Corruption and politics: Comments on the specificity of the Polish model of transformation

Abstract

The premise for undertaking the above topic is the conviction that it is impossible to understand the causes and scale of corruption in Poland without referring to the shape of political, economic, and social changes initiated by the democratization process from the turn of 90s in the last century. Corruption, as a phenomenon with a broad, often unobvious foundation, is characterized by diffi- culty in combating it. It is not the intention from this article’s point of view on the issue to strictly define the concept of corruption. For its use, it will be equated with every action in which public positions are used for private purposes and where benefits are gained.² Corruption is a category of crime in which often only the perpetrators have knowledge about its occurrence, and which is often “covered” by other criminal acts such as fraud, mismanagement, failure to perform duties, or money laundering. Often, there are no external signs indicating that corruption has occurred. Consequently, the researchers of the phenomenon are forced to face its mythologization. The aim of this article is to possibly confront facts about corruption in contemporary Poland with the specificity of the Polish way of leaving behind communism. In my opinion and in the recent past, there are also many myths rooted in political disputes of the last three decades. Presen- tation of key historical aspects should contribute to the disclosure of the main determinants of corruption in Poland and, as an effect, result in a better chance of combating corruption. The study used the methods of scientific inference and analysis. The study used legal acts, reports of state institutions and secondary sources of information (source literature).