Nine - Community development: (un)fulfilled hopes for social equality in Poland

Summary

Introduction

Economists and researchers of social life in Poland have only recently started to analyse the social consequences of the 1989 political shift in terms of wealth distribution and social divisions in particular. In the immediate aftermath of the ‘breakthrough’, as it has become known, optimism (generally speaking) rocketed to unprecedented levels and faith in impending favourable social change flourished. In this atmosphere, ‘dwelling on the growing diversification of incomes and living standards tended to be construed as an attack on neoliberal market reforms at hand’ (Podemski, 2009, p.8). Over the last few years, however, research and – in particular – public opinion in Poland have increasingly gravitated toward addressing social inequalities and attending to transformations in the social structure and the class system.

This chapter seeks to critically examine the role of community development in fostering social cohesion and counteracting social inequalities in Poland. It intends to establish why – despite changing political circumstances and deep political, social and economic transformations – community development in Poland finds itself in an initial, fragmentary and discontinuous stage. The decision to tackle these particular issues is motivated by the fact that community development has occupied a seminal role in the period of political transformation, as formal decentralisation and deregulation policies were launched in many spheres of social life in Poland. Hopes attached to community development concerned first the (re)building of civil society through increasing mutual trust and promoting citizens’ cooperation in the (local) public sphere, and second, empowerment of local self-government agencies. Since 1989, community development in Poland has targeted these two goals with the idea that accomplishing them will further social equality and cohesion. To begin, though, the chapter must be situated in the historical context of contemporary Poland.

The years of the Polish People's Republic (1945–89) were characterised as a period of centralised management over local communities. In this model, all programmes had to comply with the principle of ‘equal’ treatment, which resulted in adopting the same solutions for every community irrespective of specific local problems or needs. Communities were regarded as homogeneous, and differences (ethnic, cultural and social) were ignored. In this context, community development was understood to be the implementation of top-down, standardised political actions.