HWS News
13 February 2024 • Faculty Ost on Poland’s Political Problems By Andrew Wickenden '09
In The Nation, Professor of Political Science David Ost reflects on recent elections in Poland where voters are attempting to undo “the country’s authoritarian experiment.”
The Polish opposition coalition, which won a “slim but decisive victory in October 2023,” now faces a crucial test of governance that may determine the country’s future as a functioning democracy, as Professor of Political Science David Ost writes in The Nation.
Ost, an expert on Eastern European politics and society, describes how the populist right-wing Law and Justice Party (PiS) attempted to undermine “the principle of a neutral state, staff key institutions with only their own people and sow the political landscape with mines that make it impossible for an opposition to take power even when it does win elections.”
After its win in October, Poland’s new opposition government is now trying to “restore a liberal political consensus,” Ost writes, but the roadblocks of the former ruling party have raised serious questions: “Is there any way out of this legal blackmail? Is there any way to restore democratic rule of law without breaking the law? And who actually decides the law?”
A member of the faculty since 1986, Ost has written widely on Eastern European politics with a focus on political economy, democratization, capitalism and labor and has traveled throughout the region, including about six months in Russia and several weeks in Ukraine. His books include Solidarity and the Politics of Anti-Politics, Workers After Workers’ States, The Defeat of Solidarity: Anger and Politics in Postcommunist Europe (2005); and the special 2015 issue of East European Politics and Societies titled “Class After Communism.” His articles have appeared in journals such as Politics and Society, Eastern European Politics and Society, Constellations, European Journal of Social Theory, Comparative Politics, Theory and Society, Perspectives on Politics, European Journal of Industrial Relations, The Nation, Dissent, Telos and Tikkun. He serves on the editorial boards of several scholarly journals in the U.S. and Poland. In 2005, former Polish President Lech Walesa presented Ost with a special medal issued for the 25th Anniversary of Solidarity.
Pictured above, Warszaw, Poland houses the National Assembly (Zgromadzenie Narodowe,) the bicameral parliment of Poland comprised of the Sejm and the Senate.
