Abstract
The aim of this introduction is to show the range of possible relationships between economic change and civil society. Although I concentrate my attention on Poland in the 1980s when the nexus between the two phenomena became clearly visible, I shall begin with a characterisation of attempts made by the political authorities to carry out economic reforms in the pre-Solidarity period. My point is that these changes were doomed to failure because the power centre was not able to get social support for them. The characteristic feature of the period was the absence of civil society. In effect these changes did not deserve to be called ‘economic changes’, but were rather reorganisations or false reforms. They happened to be made under the slogan of ‘economic decentralisation’, outlined in the next section.
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Notes
See W. Brus, ‘Evolution of the communist economic system: scope and limits’, in V. Nee and D. Stark (eds), Remaking the Economic Institutions of Socialism: China and Eastern Europe (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989(.
See P. Botyk, Marzenia i rzeczywistość (Dreams and Reality) (Warsaw: PIW, 1989).
See M. D. Kennedy, Professionals, Power and Solidarity in Poland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
See B. Szajkowski, ‘The Catholic Church in defense of civil society in Poland’, in B. Misztal (ed.), Poland after Solidarity (New Brunswick and Oxford: Transaction Books, 1985).
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See W. Morawski, ‘Self-management and economic reform’, in J. Koralewicz et al. (eds) Crisis and Transition. Polish Society in the 1990s (Oxford: Berg, 1987).
H. Lydall, Yugoslavia in Crisis (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989).
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See M. Marody, ‘Dylematy postaw politycznych i orientacji fwialopogladowy’ (Dilemmas of Political Attitudes and Worldview Orientations) (mimeo, Warsaw: Institute of Sociology, 1990).
See J. Kornai, The Road to a Free Economy (New York and London: Norton, 1990).
See F. A. Hayek, New Studies in Philosophy, Politics and the History of Ideas (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978).
See M. Olson, The Rise and Decline of Nations (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1982).
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© 1992 International Council for Soviet and East European Studies, and Paul G. Lewis
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Morawski, W. (1992). Economic Change and Civil Society in Poland. In: Lewis, P.G. (eds) Democracy and Civil Society in Eastern Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22174-5_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22174-5_6
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