After the collapse of the non-democratic regime in the early 1990s, pu- blic opinion surveys became important factor in the process of democratic de- cision-making. Author is analysing the results of public opinion surveys, which bring together data on the attitude of the general public towards democracy, (dis)satisfaction with the political situation and (dis)satisfaction with most im- portant political and administrative institutions with special emphasis given to the public's (dis)trust toward the rule of law. Based on the data obtained article allocates Slovenia's position compared to other established European demo- cracies as well as post-communist countries from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) on the scale of the relationship of the dimensions of societal (dis)trust in political power.

Elections are a procedure typical for democratic systems, but also sys- tems which do not respect the principles of democracy often employ them. However, due to their different functional positioning, they fulfill various func- tions. The presented text is an attempt to present the most important functions performed by the elections in democratic systems. The adopted model of ge- neralization has allowed for separation of seven basic functions, present in all elections: delegation of political representation; selection of the political elite; legitimisation of those in power; control over authorities; political accountabi- lity; creation of political programmes; recreation of public opinion image. The presented typology allows for its use both in different types of elec- tions (parliamentary, presidential, local, regional and European Parliament) as well as in relation to different electoral systems. The general nature of the de- scribed types of functions allows the separation of specific categories within its framework, but the objective of the present study has determined that the focus remains on the description and analysis of the presented types.

Poland held its first ever popular presidential election at the end of 1990. Since then four such elections have been held i.e. in 1995, 2000, 2005 and 2010. In the meantime the position of the president gradually evolved hence gi- ving rise to the question about which method for the election of the head of sta- te is most "appropriate". However, this issue was not an object of political de- liberation for the major Polish political parties of the last 20 years. Firstly, this resulted from the popularity of the presidential election within society, which was reflected in high turnouts (considering Polish reality). Secondly, especial- ly until the enactment of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland of 2 April 1997, no party wanted to run the risk of being accused of returning to the po- litical transition solutions adopted at the Round Table. Thirdly, until the be- ginning of 2010, the competition for the office of president was "reserved" for charismatic leaders or party leaders. lt was finally Donald Tusk, who decided not to contend for the presidential election of 2010 thus wanting to change the perception of the institution of president in the system of power and draw atten- tion and emphasize the role and the importance of a government with a strong (normatively and factually) prime minister as the leader.

The article presents Hungarian electorate's preferences in the time of transition and democratic consolidation beginning in 1990. The preferences are confrontated with results of parliamentary elections held in 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002, 2006 and 2010. Author tries to show how the left and right preference division developed on the basis of socioeconomic cleavages. The evolution of Hungarian electorate preferences has moved toward bidimensional "left - ri- ght" structure since the elections in 1998, yet first symptoms appeared in 1994 when post-socialis party MSzP won the elections. Since then only this party and rightist Fidesz were able to succeed and create Hungarian governments.

The aim of the article is to identify cleavages that have been in Czech and Polish party system located since 1989. These cleavages are compared to determine the hierarchy and degree of their importance. It is also demonstrated the effort to determine the potential future development of the cleavages in the- se two countries. In this article as key for the formation of cleavages are considered elections to the lower houses of parliament. Elections to the upper houses of parliament and European elections are not relevant for the purpose of this work, because they are considered as second-order elections, thus they have no direct impact on the formation of cleavages.

Individualism, although inherently contrary to the spirit of collectivism, is the basis for the development of modern civic attitudes. For the most part, individualism determines the degree of interest in politics and the quality of de- mocracy. Individualism is also the basis for the development of civil society, as the unique characteristics of each individual impact the civil society dynamics, quality and impact on those in power.

In recent years, there has been increasing interest in phenomenon of poor political activity among young adults, manifested in large percentage of non-voters and politically non-engaged individuals. The aim of this study was to examine the relationships between voting behaviour and political preferen- ces of young adults and their hierarchy of basic personal values, global subjec- tive happiness and evaluations of fair and unfair treatment in social exchange. The results of the study indicate firstly, that the most important values were power, conformity and tradition, secondly, that the non-voters evaluated hedonism lower and security higher than the voters and thirdly, that value profiles for five groups of voters differed in preferences of conformity, tradi- tion, security and hedonism. There were no significant differences between voters and non-voters in respect of global subjective happiness and evalu- ations of fair and unfair treatment. However, significant differences in these variables occured between electorates of specified political parties. The fin- dings of the current research provide a psychological characteristic of young adults in terms of basic values, subjective happiness and perception of unfa- irness, allowing also to identify some of the possible indicators of poor poli- tical activity in this group.

We live in the twenty-first century, which witnessed by far the most intensive marketing of politics, and traditional approaches (The Great Man Theory, situational, relational) to the process of emergence of political le- adership are simply not enough. Cooperation between leaders and their follo- wers is determined by cultural and social context, specific political situation of the time, patterns of social behavior. Development of new information technologies and dissemination of the means of mass communication have introduced another factor to the analyzed process, forced by civilisational changes. These changes initiated the processes shaping the emergence of a fo- urth approach to political leadership, which we may call reactive. Reactivity is an active process of management of the changing image of the leader, responding to the evolving social preferences, and subsequently dissemina- ted through the media.

The present paper presents various social influence techniques - practices aimed at increasing the likelihood that people will comply with requests, persuasion and suggestion they are addressed with. It describes sequential tech- niques (foot-in-the-door, door-in-the-face, foot-in-the-face, low ball) as well as techniques based on cognitive mechanisms (that's not all, even a penny helps, dialogue involvement) or on emotional mechanisms (induction of guilt, embarrassment, fear-then-relief). The paper also presents examples of using the above mentioned techniques with special focus on some which were taken from political life.

The article is focused on analysis the manner of presentation of data considering the electoral campaign in major information services during par- liamentary campaign in Poland in 2011. This concerns the kinds of the subjects presented, the choice of context, politicians' statements and the comment. An important question is whether we deal with a uniform image of the campaign or whether this image is different for particular stations. For that reason, what was investigated were the evening emissions of news bulletins of the most popular television stations, that is TVN („Fakty"), Polsat („Wydarzenia") as a private television and TVP 1 (,,Wiadomości) as public television. The article consist of five most important parts: subUects, where author analyze key issues of particular campaign; pictures where are presented images accompanying main issues; faces, which are focused on main actors of campa- ign; and finally role of Uournalists who present information.

The study primarily deals with the influence of media on perception of political subject agendas by the media audience. It will concentrate on the stra- tegy of political subUects whose utmost obUective is to provoke the specific ef- fect - to draw attention of media and recipients and to force them to pay atten- tion to their agendas. It underlines the practices of political subjects in gaining influence on media as well as on the public by offering their own agendas. lt also deals with the role and procedures of media in interpreting political scan- dals and creating atmosphere in the framework of receiving the events by the target audience.

The purpose of the article was to show the problem of female electoral activity in Poland. This subUect fits into a current debate on the participation of women in political systems and its limitations. There are many obstacles that prevent women from political participation and their influence is still rather symbolic then real. The source of this situation is also historical and social. Moreover, young democracies are at greater risk of "marketing pathology" be- cause their institutional mechanisms are not built on the foundations of civil society. The perception of politics differs among men and women, but this is mainly due to exogenous factors. Political marketing as a set of tools in the same range can affect men and women, although the differences appear at the level of self-creation of image, choice of strategy and the style of ruling after winning an election.

Witold Zygmunt Kulerski was one of the closest associates of the Prime Minister of Polish government in exile Stanisław MikołaUczyk. During World War ll he was one of the closest collaborators of Stanislaw MikołaUczyk- Office of the Vice-President of the National Council of the Republic of Poland, Deputy Prime Minister and Prime Minister of the Polish government in exile. Kulerski's commission devoted much attention to the affairs of Germany. This issue has been leading in international affairs, it is no wonder that Congress PSL lot of space devoted to it. Speaker stressed that the People's Movement du- ring its period of organizational and ideological took the view that the main "(...) the objective must be to secure Polish and Slavic world securing the ag- gressive spirit of the German". Kulerski's commission expressed concern due to the lack of activity of the Polish government to sign agreements and treaties of trade and economic with other countries than the Soviet Union. The committee members in their speeches stressed that in many areas of trade and international agreements are being overtaken by other countries and are overlooked in transactions due to insufficient activity of the Polish Government.