UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, 7th Annual International Postgraduate Conference

Inclusion Exclusion

16-18th February 2006

Saturday 18 February 2:30 – 4:00: Panel K2: Regime and Government

Jérôme Heurtaux (Lille II University): ‘To be qualified… or not for doing politics: how the rules of inclusiveness and exclusiveness of the political field have been produced during regime change in Poland’

Each political field is producing its own rules, concerning the selection process of the representatives, the relationships between political actors, the definition of political roles, the modalities of its autonomization from other social spaces, etc. Laws relating to political activities – such as electoral rules, law on political parties when its exists, the Constitution reform, etc. –, play a specific role in this process. Yet, its influence depends on different socio-historical factors. In Post-communist societies as in Poland, law has been given a specific importance. During the process of regime change, a large part of the political fights has concerned some specific features of the codification of political activities. The Round-table (march-april 1989) itself has been, for example, marked by negotiations about the content of an electoral law or a law on associations The two law on political parties (1990, 1997), the electoral rules (1991, 1993, 2001), etc. have been produced through very controversial and intensive debates. From an instrument in the hands of the communist power, law has moved to be a pluralized political resource, that political actors use as a tool to secure, as long as possible, their participation in the political competition.

The purpose of the paper is to select some relevant features of the codification of political activities process, in order to examine how the political personal, as "entrepreneurs of norms", have contributed to define some important rules of the political game. Using parliamentary debates, law projects, press, statistics, etc., we shall study in particular the process of law-making that include and exclude some types of political actors. The purpose is to demonstrate especially how and why, in spite of resistances and extreme oppositions, the political elites have managed to exclude, at least in law, independent candidates (from 1989), civic committees (from 1991), trade-unions (from 1997), etc., from the electoral process. How, also, they have built, during a long and controversial process, the monopoly of the "political party form" on the political competition, a process which produces important consequences in terms of selection of the political representatives.

One’s can’t satisfy only with the political debates that led to the production of certain legal rules. Then, the paper deals with the ways how the political actors "do" with the legal rules, "appropriate" them, especially in the context of the electoral campaign. Indeed, when some actors respect the rules, some others circumvent or deny them. That’s the reason why it is worth studying also the different modes of appropriation of legal rules. Not only the legal rules define the rules of the political game, but also the way actors behave in practice. Confronting simultaneously the process of law-making and the process of using the rules by political actors is an original way to understand how one’s has produced, simultaneously, inclusion and exclusion in Polish politics.

First part deals with the early regime change (from summer 1988 to june 1989). During this period, and especially during the so-called "round table", the communist elite and the representatives of Solidarity movement negotiate an electoral law and a law on associations which contribute to exclude individuals (in profit of groups) and oppositional political groups, from the electoral competition.

Second part concerns the 1989-1993 period. We show that the period is marked be the re-legitimisation of the political category "political party". In spite of intensive debates, a PR electoral law is chosen, in order to exclude civic committees from the political process. But no decision is taken concerning the role of trade-unions in the elections. This period, in fact, objectifies the political parties but does not impose their monopoly on politics.

Third part examines the process of specialization of the political field, based a monopoly of "big" parties on electoral fights. We analyse especially some relevant debates concerning a new law on political parties (1997), the content of this new law and the way how actors, whatever they respect or circumvent it (2001 elections), have "to do" with.