melanie Tatur, ed., The Making of Regions in Post-Socialist Europe: The Impact of Culture, Economic Structure and Institutions, vol. 1 (Wiesbaden: Verlag fuer Sozialwissenschaften, 2004).
2.
For an examination of the demands “from below,” that is, from regional and ethnic minorities, for decentralization as a vehicle for greater participation and identity formation, see JudyBatt and Kataryna Wolczuk, eds., Region, State and Identity in Central and Eastern Europe ( London: Frank Cass, 2002).
3.
See Wiktor Glowacki , “Regionalization in Poland,” in Gerard Marcou, ed., Regionalization for Development and Accession to the European Union: A Comparative Perspective (Budapest: Open Society Institute, Local Government, and Public Service Reform Initiative, 2002), 107.
4.
See Martin Brusis, “Between EU Requirements, Competitive Politics, and National Traditions: Re-Creating Regions in the Accession Countries of CEE,” Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions, 15:4 (Oct 2002): 531—59, and Michael Keating and James Hughes, eds., The Regional Challenge in Central and Eastern Europe: Territorial Restructuring and European Integration (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2003).
5.
Noted by Martin Ferry, “The EU and Recent Regional Reform in Poland,” Europe-Asia Studies, 55:7 (2003): 1097—116.
6.
For details on the reform act, see Zygmunt Niewiadomski, “ Die Wiedereinführung der kommunalen Selbstverwaltung in Polen durch das Gesetz über die territoriale Selbstverwaltung vom März 1990,” Archiv für Kommunalwissenschaften, 29:2 (1990): 306—19.
7.
Niewiadomski, “Die Wiedereinführung, ” 306—19.
8.
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) , Transition at the Local Level: The Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and the Slovak Republic (Paris, OECD, Centre for Co-operation with the Economics in Transition, 1996), 106.
9.
For an analysis of the process and outcomes of this 1990 reform, see James F. Hicks and Bartlomiej Kaminski , “Local Government Reform and Transition from Communism: The case of Poland,” Journal of Developing Societies, XI: 1 (1995): 1—20.
10.
Frances Millard , Polish Politics and Society ( London: Routledge, 1999), 53.
11.
Millard, Polish Politics, 54.
12.
Millard, Polish Politics, 54.
13.
Karl von Delhaes , Lokale und regionale Selbstverwaltung in Polen (Marburg an der Lahn: Herder-Institut , 1994), 271.
14.
Chancellery of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland, Government Plenipotentiary for the Systemic Reform of the State , Effectiveness, Openness, Subsidiarity: A New Poland for New Challenges (Warsaw, December 1998 ), 5.
15.
Chancellery of the Prime Minister, Effectiveness, Openness, Subsidiarity, 5.
16.
Chancellery of the Prime Minister, Effectiveness, Openness, Subsidiarity, 5. Jasiewicz also notes that the province given up in the compromise deal between the Buzek Government and the SLD was President Kwasniewski's native region, Middle Pomerania. With this, the SLD “scored also a point against its former leader.” See Krzysztof Jasiewicz, “Poland ,” in Political Data Yearbook 1999, special issue of the European Journal of Political Research, December 1999.
17.
All quotes are from the chancellery of the Prime Minister, Effectiveness, Openness, Subsidiarity, 9.
18.
Chancellery of the Prime Minister, Effectiveness, Openness, Subsidiarity, 7.
19.
For more on the Czech and Slovak regionalization processes, see Martin Brusis, “Regionalisation in the Czech and Slovak Republic: Comparing the Influence of the European Union,” in Michael Keating and James Hughes, eds., The Regional Challenge in Central and Eastern Europe: Territorial Restructuring and European Integration (Brussels: Peter Lang , 2003).
20.
As noted in James Hughes , Gwendolyn Sasse, and Claire Gordon in “EU Enlargement, Europeanization and the Dynamics of Regionalisation in the CEEC's,” in Keating and Hughes, eds., The Regional Challenge, 72. See also Gerard Marcou, “Regionalization for Development and Accession to the European Union: A Comparative Perspective,” in Marcou's edited volume, Regionalization for Development and Accession to the European Union: A Comparative Perspective (Budapest : Open Society Institute, Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiative, 2002), 23—5.
21.
Marcou, “Regionalization for Development and Accession,” 16.
22.
Marcou, “Regionalization for Development and Accession, 8.
23.
Eurostat, Portrait of the European Union. http://epp.eurostat.cec.eu.int/cache/ITY_PUBLIC/KS-60-04-523/EN/KS-60-04-523-EN.PDF (accessed 12 Apr 2005).
24.
All figures for 2002, cited in Joanna M. M. Kepka, “ The Nysa Euroregion: The First Ten Years,” Eurasian Geography and Economics, 45:3 (2004): 162—89.
25.
Kepka, “The Nyasa Eroregion.”
26.
Antoni Kuklinski and Pawel Swianiewicz , “The Polish Palatinus: Experiences and Prospects,” in L. E. Sharpe, ed., The Rise of Meso Government in Europe (London : Sage, 1993), 183.
27.
Kuklinski and Swianiewicz, “The Polish Palatinus,” 183.
28.
Norman Davies, God's Playground: A History of Poland, vol. 1 (New York: Columbia University Press , 1982), 75.
29.
Oecd, Transition at the Local Level, 102. Also, Swianiewicz points to four historic regions: Galicia, the southeastern part of Poland which belonged to Austria in the nineteenth century; Kongresowka, the central and eastern area which belonged to Russia in the nineteenth century; Wielkopolska, the middle-western part which belonged to Germany in the nineteenth century; and the recovered territories, the western and northern parts of Poland which belonged to Germany until 1945. See Pawel Swianiewicz, “ The Polish Experience of Local Democracy: Is Progress Being Made?” Policy and Politics, 20:2 (1992): 87—98.
30.
Kuklinski and Swianiewicz, “The Polish Palatinus,” 185.
31.
Kuklinski and Swianiewicz, “The Polish Palatinus,” 186.
32.
The powiat has been the most stable feature of Polish territorial division. It has existed for over 400 years, even during periods of foreign domination. For this reason, transport networks, social infrastructure, and even emotional attachment to geographic space in Poland are organized along the powiaty.
33.
“Der historische Hintergrund,” Dokumentation Ostmitteleuropa: Lokale und regionale Selbstverwaltung in Polen: Diskussionen und Entwicklung nach 1990, Heft 5, 20:44 (October 1994): 229.
34.
Hicks and Kaminski, “Local Government Reform and Transition from Communism,” 3.
35.
“Millard, Polish Politics and Society,” 53.
36.
“Millard, Polish Politics and Society,” 53.
37.
“Millard, Polish Politics and Society,” 12.
38.
“Millard, Polish Politics and Society,” 14.
39.
Jozef Ploskonska, ed., Reforma administracji publicznej 1998—2001. [Public Administration Reform 1998—2001]. Ministry of Internal Affairs andAdministration (Warsaw, August 2001), 27.
40.
Ministry of Internal Affairs and Administration, Ocena nowego zasadniczego podzialu terytorialnego Panstwa, przyjeta przez Rade Ministrow w dniu 12 grudnia 2000 [Assessment of the new basic territorial division of the State, accepted by the Council of Ministers on December 12, 2000] (Warsaw, December 2000), 13.
41.
Compiled from Jozef Ploskonska, ed., Polska Administracja Publiczna po Reformie: Ustroj-Kompetencje-Liczby [Polish public administration after the reform: Structure, competences, numbers] . Ministry of Internal Affairs and Administration, Department of Implementation and Monitoring of the public administration reform (December 1999).
42.
Ploskonka, Reforma administracji publicznej , 40.
43.
The law passed the Sejm on 13 November 2003. See Jacek Uczkiewics, Undersecretary in the Ministry of Finance, The new law on self-governance.
44.
Compiled using annual reports available in the self-government section of the website of the Polish Ministry of Finance, accessed in August 2003 and February 2006, from www.stat.gov.pl/urzedy/warsz/publikacje/rocznik_woj/wykresy/05w_15_en.htm .
45.
State Electoral Commission.Results of the 2002 elections to commune councils. http://wybory2002.pkw.gov.pl/grada/gw1/index.htm . (accessed 12 April 2005).
46.
Turnout in the first self-government elections in 1990 was 42%, and in the second in 1994, 38%. Joanna Regulska and Jerzy Regulski, “Reforma Samorzadow w Europie Srodkowej i Wschodniej: Sukcesy i Porazki.” [Reform of Self-Governments in Central and Eastern Europe — Successes and Failures] , in Julita Agnieszka Rybczynska ed., Europa Srodkowo-Wschodnia: region, panstwa i spoleczenstwa w czasie transformacji [Central and Eastern Europe: Region, states and societies during transformation] (Lublin: Publishing house of the Marie Curie Sklodowska University, 2000), 186.
