Stalemate in Civil Society: Post-Communist Transition in Poland and the Legacy of Socialism

Canadian Slavonic Papers, Sep-Dec 2006 by Holc, Janine P

Michael Magner. Stalemate in Civil Society: Post-Communist Transition in Poland and the Legacy of Socialism. Warsaw: Oficyna Wydawnicza ASPRA-JR, 2003.

Michael Magner's goals with this comprehensive analysis ofcivil society in Poland is to document the depth and breadth of non-state activity throughout Poland's history, and in doing so challenge the tendency of many observers to identify the post-communist era as , the beginning of real associational life. For Magner, Poland has always been characterized by "significant latent structures ofcivil society" (p. 17), although the state has at various times suppressed their full actualization. However, the pull and tug between the crowded, » variegated social organizations persistently appearing in public life, on the one hand, and the state at various moments in history struggling to control and channel independent organizational life, on the other hand, is not, for Magner, the best framework with which to understand the so-called "transition" from state socialism to democracy in Poland. Instead, he develops the argument that "civil society organizations" (a better term for him than ·'. "civil society" because it includes more types of collective action) can adapt, transmute and ^ even penetrate the state itself.

Magner's text invites us to expand our understanding of the term "civil society" so that it encompasses all sorts of public activity. Examples include societies battling illiteracy in the nineteenth century, scouting organizations in the 195Os, "Fighting Solidarity" in the 1980s, and Radio Maryja in the 1990s. His approach reveals the range of relationships publie associations have had with the state at different historical periods, demonstrating that any single organization could be influenced to change its independence over time, through coercion or by strategic choice, dependent always on the situational context. Thus, some organizations established by the state in, say, the communist period may have H dissolved in 1989, but some altered their function to adapt to the new environment and in · this way persisted. One implication is that the "legacy of socialism" is carried not exclusively by workers' attitudes or habituated practices, but by a dynamic constellation of _.,·· associations motivated to survive and for this reason invoking available resources (e.g., former party cadres).

As Magner's sweeping analysis of organizational life in Poland builds momentum, the state itself recedes and inter-organizational tensions become more prominent, especially in the post-communist period. He argues that the presence of civil society organizations (CSOs) should not in itself be taken as evidence of democratization, pluralism, state health, anti-statism, public interest aggregation-any of the prevailing theories ofcivil society. ^ The contribution of CSOs to the Polish political landscape is as diverse as the organizations themselves and indeed they often work at cross-purposes.

Magner makes clear that the proliferation of NGOs in the 1990s, for example, is too often viewed simplistically and uncritically, as an unambiguously positive contribution to Poland's democracy. These NCJOs should be analyzed as agents with motivations, some explicit, some hidden. Similarly, analysis of the Catholic Church's organized activities in Polish history and politics should more carefully distinguish the Church as an institution from Church-sponsored groups. Moreover, the Church's relationship to the state has been complex and even internally conflicted.

The weaknesses of Magner's approach seem to be a byproduct of the strengths. First, the comprehensive documentation of organizational life has a dense, descriptive quality with no accompanying prioritizing framework; in other words, at times the text is undertheorized. The descriptive quality makes the text difficult for anyone other than an expert in Polish studies. This said, many of the details are so specific that they cannot readily be found in the English-language literature on Poland. Social scientists in particular may find a close reading of Stalemate in Civil Society fruitful for just this reason.

Second, rather than articulating a single, focused theoretical approach. Magner draws on and responds to a wealth of scholarly literature continuously and somewhat arbitrarily throughout the text. In some ways the frequent contextualization of data is helpful in drawing connections between the Polish case and broad issues in sociological and political studies. However, the overall result is a haphazard feel to the analysis.

Magner's Stalemate in Civil Society proceeds with an inconsistent or perhaps ambivalent theory of its audience, which may unfortunately frustrate many readers. His challenge to scholars of Poland, however, should not be ignored as a result.

Janine P. Holc, Loyola College in Maryland