The Roots of the “Fourth Republic”

Abstract

Most scholars studying Polish politics agree that some of the country's fiercest political conflicts evolve around a cultural cleavage that Poland's Third Republic inherited from the communist period. The existing literature, however, provides no answer as to why this cleavage sustained its importance despite the events of 1989. Therefore, the article seeks to refine some of the theoretical categories used to analyze cultural legacies. In particular, it argues that cultural systems are transmitted through time primarily because they sustain their capacity to endow social reality with meaning. Focusing on right-wing discourse and in particular on the conflict over Poland's 1997 constitution, the article then shows that some of the cultural paradigms of the Solidarity period interacted with the character of the Polish transition as a compromise in a way that provided right-wing politicians with a meaningful framework within which to challenge their opponents and advance their claims.