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In the 1980s, the communist authorities of Poland, forced by the dire economic and social situation, undertook a number of attempts to reform the centrally managed economy. By deciding on limited liberalization, they simultaneously secured the economic foundations of the government, which was dominated by the public sector. The Polish version of perestroika was, thus, implemented in order to balance the economy. However, like the Soviet model, it was a tactical move, essentially to consolidate the centrally managed economy. The economic hybrid that emerged from the partial reforms, contrary to the intentions of its creators, did not weaken, but rather strengthened deep crisis phenomena. Their inhibition became the main goal of the democratic government formed in 1989 and the radical economic reforms associated with the name of Leszek Balcerowicz. The departure from the reforms of the centrally managed economy and the undertaking of consistent market transformation resulted in measurable economic successes. They were particularly visible against the background of the economy of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, whose authorities had abandoned comprehensive and consistent market reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The management of social housing is an interdisciplinary activity whose efficiency is determined by the availability of complete and up-to-date real estate data. Reliable and valid information is essential for the smooth operation of all public administration agencies. In Poland, social housing is managed as part of the existing municipal housing stock. However, many Polish municipalities lack comprehensive information systems capable of supporting of social housing management by integrating multiple distributed databases and providing complementary information for the efficient execution of core management functions. For this reason, an original concept of a social housing management information system (SHMIS) with universal features that could be applied on the national scale should be proposed based on research findings and effective management practices. The management of social housing could be significantly improved by providing municipalities with access to real estate data from public registers incorporated into a single Land Administration System (LAS). Poland is currently in the process of developing the national LAS, referred to as the Integrated Real Estate Information System (IREIS). The Polish LAS is scheduled for implementation in 2019. A pilot system is currently operated by selected administrative units. The main aim of this study was to develop the SHMIS concept as part of the Polish LAS. The study was preceded by an analysis of the degree of data overlap between both systems. The required data for effective support of social housing management were identified and grouped for the needs of the analysis. The analysis demonstrated considerable data overlap between the SHMIS and the currently implemented IREIS, which indicates that the proposed SHMIS should constitute an integral sub-module of the IREIS environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poland has never been as homogenous as its ethnolinguistic composition would lead one to believe. In fact, it is every bit as diverse as countries with sharp linguistic, racial, or religious divides. The only difference is that the conflicts and tensions expressed elsewhere between ascriptive communities are experienced in Poland within a shared label of identity. Just because two Poles speak the same language, get baptized in the same church, and identify as Polish does not mean that they define Poland in the same way. In reality, there are at least two Polands today, and the conflict between them has intensified in recent years. This cultural divide is more complicated and crosscutting than any handy categories of rich and poor, young and old, urban and rural, Catholic and secular. There are tendencies that link these various categories, but there is a deeper clash that cuts right through them. At the root of this division is a chasm of incomprehension involving the fundamental and rival concepts of merit and community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable development is a multi-dimensional phenomenon, and its assessment is not easy and cannot be measured and expressed by one characteristic. The authors made an attempt at designing a synthetic measure thanks to which changes in sixteen regions of Poland between 2003 and 2013 are presented with respect to the level of sustainability based on three components: social, economic, and environmental order. This enabled an analysis of the structure of sustainable development using the shift-share method. The force of impact of the internal structure was defined, along with external determinants of individual regions, which have influenced the level of sustainable development. The performed analysis showed that the indicators of sustainable development, both for individual regions and for the whole of Poland, had not changed significantly in the determined two moments of time (2003 and 2013). However, the increase in indicators for individual regions is greatly diversified, and in the majority of provinces has a negative character with a slight value. In several regions, positive values can be noticed, whereas the increase in their values is high. This diversity testifies to the uneven development of Polish regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte: Internationale Zeitschrift für Theologie und Geschichtswissenschaft is the property of Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article discusses contemporary Polish ‘right to the city’ movements and their potential for creating change, described here as the potential for ‘alternative modernization’, a term rooted in the alterglobalist movement. The waning of the latter’s energy has fostered the emergence of local movements focused on protest and reform. In Poland, both an historical anti-urbanity and monologic patterns of regime transformation (the latter producing the ‘anti-city’) have become points of reference for urban movements and their demand for alternative patterns of modernization, called here altermodernization. The altermodernist model focuses, among other things, on discourses and praxis of decommodification, institutional reform and visions of a ‘well-organized city’. The article is primarily a product of desk research and the author’s own materials based on in-depth interviews collected in six Polish cities as well as participant observation and content analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses Polish political and social transformations after the end of World War I. The impact on Polish politics and society of the retreating and advancing battle lines of war is scrutinized along with the social and political impacts of Polish labor strikes and the author draws parallels between the events of 1918 and those of 1989.

Podlasie, a historical and geographical region in north-eastern Poland, serves as both an external (interstate, European Union) and internal (ethnic, religious, linguistic, cultural) borderland. The primary aim of the article is to present historical and political conditions, national and cultural diversification of the Podlasie region, an analysis of current changes in ethnic and religious structure of the inhabitants as well as analysis of the consequences of changes of geopolitical circumstances in mutual relationships between different communities. Borderlands, especially those highly diverse in terms of nationality, religion, language and culture, are often identified with unstable, conflict-prone areas with past and present antagonism between nations sharing them. This belief has intensified over the last few decades when nationalisms, separatist tendencies and historical conflicts got sparked again in numerous regions of Central and Eastern Europe. However, not all European borderlands have to be stereotypically identified with areas of conflict, resentment and even hatred among the peoples inhabiting them. This is the case, among others, in Podlasie, where there are centuries-old traditions of cohabitation of diverse communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the specific character of gentrification processes in Polish cities, with a particular focus on Warsaw, Łódź and Gdańsk. It explains the forces and factors behind gentrification and highlights its types and effects as well as the gentrifiers. It also addresses the problem of the absence of reprivatisation law in Poland. The paper concludes that gentrification processes in Polish cities occur in a different way and less intensively than in Western cities. They often have a localized character, mostly in the form of new-build gentrification carried out by developers and state-led gentrification with significant participation of the public sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the article is to present selected study cases of the urban visibility changes which took place in post-1989 Poland as a result of the redefi nition of population minorities. While the largest part of the analysis concerns Warsaw, other examples of large urban areas, such as Wrocław, were taken into consideration too. The relevant research was based on raw demographic and statistical data issued by state agencies, confronted with Polish scientifi c literature of a mostly sociological origin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the implementation of educational tasks in rural and urban-rural municipalities in Poland. For several years education policy has been one of the key problems of the Polish municipalities due to constantly growing costs of educational tasks. This problem particularly affects small municipalities in which education absorbs most of their budgets and which limits development opportunities of municipalities in other fields. The article presents one of possible forms of local education policy rationalization, which is the transfer of educational tasks to non-public stakeholders, with particular emphasis on social organizations. In the article, the author analyzes the most engaging form of stakeholders' participation in education policy, which is recognized as an example of co-production of public services. Thus, the concept of co-production constitutes the theoretical framework of the article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivation: The study of poverty is extremely important because of the negative impact it can have on the economy. Improving the situation of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion is one of the most important objectives of the social policy both in Poland and in the European Union. The aim is consistent with such official Polish documents as: Strategy for the Development of Human Capital 2020 National Development Strategy 2020. Aim: The aim of the article is to assess the risk of poverty and social exclusion in Poland in the period 2006-2015 and to compare the degree of risk of poverty in Poland and other European Union countries. Results: The study shows that the risk of poverty in Poland decreased in the analyzed period. In comparison to the EU countries, Poland made the greatest progress in reducing the risk of poverty. Dynamics of changes in reducing the risk of poverty in Poland was the highest among the EU countries. The scale of the risk of poverty in Poland in 2006 was one of the highest (with a higher risk noted only in Latvia). The situation in Po-land in 2015 indicated that in 2015 the degree of risk of poverty was lower in Poland than in many EU countries: Portugal, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Cyprus, Italy, Spain, Greece, Ireland, Estonia. In addition, the world economic crisis of 2008-2010 did not affect the risk of poverty in Poland. In most EU countries during the crisis the risk of poverty increased, however in Poland it declined. This undoubtedly allowed for improving the situation in Poland to a higher extent than in other EU countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early 2000s, Poland has experienced growing social and political interest in the recent past. This paper studies the impact of the creation of the Institute of National Remembrance (Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, IPN) on Polish historiography of communism. Historiography is the outcome of struggles between peers; historians’ positions within the field of history inform their interpretations of the communist past. Historians’ activities within the IPN are both shaped by their own social properties and by the functions assigned to this policy instrument. I first examine the IPN’s position within the field of contemporary history. Then, the most recent developments of historiography are illustrated via the analysis of a sample of publications, taking into account the social properties of their authors. Finally, I draw provisional conclusions about how state intervention in the academic field might affect research outcomes, by promoting an unambiguous image of Poland’s communist past. The result is a distorted representation of the People’s Republic, based on the totalitarian paradigm, only rarely producing innovative research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While Poles generally supported a radical approach towards truth revelation, on its own the issue did not appear to be especially salient. Poles wanted to move on from debates about the communist past and felt that the process of achieving transitional justice was a potentially destructive one. However, they also felt that they had a right to know about the past of their political elites and that collaboration with the communist security services was an especially reprehensible form of pro-regime activity. Moreover, in the public mind truth revelation was often considered in conjunction with other, more salient issues. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background. The issue of physical activity of pregnant women, including determining proper recommendations, has been a broadly discussed topic in international circles. Objectives. The aim of this paper is to present the suitability of the Pregnancy Physical Activity Questionnaire (PPAQ) for measuring the physical activity of pregnant women in Poland. Material and methods. The study included 162 questionnaires, which were filled in correctly by pregnant women (third trimester) who took part in childbirth classes organized by a childbirth school. As a research method, the PPAQ was chosen. The PPAQ allows pregnant women to self-assess their physical activity in the current trimester. The questions investigated time devoted to various types of activity related to household/caregiving, transportation, sports/exercise in their free time, occupational activity and inactivity. Based on the average weekly energy expenditure, each of these activities is classified by intensity: sedentary activity, light-intensity activity, moderate-intensity activity, vigorous-intensity activity. Results. While using the PPAQ in Poland, it is recommended to reduce the number of questions from 36 to 35, by removing question 18 (time of mowing lawn while on a riding mower). It is also advisable to convert American units of measurement into metric units, which are used in Poland. Conclusions. The Pregnancy Physical Activity Questionnaire in Poland may fill the gap in studies devoted to the physical activity of pregnant Polish women. With this questionnaire, it is possible to determine energy expenditure in terms of intensity and type of physical activity. It also serves as a reliable tool that can be used for international comparisons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sensitive topics in qualitative fieldwork typically include health problems, sexual practices, addictions, illegal activity and death (Campbell 2002; Lee 1993; Liamputtong 2006). Yet, the situation of memories of intergroup violence committed by ingroup members on outgroups - where a community is confronted with the fact that their fellow members have harmed members of other groups - should also be considered as a sensitive topic. An especially sensitive situation occurs when research is conducted in a small community with relatively strong social control maintained through networks of relationships between its members. The aim of this paper is to explore the sensitivity of respondents in their remembering and forgetting of the harm done by members of their own group to the "Others" in local communities, to diagnose the difficulties in conducting fieldwork on this topic, and to present various methods of overcoming them. This article is based on experience from a project dedicated to the social memory of violence committed by Poles against members of other ethnic groups within local communities during World War II. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the issue of Public Relations (PR) and its use in Polish social welfare institutions. At present, we can observe that Polish social welfare industry faces serious problems related to its public image. This is due to: insufficient experience in Public Relations, lack of systemic actions towards improving the prestige of social work as well as creating the image of social welfare. The text offers a comparison of beliefs and opinions expressed by the employees of the Polish public welfare institutions; these opinions and views are related to PR and communication practices applied by their organisations. The opinions were collected through a nationwide survey. The results include very interesting findings: for instance, they confirm the thesis about the lack of regular and constructive communication and image-related activities carried out on the institutional level and low evaluation of their effectiveness. The conclusions, however, also point out that the respondents revealed that they are highly aware of the importance of PR operations as well as of the correlations between these operations and how their institutions are seen by the general public and by the media. This may be interpreted as prospects and chances for further application of communication tools in social policy institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article talks about the history of the Polish People's Republic which is considered to be a time of dictatorship and political dependence in Poland. Topics discussed include the book "Seeing Through the Eyes of the Polish Revolution: Solidarity and the Struggle Against Communism in Poland" by Jack M. Bloom, the political transition of 1989 which led to Polish democracy and independence, and social polarisation in the 1990s due to unlimited growth of aggressive capitalism.

Agricultural land covers more than half the area of metropolitan areas in Poland, and is therefore particularly prone to the influences of the processes associated with their development. The aim of the study was to analyse changes in agricultural land cover within the metropolitan areas of Poland for the years 1990-2012; and to capture their dynamics, types and directions. The percentage share of the total study area, for each of the forms of agricultural land cover and their changes were traced, with the spatial distribution of the changes also being determined. The results of the study show that in metropolitan areas, agricultural land cover is undergoing transformations that do not result in the loss of agricultural lands, or that involve a decrease in surface area due to their change into anthropogenic forms of land cover. The greatest transitions occurred between 2000 and 2006 and were observed in the outer zones of metropolitan areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores ‘integrative encounters’ between immigrants and Polish people in Warsaw. Rather than focus on new arrivals we pay attention to the integration experiences of the host population in recognition that this is a group who have been relatively neglected in the literature. Post-socialist European countries where population mobility was circumscribed during the communist era and as a consequence became perceived as relatively homogenous white societies but which are now seeing a rise in immigration, have been largely neglected by non-domestic scholars. In Poland organised group activity is an important means to provide the established population with an opportunity to encounter migrants because such encounters are less likely to occur in everyday spaces. Drawing on research with a Warsaw based NGO which runs a football league to bring Polish people and immigrants together, we argue that attention needs to be paid to the issue of ‘motivation' to participate in integration projects and to the significance of sociality. In doing so, we suggest that creating the conditions for spontaneous connections to develop, even in contrived projects, is a way to overcome indifference to difference. Here, we highlight the qualities of football as a bridging activity to facilitate integrative encounters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores whether Catholic organisations, understood as moral communities, may act as intermediary institutions of control between markets and the post-socialist Polish state in constraining shadow economy activities of religionists who professionally run small and medium-sized companies. The interview data show that religious control efficiency is determined by the integrative potential of the specific religious organisation with which the analysed entrepreneurs were associated. This study also shows that the intertwining of an otherworldly orientation and dense social capital implies numerous ambiguities, which may produce destabilising effects for companies' organizational efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Comparative Economic Research is the property of Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Lodzkiego and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Comparative Economic Research is the property of Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Lodzkiego and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article is aiming to compare the two European Galicias: the Spanish one, being one of the autonomous communities of Spain, and the historical-cultural region located in the East-Central part of Europe. Is there, apart from the coincidence of names which may serve as a good starting point for the play of words and anecdotes on 'national characters', something more which links these two distant geographic territories? From the socio-cultural perspective it is worth to have a look at the sphere of social ideas and myths which accompany discussions on the two Galicias. Is there in the complicated and quite elusive (in the sense of uncountable, changing and subjective) matter of local traditions, daily life patterns and customs, any link between the two European Galicias? In this short article, I will try to refer to certain stereotypes, cultural myths and anecdotes came to being in the sphere of social concepts. They were created, on the one hand, by the media (in particular in the context of the unification of the richer Europe with its poorer part), on the other-by individual human experiences, in whose lives dual Galician adventures entwined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers a rhetorical account of the "leap into politics " by the Polish Communist authorities that led to the political transition of 1989. In contrast to accounts of the transition focused on "dialogue" between the authorities and the opposition, this article examines the move toward dialogue from a dramatistic and dialectical perspective -- that is, in terms of the shifting principles of motivation, changing rhetorical identities of the key actors, and associated transformations of terms that characterized the transition from a monocentric ideal of the state to a "political" one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

April 10th 2010 is undoubtedly one of the most important dates in modern Polish political history. 96 high Polish officials, including President Lech Kaczynski, died in an airplane crash in Smolensk. It can be assumed that this tragedy had a great impact on political attitudes. Unfortunately, very few authors in Poland conducted empirical research on this topic. The paper addressed the issue of probable psychological consequences of Smolensk Crash on political attitudes in the light of terror management theory. On this ground it can be said that arousing of mortality awareness after April 10th should result in a widespread feeling of terror. In other words, "threat of annihilation" should occur as a consequence of recalling those who died in Smolensk in the media. One of the major mechanisms to manage such anxiety is construction and maintenance of cultural worldviews, like ideologies. It leads to the hypo thesis that when threatened, people are more likely to think and act in accordance with the cultural worldviews they share. Political leaders can be seen as guards of these cultural worldviews and if it is so, then trust and support for the politicians should increase when mortality salience occurs. Some of the public opinion research conducted in the first days after Smolensk crash are used to illustrate this hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the article is to illustrate the social order preferred by the Polish together with their assessment of the existing social inequalities. On the basis of the empirical material collected among the sample of 1000 respondents, the findings show manners of their definition of equity, perception of discrepancies between the ideal of equity and the existing real status, together with their assessment of the existing differences in the treatment of rich and poor people by various institutions (banks, police, hospitals, courts). The article also describes the causes of social inequalities as indicated by the respondents and their assessment of state policies in reference to them. The article concludes that 25 years after the collapse of 'real socialism', Polish society presents a firmly egalitarian awareness that is in conflict with the current market order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]