In our series on the Polish left, an interview on the future of politics in Europe and beyond with the sociologist, founder of the Krytyka Polityczna movement in Poland, and director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Warsaw.
Most Poles agree that far right attacks are on the rise in their country, but the government and police are unable, or unwilling, to challenge it.
What happened when two teachers from one of the biggest and most populated cities in Poland, decided to put multicultural Wroclaw to the test; and how they encountered serious problems the minute they actually tried to implement their programme.
As the old, post-communist left struggles with its own failures, the nascent new left already appears to be compromising with a liberal centre - a simple repeat of the old left's mistakes. For the left in Poland to survive, something has to give.
In the first article of our new debate on the Left in Poland, Anna Grodzka MP discusses her party, the Palikot Movement, and its commitment to freeing up and encouraging the entrepreneurial spirit of the Polish people.
The 90th birthday of General Jaruzelski, the military figure who imposed martial law in Poland in 1981, was marked by a flurry of backward-looking, politicised debate. A pity, says Krzysztof Bobinski, for the experience of those times offers potential lessons to many regions around the world.
This sudden emergence of populism was in fact a true sign of modernity. This is what you might describe as a warning shot – and when you see it happen, you have to realize that something is very wrong with democracy. An interview.
Poland has two populisms: “the populism of the dispirited”, mobilising those who struggled to adjust to life in the new Poland; and a form of neo-liberal populism, embracing free market capitalism and excluding those who did not prosper. Both have deep roots in Poland’s history.
Poland's role in hosting a CIA "black site" is now certain. Whether the government will voluntarily admit it is another matter.
One of the criticisms made of the emerging economies is that they are using cooperation to gain markets, political influence and access to natural resources. But that is what the countries of the North are also seeking.
