Unexpected Traps of the Democratic Transformation

Abstract

The inception of the democratic transformation in Poland in 1989 evoked high hopes concerning the future of Polish society. A majority of Poles seemed to expect that incoming changes would consist in the expansion of personal freedom, the realization of civil rights, introduction of the rules of law and social justice, empowerment of ordinary people, attainment of national sovereignty, economic progress, a and significant increase in standards of living. At present, fourteen years later, there are many indications that the majority of Polish people are deeply disappointed with the results of the transformation. This disappointment may be related to the fact that initial expectations were based on a popular theory of the democratic transformation that turned out to be rather naive. The "theory" was formulated in terms of values and not in terms of social mechanisms. In fact, the gist of the change consisted in modification of some basic mechanisms of social coordination and social control. A shift from a predominantly political to a predominantly economical form of social control and alteration of the rules of acquisition of political power. These two changes in the mechanisms of social life had a number of significant consequences: They resulted in a major alteration of the meanings of concepts that were the basis of the popular theory of transformation. We can conclude that the whole process involved some traps that were not perceived at its inception.