Global restructuring and the Polish state: transition, transformation, or transnationalization?

Abstract

This article proposes that the post-communist transition in Poland can profitaby be understood through the concept of the transnationalization of the state. It argues that change in Eastern and Central Europe has predominately been explained as a domestic process with few attempts made to contextualize the changes taking place in the region as part of neoliberal globalization. Therefore it explores the restructuring of the Polish state since 1989 by connecting concrete instances of policy to broader historical ­processes, social structures and political economy through the process of the transnationalization of the state. Rather than a loss of power or withdrawal of the state, setting transition as part of a wider transnationalization process reveals the subtleties of the restructuring of state apparatuses and hier­archies in the relationship between state and capital. The article reflects this by investigating the role adopted by the Polish state in representing the interests of a nascent bourgeoisie as they are increasingly penetrated by transnational capital and the impact of administration through the trans­nationalization of the state.