Politicians in times of Transformation: "transformational Correctness" or Genuine Differences in Perception?

The paper presents selected results of the 1996 study of top Polish politicians-members of the 1993-97 Parliament and leaders of those important political parties which failed to get into this Parliament. Presented results pertain to five aspects of politicians' attitudes: (1) opinions on qualities of persons who should be vs. actually are involved in politics, (2) normatively accepted definitions of politics, (3) visions of the "good state", (4) visions of democracy, and (5) opinions on what defines political views as being either on the "left" or on the "right." As a result, consistently found across all five domains, there is a strong attitudinal similarity among politicians of differing political parties and of divergent political orientations. This finding is interpreted as reflection of a fundamental "track similarity" in the way in which Polish politicians perceive the most important tasks confronting the whole political class in times of systemic transformation. "Transformational correctness" believing that in such times politicians should have (or at least should display) certain views might be a strong force behind this similarity. POLITICANS IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATION PAGE 5 This paper presents selected results from a study conducted in Spring 1996 among Polish parliamentarians and two groups of candidates to parliament who failed to enter it. The study aimed at capturing politicians' perceptions of politics, democracy and functions of the parliament. Some peculiar features of the Polish political arena gave an initial inspiration to the present study. The political scene in Poland is poorly structured because there are very many small parties and alliances between them are constantly shifting. Many of them are using rather slogans then programmes in their attempts to reach electorate. This is particularly true of the right-wing parties which lost the 1993 parliamentary elections. But even the larger parties which are represented in the Polish Seym are internally heterogeneous, especially with respect to their ideological and programmatic orientations. Moreover, there are a number of non-parliamentary parties and large political blocks in statu nascendi which are conspicuous for their radical rhetoric (Wesolowski, 1997). Political scene lacks also well established set of generally acceptable rules of political fair-play. Only quite recently, during the constitutional debate in February-March 1997, were we able to observe some evolution toward stable implementation of the democratic principles of political conflict resolution (Nordlinger, 1970). It is one of the distinctive features of politics in East European transition that politics cannot be defined abstractly, according to some textbook-formula or after some outstanding theorist. Politics is what the majority of politicians or the dominant politicians do. Therefore, designing our research project we put special emphasis on the meaning imputed to the concept of politics by the Polish politicians. When there is no prevailing definition of politics and no clear-cut pattern to follow, then dissonance and inconsistency in the understanding and practicing of politics are likely to emerge. This may be another important feature of the deficiency and weakness of the political scene. In the long run the weakness of the party system may hamper the overall process of systemic change, including the transformation of the economic system and the stabilization of the new democratic institutions. However, for the time being, the economic change is moving ahead, gross national product is growing faster than in other countries of the region, and the fledgling political democracy is functioning quite satisfactorily. * This text was written before Polish election to the parliament in September 1997. Bogdan Mach / Wlodzimierz Wesolowski PAGE 6 We explain the paradox of the lack of consolidation on the level of party system on the one hand and the relatively "normal" performance of the new democratic institutions by the hypothesis of the "transformational correctness" or "transformational compulsion" on the part of those who design and control the transformation process. Our hypothesis says that the Polish political stratum believes that it has an obligation to pursue market and democratic reforms. The implicit reference to "political correctness" in spelling out our hypothesis may do injustice to some sophisticated and deeply motivated politicians, nonetheless it reflects semi-conscious assumptions of many other politicians (perhaps majority of them) who are involved in the day-to-day politics of law-making and lawimplementing. Evidently, the path to market economy and democracy is seen as a "wide forest track" on which several concrete "trails" may be carved in recurring practical activity. Political correctness consists of accepting the selected track as the proper general direction of change. The political groups (political parties or formal political alliances) which we shall analyse may be compared on a number of different dimensions. We have selected five of these dimensions: 1. real and desirable characteristics of politicians; this aspect is reflected in opinions stating who should be vs. who actually is involved in politics; 2. accepted definitions of politics: we shall distinguish between the definition which is thought to prevail among politicians and the „personal” understanding of what politics is; 3. visions of the "good state": which characteristics of the state make it "good"? 4. visions of democracy: aspects which are the most important in democratic system and the degree to which these aspects are present in Polish political reality; 5. characteristics of the "right" and the "left" orientations and the role of factors that facilitate and counteract political agreements. The study was exploratory in nature and particularly sought to answer the following question: how do Polish candidates for professional politicians perceive the new emergent reality and their own role in that reality? We did not ask our respondents to locate themselves on such dimensions as left-wing right-wing or modern traditional. Instead, we wanted to find out how politicians themselves understood such terms as "right-wing" and "left-wing". POLITICANS IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATION PAGE 7 Our analyses were based on the two general assumptions. First, we assumed that the political attitudes of the Polish „political stratum” (cf. Weber, 1958) are not yet fully crystallized. Second, we assumed that under such conditions political attitudes are revealed indirectly in the process of perception, and directly, in the process of evaluation of the reality. The politicians' postulates addressed to the political scene and political life in general should also be a help.