Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-m9pkr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-12T10:18:23.679Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

How not to deal with the past: lustration in Poland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Barbara A. Misztal
Barbara A. Misztal
Affiliation:
Griffith University, (Nathan,).
Get access

Abstract

By looking at the history of the Polish lustration — the policy of checking the past of candidates for important positions — this article argues that although the lustration law has been finally passed at the end of 1998, Poland's dealing with the past is still full of unresolved and deeply ambivalent problems due to the nature of its postcommunist transition and the nature of the newly constructed political institutions. These conditions were shaped by the relative strength of the Polish anti-communist opposition, which credibility within the society permitted it to accept a compromise with the old regime. The undetermined character of many of Poland's political institutions have accelerated the use of the issue of retrospective justice in the partisan politics, which in turn has limited the opportunity for consensual policy, and therefore has reduced societal trust of the political parties, while at the same time increased the demand for the purification of the political system.

Une loi d'épuration a été promulguée en Pologne en 1998. Néanmoins, le rapport au passé y est ambigü et lourd de problémes non résolus, liés aux modalités de la transition et au nouveau systéme institutionnel. La force de L'opposition anti-communiste polonaise et sa crédibilité ont en effet permis un compromis avec l'ancien régime. La souplesse de nombre de nouvelles institutions a favorise la mise en cause judiciaire du passé sur des bases partisanes. D'où, par contrecoup, une domination de Pespace pour une politique consensueile et une reduction de la confiance de la société sans tes partis, cependant que la demande d'epuration du systeme politique ne fait qu'augmenter.

Wenn man die Geschichte der polnischen überprüfung betrachtet — Bewerber auf wichrige Positionen werden seit dem Gesetzesbeschluß von 1998 auf ihre Vergangenheit hin iiberpriift — so argumentiert dieser Beitrag, dann zeichnet sich Polens Vergangenheitsbewältigung noch immer durch zahlreiche ungeloste und tief ambivalente Probleme aus, die von der Wende zum Postkommunismus und der Gestalt der neuen politischen Institutionen herruhren. Die relative Stärke der antikommunistischen Opposition Polens hat einen KompromiB mit dem alten Regime erlaubt. Die vage Definition vieler polnischen Institutionen hat zu einer parteiergreifenden Politik der Vergangenheitsbewältigung gefuhrt und im Gegenzug die Gelegenheit zu einer konsensuellen Politik begrenzt. Das Vertrauen der Bevölkerung in die Parteien wurde geschmalert, die Nachfrage nach einer Musterung des politischen Systems gleichzeitiggesteigert.

Type
Lustration
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , May 1999 , pp. 31 - 55
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1999

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ash, Gordon T., 1997, The File. A Personal History (London: Harper Collins).Google Scholar
Bartkowski, J., 1993, Public Opinion and Decommunization in Poland, in Wiatr, J.J. (ed.), The Politics of Democratic Transition: Poland after 1989 (Warsaw: Scholar Agency), 80–107.Google Scholar
Bruszt, L., 1991, The negotiated revolution in Hungary in Szoboszlai, G. (ed.), Democracy and Political Transformation: Theories and East-Central European Realities (Budapest: Hungarian Political Science Association), 45–78.Google Scholar
Connerton, P., 1989, How Societies Remember (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dudek, A., 1997, Pierwsze lata III Rzeczypospotitej (Krakow: Wyd. GEO).Google Scholar
Elster, J., 1989, The Cement of Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elster, J., 1998, Coming to terms with the past, Arch. Europ. Sociol. XXXIX, 7–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eyal, J., 1993, The Party is dead, The European, 09 30: 6.Google Scholar
Frydrykiewicz, F., 1996, Jaka Lustracja, Rzeczypospolita, 32, 02 7: 5.Google Scholar
Herz, H.H., 1982, From Dictatorship to Democracy (Westport: Greenwood Press).Google Scholar
Holmes, S., 1995, The End of Decommunization, in Kritz, N.J. (ed.), Transitional Justice, vol. 1. (Washington D.C.: United States Institute for Peace), 116–120.Google Scholar
Huntington, S., 1991, The Third Wave. Democratisation in the late Twentieth Century (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press).Google Scholar
Huyse, L., 1995, Make in Dealing with the Past, in Kritz, N.J. (ed.), Transitional Justice, vol. 1 (Washington D.C.: United States Institute for Peace), 104–115.Google Scholar
Janecki, M., 1992, Lustracja w Impasie, Polityka, 09 14: 4–6.Google Scholar
Janecki, S., 1996, Urzad Malachowskiego, Wprost, 02 4: 22–24.Google Scholar
Kaminski, A.Z. and Kurczewska, J., 1994, Institutional transformations in Poland: The Rise of Nomadic Political Elites, in Alestalo, M. et al. (eds), The Transformation of Europe. Social Conditions and Consequences (Warsaw: IFiS PAN), 132–154.Google Scholar
Kozlowski, S., 1997, Czy da sie Lustrowac Sprawiedliwie, Gazeta Wyborcza, 02 6: 5.Google Scholar
Kritz, N.J., 1995, The Dilemma of Transitional Justice, in Kritz, N.J. (ed.), Transitional Justice, vol. 1 (Washington D.C.: United States Institute for Peace), xix–xxx.Google Scholar
Linz, J. and Stepan, A., 1997, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press).Google Scholar
Los, M., 1995, Lustration and Truth Claims: Unfinished Revolution in Central Europe, Law and Social Inquiry, Vol. 20, no. 1, Winter, 117–162.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Michnik, A., 1993, Confronting the Past: Justice or Revenge?, Journal of Democracy, vol. 4, no. 1, 01, 20–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paradowska, J., 1994, Rzeczpospolita lustrujaca, Polityka, 07 9: 14–15.Google Scholar
Paradowska, J., 1998, Kto ma teczki, ten ma wladze, Polityka, 21, 11: 3–6.Google Scholar
Podemski, S., 1997, Lustracja zlustrowana, Polityka, 13.09: 17–18Google Scholar
Rosenberg, T., 1995, The Haunted Land (New York: Random House).Google Scholar
Rzeplinski, A., 1992, A lesser Evil?, East European Constitutional Review, vol. 1, no. 3, Fall: 33–35.Google Scholar
Schwartz, H, 1995, Lustration in Eastern Europe, in Kritz, N.J. (ed.), Transitional Justice, Vol. 1 (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press), 461–483.Google Scholar
Skorzynski, J., 1997, W samo Poludnie, Rzeczypospolita, 05 31: 16.Google Scholar
Smolar, A., 1997, Wojna swatow, Gazeta Wyborcza, 05 30: 18–21.Google Scholar
Stark, D. and Bruszt, L., 1998, Poslsocialist Pathways (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Wasilewski, J., 1995, Formowanie sie nowej elity, in Sulek, A.. and Styk, J. (eds), Ludzie i lnstytucje (Lublin: UMCS).Google Scholar
Weschler, L., 1990, A Miracle, A Universe (New York: Pantheon Books).Google Scholar
Weschler, L., 1992, From Kafka to Dreyfus, The New Yorker, 10 19: 78–82.Google Scholar
Wiscicki, T., 1993, Aleksander Kwasniewski przeprasza, Wiez, 12: 154–158.Google Scholar
Wladyka, W., 1994, Szczur w Salonie, Polityka, 07 18: 1, 8–9.Google Scholar
Zakowski, J., 1995, Pochwala Skandalu, Gazeta Wyborcza, 01 21–22: 8–9.Google Scholar