Adam Gendźwiłł

Independent Mayors and Local Lists in Large Polish Cities: Towards a Non-partisan Model of Local Government?

Abstract The enormous success of local independent lists and independent mayors in Poland suggests it is important to examine their distinctive features, analyse the place they occupy in local politics, and explore the model of local government they encourage. This paper deals with these topics by investigating some extreme cases of non-partisanship at the local level. Research was conducted in three arbitrarily chosen Polish cities governed by independent mayors and dominated by independent lists in the local legislatures. Mixed quantitative and qualitative methods were used: a survey among city councillors; and individual key-informant interviews (IDI). Non-partisans appear to be a separate category of local politicians, different in terms of their views on politics. They explain their non-partisanship using anti-partisan, historical or tactical justifications. It seems that non-partisanship can be a means of institutionalising a particular manner of understanding and engaging in politics. Local lists organised by independent mayors are informal, concentrating on the leader and performing only some of the traditional functions of parties. This paper demonstrates that, due to the vague nature of the links between local politicians and their administration, independent councillors may serve only as a ‘democratic addition’ to a local administration headed by a skilful manager.

Jak głosują wyborcy w warunkach preferencyjnych list wyborczych: przypadek Polski

The paper presents some consequences of using semi-open lists, including the preferential vote mechanism, in parliamentary elections in Poland. The Authors discuss whose role in assigning parliamentary seats is greater: that of party organizations’ leaders, who decide on the order of candidates on electoral lists, or that of citizens who cast preferential votes. The paper focuses in the elections in the years 2001–2011, in which, according to poll data, party voting dominated over personal voting. The results of parliamentary elections in Poland show that ballot position effects are persistently present and that people tend to vote for list leaders in their constituencies. However, a simulation of a closed-list mechanism shows that in 2001–2011, ca 20 per cent of parliamentary seats were assigned as a result of the interventionist impact of the preferential vote on the candidate lists established by parties. The ability to vote for a specific candidate is rather important for Poles. The Authors also point out that the candidates from the top of party lists may obtain such good results because voters resort to simple reasoning and vote for those from the top of a list, irrespective of the nature of the list itself. (However, the effect does not seem to be very significant).

The Rise and Fall of the Union: A Case in Poland

This is a case story of the inter-municipal organization in southern Poland which was one of the largest and most successful inter-municipal cooperation (IMC) institutions in the late 1990s and first years of twenty-first century. However, last decade brought internal conflicts among involved municipalities and eventually formal failure of the IMC institution which has been dissolved. The chapter discusses lessons from the failure story, underlying reasons for the failure. But it also asks the question if it is really right to consider it as a “failure story” or if it is rather the case of turbulent liquidation of the institution after completion of its mission.

A Borrowed Mandate? Democratic Legitimacy of Inter-municipal Entities: A Comparative Analysis

This chapter discusses the democratic legitimacy of inter-municipal unions. Inter-municipal cooperation entities are frequently criticized for the “democratic deficit”, that is, lack of elected governing bodies, directly accountable to the citizens. The authors broaden this framework, by distinguishing the input, output and throughput dimensions of legitimacy. The empirical investigation is based mainly on the international survey of inter-municipal entities in four European countries: Portugal, Spain (Catalonia), Czech Republic and Poland. The chapter presents several survey indicators of legitimacy and analyses their variation between and within studied countries.

Mayors and Political Parties

The chapter takes a view, from different perspectives, at the results of an analysis of the relationship between mayors and political parties at the local level. First, it shows how a mayor assesses her/his political ideology and the political ideology of the parties. This has been done both for mayors with party membership and—even more importantly—for non-partisan mayors. Second, the relationship between mayors and parties is reflected in respect to a Party Significance Index developed by the authors and compared to a similar index developed by Fallend et al. (Divided Loyalties? Mayors Between Party Representation and Local Community Interests. In H. Back, H. Heinelt, & A. Magnier (Eds.), The European Mayor: Political Leaders in the Changing Context of Local Democracy. VS Verlag fur Sozialwissenschaften, 2006) for analysing the data collected by the first mayor survey. Third, the chapter looks at the question whether or not the relationship between mayors and parties is determined by different local government systems, other structural variables (like the population size of a municipality), or personal characteristics of mayors.

Designing a Qualitative Research Project

Despite the diversity of legitimate approaches to the theory and methods available to qualitative researchers, we can identify questions which one must always, or virtually always, answer when formulating the problem and designing research. Steinar Kvale (Interviews: An Introduction to Qualitative Research Interviewing. London: SAGE, 1996) notes that at this stage the project may at times require a kind of an explorative interview with a researcher, which will help us better understand why, how, and what we want to do. Following this line of reasoning, we will suggest certain outlines for an interview we can carry out with ourselves at this stage of research design. We will try to identify the most important questions to ask ourselves while designing the study, as well as a few suggestions as to where the search for answers to these questions can begin. This is perhaps the most accurate type of a universal guide to qualitative research design that can be offered. In this chapter we present the subsequent stages of the research design journey, starting from a vaguely defined area of interest, and ending with a detailed research project proposal. Let us first discuss the questions we face when formulating the research problem—those helping us to reflexively approach the research. We will then describe issues that need to be resolved when matching to the problem research methods which help us to be consistent. In the last part of the chapter we will discuss the decisions which need to be taken when planning the details of research project implementation.

Skuteczność głosów preferencyjnych w systemie proporcjonalnym z listami otwartymi

The article presents the usage of the preference votes in open-list proportional representation system (OLPR). The electoral rules condition the effi ciency of the casted votes, i.e. the extent to which the voters’ preferences affect the distribution of seats. In the OLPR system the “wasted votes” may refer not only to the representation of party preferences, but also personal preferences frequently expressing distinct territorial identities. Using the data from Polish Sejm elections, as well as the subnational elections, the authors analyze the usage and outcomes of the preference votes. During the last two decades in Sejm elections the share of effi cient preference votes (casted for the elected representatives) was only slightly higher than the share of votes casted for the losing candidates; in case of the subnational elections, the latter category of votes visibly prevailed. The authors analyze in detail the differences between the elections, parties and Sejm electoral districts, representing various characteristics. Non-parametrical regression analysis provides the list of factors infl uencing the effi ciency of preferential votes, which is generally in agreement with the theoretical expectations. The largest shares of effi cient preference votes may be observed in the districts of a high magnitude, and a lower level of fragmentation (both party and territorial).

How single-member districts are reinforcing local independents and strengthening mayors: on the electoral reform in Polish local government

ABSTRACT In this article, we investigate whether the design of the electoral system used in the elections of local councils affects the position of national parties and their main competitors, local independent lists. We study the case of the electoral reform enacted recently in Poland which modified the rules of council elections by introducing the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system, quite rarely used in local elections. Using empirical evidence from the municipalities where FPTP replaced the open-list proportional representation (OLPR) system, we demonstrate that the introduction of single-member districts, and majoritarian rule in council elections, increased the number of single independents, unaffiliated to any party or committee, and limited the (already poor) presence of party candidates and councillors. The reform also strengthened the position of directly elected mayors, in Poland – usually independent, by assuring many of them safe majorities in councils. We found that the share of seats for the winning mayor’s list increased by 10 pp on average after the reform.