Chojnicki czerwiec '89. Studium lokalne fali uderzeniowej procesu demokratyzacji

Abstract

Chojnice’s June ’89. The local study of the shockwave process of democratization In his book author explains social and political phenomena that are connec-ted with political change in local conditions in Poland in 1989. As yet there has beenno empirical study that would consider first partly free election to the last parliamentof People’s Republic of Poland in local conditions. In 1989 there were 108 electoralconstituencies in Poland to the Sejm elections, and free election to the Senate wereconducted in 49 provinces of Poland. Chojnice was a capital city of election constitu-ency no. 14 to the Sejm and a part of election to the Senate conducted in BydgoszczProvince. As over the time social issues are perceived through stereotypes and tendto be mythologized, it seems important to author to show such events and pheno-mena on firm basis. It is worth emphasizing that results from 1989 elections in localconditions are generally unknown. Poles do not know results in their local constitu-encies because nearly thirty years after the elections official results from local con-stituencies still have not been not published anywhere. Thus, this study is based onprimary sources, newspapers from that time, literature of this particular issue. The analysis and synthesis is based on a number of theoretical perspectives: behaviorismto describe interaction between political actors – electoral system – party systems;political process and political change; Joseph Schumpeter’s assumption that politicalcompetition is of fundamental importance for the democracy; Samuel Huntington’stheory of third wave of democratization. All the data is analyzed in quantitativeperspective. There is no hypothesis as the study is a descriptive and explanatoryone. Its main goal is to highlight earlier unknown phenomena. This study is aboutlocal politics in a one-party state during the time of political change, so author refersto the politics on state level from that time. The most important questions refer to:continuity of activity of new social movement members from the time of the carni- val of Chojnice “Solidarity” in the years 1980-1981 and their involvement in 1989;political negotiations and emergence of political leaders during that time; politicalwill of citizens to take part in political change and their will to change the politicalsystem; attitudes of political actors from PUWP and “Solidarity”; individual natureof facts from that time taken under consideration from the perspective of local reali-ty; attitudes of local regime members towards political change; results of elections inChojnice constituency on 4th and 18th June 1989; differentiation of political behaviorin Chojnice constituency; picture of society of that time; influence of cultural andethnical identity as well as people’s ties (mainly with Catholic Church) and roots ontheir political choices.Political behavior is one of the main category of this study. Author highlightsnot only electoral system but also describes process of political leaders’ emergenceon local scale. In this perspective election campaign is portrayed as a political fightbetween candidates of Citizen Committee of “Solidarity” and candidates of PolishUnited Worker’s Party (PUWP) and its political satellites. As a matter of fact, authorstresses the importance of category of the legitimization and shows that members ofPUWP (in Poland known as PZPR) were not totally delegitimized by citizens in 1989election in Chojnice constituency. In fact, PUWP was mostly legitimized by Poles inthe northern part of Bydgoszcz Province during that election.The study consists of the following parts: introduction, 8 chapters, summary,bibliography, index and appendix.The first chapter describes electoral system and law that was enforced in 1989.The second one analyzes political climate and political situation around elec-tions to the Sejm and the Senate.The third chapter is also mostly analytical one. Author describes local com-munists apparatchiks’ attitude towards political change.The fourth chapter shows the process of political leaders emergence fromboth sides of the political conflict.The fifthh chapter describes personal features of candidates to the Sejm andthe Senate.The sixth chapter shows election campaign.The seventh one shows election results.The eighth chapter describes political attitudes and behavior of citizens inChojnice constituency.In the appendix readers may find results from constituency districts of Choj-nice town, and Chojnice country.As a result of this study some unexpected conclusions emerged aer empi-rical study, for example: one of the most prominent one is that citizens of People’sRepublic of Poland do not reject totally PUWP and its monopoly for power andauthority; paradoxically candidates from “Solidarity” movement were not selectedas democratically as candidates from PUWP ; deep differences in political attitudesin Chojnice constituency depended on the scale of people’s religiousness and thetradition of political opposition in town, as well as on ethnic groups; the highest su-pport for political change was among Kashubians, whereas the lowest in the groupscalled Krajniacy and Borowiacy.