Poles comparatively low political activity, continued from the first competitive parliamentary election in 1991, leads to take a reflection of the voters perception of politics and political parties. The article focus on the percep- tion of political parties in Poland and the Poles' attitude to politics. Research has shown that the political sphere of democratic Poland separates from the social life. The activities of political parties, political conflicts and their solutions, are a phenomena that the majority of Poles do not care about. Polish political institutions and democratic procedures act in a specific social void. Poles political behavior (especially the voters one), in the period of democratic system, is characterized by high level of ritualism. This method of adaptation of the citizens of Poland to the democratic political system leads to low level of trust in political institutions.
This part of the report describes two problems: evaluation of the activi- ties of reeves, mayors and presidents of cities and the problem of representing the interests of the residents by local governments. In a survey conducted in late 2012, we decided to verify two hypotheses. By the first, trust in local government results from the positive evaluation of reeves, mayors and presidents of cities activities. Second hypothesis assumes that trust is founded by the belief of the local community members, that the local governments represent their interests. The results indicate that the majority of the respondents are restra- inedly satisfied with the activities of their reeves, mayors and presidents of cities. However, the majority of respondents said that local governments do not represent their interests.
The research carried out allowed to look at social assessment of both already implemented statutory quotas and the proposed gender parity on electoral lists. The findings of the research showed that over half of the surveyed left-wing political party-in-the-electorate acknowledged the implementation of statutory quotas as reasonable and the proposal of introducing gender parity on the electoral lists as worth-implementing (Palikot's Movement - 42.2% and Democratic Left Alliance - 37.9%). Among the Civic Platform and Polish People's Party adherents a substantial percentage are the adherents of quotas rather than gender parity (Civic Platform - 44.1% and 38.9% respectively, Polish People's Party - 48.7% i 34.2% respectively) but there are substantially fewer adversaries of this solution. At the same time among the adversaries of Law and Justice only 35.6% acknowledge the solution implemented as reasonable whereas only 35.5% consider the proposal for introducing gender parity as worth-implementing. Nevertheless the percentage of adversaries of such solutions is even smaller - in the case of quotas it is 28.1% and in the case of gender parity - 35.1%. The rest of the Law and Justice adversaries do not have an opinion on this issue. The division into adherents and adversaries of the decision about implementing statutory quotas or proposals for gender parity with reference to ideological views is even clearer. Among the respondents expressing their views as left- wing more than half of them acknowledge the implementation of quotas as reasonable (51%) and 38.5% consider the propo- sals for gender parity as worth- implementing. 48% of the persons sympathising with the centre were in favour of quotas, while 34% were for gender parity. On the other hand among the respondents defining their views as right-wing only 31.8% acknowledged the implementation of statutory quotas as reasonable whereas 29.8% considered the proposal for gender parity as worth-implementing. It is worth-emphasising that irrespective of political sympathies the respondents assess the implemented statutory quotas much favourably than the proposal for implementing gender parity on electoral lists.
The article refers to the ratio of voters to choose the method and scope of leaders authority in the Polish political parties such as the Law and Justice party, Civic Platform, Polish Peasant Party, Palikot's Movement and the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD). Most party leaders are elected by indirect suffrage. From the test batches only the leader of SLD had been once directly selected. The majority of respondents (both left-wing, right-wing and centrist) supported the idea of direct selection. However more often, a direct dial is in favor of left-wing voters. The scope of formal power increases with the leaders of the party from the left to the right point of the political spectrum. The subjects were different approach to the scope of authority of leaders. More left-wing voters were in favor of limiting their rights, right-wing supporters were often in favor of making authority leaders stronger. Internal regulations of the studied formations correspond to the expectations of voters as to the extent of its formal powers. However, differ as to the expected pattern of choice.
It is the first time when the edition of social research 'Political Preference', was carried in a year without election. It determines certain electoral attitudes, because the mass media do not influence society and voters do not take tactical decision. In consequence, the results of this research are different from the ones during real election, because these decisions have to be treated like potential ones. The author decided to continue research, which began in 2010. Therefore, electorate behavior could be compared between campaign period and 'off year election'. Apart from party leaders influencing the campaign, this article includes research results concerning television debate. Both problems are the main components of presidentialization. In the first issue prominent majority of questioned chose the party ideology as the main determinant of potential deci- sions. This conclusion is different from the previous research. This can be the main information in explaining political phenomena or processes. However, what is needed here is an appropriate distance, because in this survey the author changed answers rotation. Apart from that we have to remember about research period - 'off year election'. Although television debates have not been perma- nent component all campaigns, Polish electorate supports this idea. Over 78 per cent of researches would like to organize a debate between two main parties leaders before every elections. However, we cannot look foreword to lead this idea in the Election Code, because neither society nor politicians will insist on institutionalizing this idea.
The presented analysis related to the Polish specificity of preferences in economic voting and to the dynamics of relations between economic situation and political assessment. The analyzed studies show clearly that voters take into account the economic situation in the country irrespective of supporting a parti- cular party - 'definitely yes' or 'rather yes'(from 75% for Palikot Movement to 79% for PSL). The issue is less important to those respondents who declare elec- toral absenteeism (60,4%). When considering economic program of a candidate or a political party, this is the electorate of the Democratic Left Alliance who definitely pay to it a lot of attention (87,1%). Regardless of declared ideolo- gical views and a party support, the respon- dents pay more attention to the economic program of a candidate/ a party than to the condition of the national economy, and it especially refers to those voters who declare themselves as right wingers (the left +5,7%; the centre +4,3; the right +9%). To sum up, it can be stated that regardless of an adopted criterion (of elec- torates of particular parties or ideological views), about % of the voters declare taking into account the economic situation of the country or the economic program of a candidate / a political party as the factor which has an impact on their votes.
Research on economic voting in Poland have been carried out from the beginning of the democratic transformation, focusing on isolating and testing of the transition model specific to the countries of Central Europe. Its differen- tiating feature is a novel way of simultaneously joining the retrospective and prospective motivations in the behavior of voters, compared to the conven- tional model present in consolidated democracies. The purpose of the present article is to attempt to determine the relationship between the two types of elec- toral motivations identified above in the parliamentary elections, starting with the election of 1991 and ending with the 2011 elections. Based on analysis and constructive criticism of findings of other researchers and own research, the presented paper evidences that the validity of applying the transitional model in the study of economic voting in Poland has been exhausted, as the prospective motivation is nowadays predominant in the decisions of voters.