The opinions on changes in the Polish political system

In Poland, after 27 years of democracy, a discussion about changes in political system have been started. The public opinion researches shows not only lack of trust to the political institutions but also negative feelings towards most of them. The goal of the article is to analyse the preferences of each electorate in presidential and parliament elections in 2015 about two ideas: extending Presidential power and decreasing the number of Parliaments Members. Supporting the idea of increasing President’s rights are Andrzej Duda and Paweł Kukiz voters in presidential election, Law and Justice, Kukiz’15 committee and also small electoral committees electorate, people who don’t participate in the elections and also people declaring right wing political views. In all researches supporters of the idea to decrease number of Parliament Members are prevailing. The biggest support for it can be found among Paweł Kukiz followers in the first term presidential election and also in electoral committee Kukiz’15 in parliament election. They can also be found in those political parties and committees followers, which received small number of votes in the election and in people who didn’t take part in presidential and parliament election.

Key words:

presidential elections in 2015, parliamentary elections in 201, the constitutional powers of the president, reducing the number of deputies

The Determinants of Electoral System Change

Elections are a tool for the competing entities to achieve political goals. Therefore, electoral procedures are a significant element affecting their political perspectives. A change in the electoral system depends on balance of power in the parliament. In practice, two models of electoral reforms are possible. In the first of them, political parties collaborate to reform the system. Thus, they protect the interests of as many parties as possible. In the second one, the majority can force others to accept the solutions that are beneficial for them. The majority promote the institutional patterns and procedures that give them a chance to consolidate or increase the relative power of influence of elections. The presented paper includes the analysis of social preferences concerning a reform of the electoral system in Poland. The study revealed the preference for the cooperative model of changing the electoral system. Only the respondents who identified themselves as having right-wing inclinations approved of the competitive model.

Key words:

change of the electoral system, electoral system in Poland, electoral crisis, reforms of the election law

Presidentialization of Electoral Face in Polish Parliamentary Election in 2015 year

In this article the author analyses the process by means of the quantitative and proportional distribution of answers regarding two questions. The first one concerns the leader effect and the second the social approval for television debates participated by the leaders of the two major political parties (the questions can be found next to the tables presenting the results of the study). In the research under consideration were used the same questions as in 2012 and 2013, when no nation-wide election was organized. The comparison of the results gathered in those “election-free” years and in 2015, when two important votings (presidential and parliamentary) took place may bring particularly interesting conclusions.

Key words:

presidentialisation, personalization, leader effect, electoral face, political parties

Disloyal followers? About the study on political base of the mayor in spe using modified method of AHP

W artykule zawarto część wyników badań preferencji politycznych kandydatów do rady miasta w Szczecinie. Badanie ankietowe zostało wykonane tuż przed wyborami samorządowymi w 2014 roku. Głównym celem publikowanej tutaj części wyników było określenie stosunku kandydatów na radnych do rywalizacji na prezydenta Szczecina. Analiza koncentruje się na kwestiach potencjalnych atrybutów prezydenta, takich jak: dotychczasowe osiągnięcia, kompetencje osobowe, wizerunek, przynależność partyjna oraz program działania w przyszłości. Ponadto skoncentrowano się również na preferencjach wobec pretendentów do fotela prezydenckiego: porównano odpowiedzi na pytanie, kto byłby lepszym prezydentem Szczecina. W badaniach wykorzystano zmodyfikowaną metodę AHP. Po pierwsze, jej modyfikacja, określona jako metoda ważenia preferencji wyboru, pokazała, że Piotr Krzystek (prezydent Szczecina od 2006) był najbardziej preferowanym kandydatem na prezydenta w 2014 roku - większość respondentów z partyjnych komitetów wyborczych wskazywała właśnie jego jako kandydata drugiego wyboru. Po drugie, analiza pokazała, że każdy komitet wyborczy miał nielojalnych zwolenników.

Key words:

mayor, political preferences, AHP, method of weighting the selection preferences, local elections

The aim of the article was to present factors that determined voting behaviour of citizens in national elections in 2015 in the perspective of party and personal attitudes of the interviewees. Except for presenting conclusions that result from the course of the research process in the aforementioned range, also the elements that could have affected eventual responses of the interviewees were indicated. These include changes at the position of PO (civic platform) leaders, appearance of new political entities (Ryszard Petru’s Nowoczesna, Together Party, Kukiz 15), or unification processes on the political right, and partially on the left. Personal conflicts and ways of conducting the campaign that could have affected attitudes of voters were also indicated.

A complement to logical conclusions from the conducted research in the perspective of party and personal determinants of voting preferences were also analyses of whether election posters and billboards should be put in the areas that belong to churches. From the perspective of political options supported by citizens, and their attitudes towards the role of Church during electoral campaigns, the analysis of this phenomenon led to interesting conclusions.

Key words:

elections behaviour, presidential elections, parliamentary elections, personalization, electoral, Poland

The attitude to immigrants and emerging of new political parties – the case of Poland

The immigration is recently the most important issue influencing the fates of European Union member states. Presented article diagnoses the attitudes to immigrants arriving to EU among Polish citizens and examines how the migration crisis can affect the Polish party system according to emerging of new parties approaches. The conducted empirical research shows that majority of Polish voters are against hosting immigrants in their country. However, in contrast to the West European party systems, there is also plenty of relevant Polish parties with negative stance to immigration. Therefore, the immigration cannot be considered as a factor of party system change.

Key words:

new parties, political parties, party system, immigration, attitude to immigrants

Przeprowadzone badania mieszczą się w nurcie poszukiwań psychologicznych determinant i czynników różnicujących zachowania wyborcze i preferencje ideologiczne polskich wyborców. Wiele studiów empirycznych dowodzi istotnych związków pomiędzy preferowanymi przez jednostkę wartościami, a jej zachowaniami, co znalazło również swoje stabilne miejsce w przestrzeni badań zachowań wyborczych. Celem przedstawianego artykułu jest analiza systemu wartości wyższego rzędu w ramach koncepcji Shaloma Schwartza elektoratów w wyborach parlamentarnych 2015 roku oraz osób o różnych autoidentyfikacjach ideologicznych. Uzyskane wyniki zwracają uwagę na kilka interesujących kwestii, m.in. pokazują spójną dla wszystkich elektoratów najsłabszą preferencję dla umacniania siebie czy najsilniej kontrastujący z pozostałymi elektorami system wartości wyborców ugrupowania Kukiz`15.

Key words:

basic values, electoral behaviors, 2015 parliamentary election

Political liberty and private property as a liberal values permanently rooted in the awareness Poles

The liberalism as doctrine was never deep-rooted in the political sphere in Poland. It wasn't possible on account of historical conditioning, but also the tradition constituting the crucial element of the political culture. Hence in principle to the turn of years 80. and 90. Of the 20th century in Poland political groups identifying themselves with liberal values didn't function. However it doesn't mean that liberal ideas weren't generally speaking current in the social awareness. It will be sufficient because to point to two discussed values, i.e. the freedom and the right to hold the individual property in order to dispel all concerning doubts (enough poorly consolidated institutionally) of liberalism to the society. Of course to mark he belongs, that it isn't regarding the society as a whole, as well as isn't regarding the liberalism in all spheres of the activity of individuals. Because in the economic sphere the freedom is acceptable to a larger extent, than in the cultural sphere.

Key words:

individual freedom, private property, liberalism in Poland, middle class, social awareness

Participatory Budgeting – a New Tool in the Hands of Citizens

The main objective of the study is to show the willingness of citizens to act, through the prism of opportunities offered by participation at the local level. Mainly, they concern the potential allocation of financial resources at the municipal level, in various aspects of local life such as improving safety, investments, culture, sport and recreation. The study shows that issues related to investments, infrastructure and local security are more important for the respondents than those relating to culture, art and sport and recreation. It is also noted that the supporters of Bronisław Komorowski in the first and second round of the elections for the office of the President of the Republic of Poland (in 2015) form the most active electorate. However, in the case of declared political views the leftish electorate slightly prevails. Taking into consideration particular age groups, middle-aged persons (aged 35-44 and 45-54) appeared to show bigger engagement, while the least active were persons above 65 years of age.

Key words:

participation, Poland, participatory budgeting, local government

The role of social media in the communication of political parties and the impact of them on voters’ decisions

The role of using of social media by the Polish political parties to communicate with internet users is still growing. Aricticle shows how voters are assessing credibility of political parties’ communication in social media and how they evaluate the impact of this communication on their decisions on election day. Article is based on polle results which was conducted after the parliamentary elections in 2015. The voter assessed communiation of political parties such as: Civic Platform, Law and Justice, Kukiz’15, Polisch People’s Party, United Left, .Modern, Together.

Key words:

social media, election campaign, parliamentary elections, website

Public Perception of the Door-to-Door Method

The present text discusses the opinions of the Poles on the method of conducting the election campaign, which consists in the election candidate or his/her representative directly visiting homes of voters (the door-to-door method). The objective of the study described in this article was to find out whether the door-to-door method is regarded by voters as helpful to the candidate in the election and to what extent the voters are inclined to receive at their homes the candidate conducting the election campaign.

Key words:

door-to-door method, election campaign

Apart from persuasive function, TV political ads play also important role in obtaining information about candidates and political parties. The cognitive effect of TV political advertising is proved in American and West-European conditions. Presented article is aimed at examining whether TV political spots influenced on voters’ knowledge of candidates and parties contesting in 2015 elections in Poland. The results of research will be presented with reference to sociodemographic characteristics of electorate, political preferences and auto-identifications on left-right scale.

Key words:

political advertising, TV political ads, cognitive effect of TV political ads, 2015 presidential election in Poland, 2015 parliamentary election in Poland

The Internet as an interactive tool that positions political offers

Technological progress has revolutionized the contemporary market and communication in every area and dimension. As a result of the emergence of many new opportunities, targeted messages and increase the volume of marketing messages that reach a wide audience, consumers are becoming more demanding. Gaining their trust is much harder today than ever before. The development of the media caused the appearance of adverse syndromes in the functioning of modern democracy. The focus on capturing the viewer at all costs by the mass media makes public political discourse “howled down” by presented in the media discourse elites. In this situation, the entity due to the fear of being ostracized by society, takes only the topics of the mass media and expresses opinions similar to the opinions expressed by these media. This leads to darkening political discourse. The model that favours the civic discussion of political action is based on the contacts “face to face” thus, model “one to one”. New opportunities for interactivity, above all, increasing availability and ease of use of ICT (information and communication technologies), forces the actors to the political scene to change their approach to the voters. This new approach creates a model of communication very close to meeting “face to face”, but in a virtual environment (Kowalik). The tools of new media not only facilitate positioning of political offers, but also by its interactivity, implement this model in the area of virtual space. This is especially important in the space in which successive generations of voters are present today. According to Adamski (2010: 252), the Internet can not rather be considered only as means of mass media. Instead, it is a kind of communication environment in which both the communication to an individual and the means of mass communication can operate. Batorski, defines the internet as metamedium because it contains, at least it allows to create virtually any media properties. The aim of the article is to point out the importance of the Internet in political marketing by the perception of marketing products and services. This perception comes from the broader analysis, conducted by the author, and contains the issue of penetration methods, techniques and instruments of marketing for the economic social area. Article responds to the hypothesis that politicians do not exploit fully the possibility of building an interactive relationship with the voter via the Internet that can contribute to the success of the election.

Key words:

Internet, political offer, segmentation, offer positioning, social media