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9 - Poland: Robust Democracy and Rapid Reform

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Timothy Frye
Affiliation:
Columbia University, New York
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Summary

But if Warsaw rose from the ashes of the War it has also been reborn from the drabness of the Stalinist era. After the fall of the Communist regime, winds of change swept through the city. New shops, hotels and a cheerful air have transformed Warsaw. Old buildings have been cleaned, and elegant boutiques are springing up. The best symbol of this rebirth is the city's tallest building, at the end of Nowy Swiat, which was once the Communist Central Committee seat and is now an expression of Poland's wanton capitalism – the stock exchange.

Hindu Business Line, March 11, 2005

Poland provides a clear example of how robust democracy and low levels of political polarization can promote rapid economic and institutional reform. In the 1990s, a social democratic ex-communist party committed to building a market economy with a generous welfare state and a fractious liberal camp of parties committed to building a market economy with a smaller welfare state competed for power. This arrangement of political forces and institutions suggests that Poland should have experienced rapid economic and institutional reform, relatively consistent reforms, a burgeoning new private sector, and generous social welfare programs.

These expectations have largely been borne out. With little evidence of deep polarization on economic issues across the old-left–right divide, successive governments in Poland had weak incentives to conduct fire-sale privatizations or grant the types of massive tax breaks characteristic of right governments in far more polarized Russia under Yeltsin.

Type
Chapter
Information
Building States and Markets after Communism
The Perils of Polarized Democracy
, pp. 213 - 228
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

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