"Mniejszości narodowe i etniczne w Polsce w świetle Narodowego Spisu Powszechnego z 2011 roku", red. Sławomir Łodziński, Katarzyna Warmińska, Grzegorz Gudaszewski, Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar, Warszawa 2016, ss. 312

Non-competitive Elections at the Local Level and the Incumbency Advantage of Mayors – Research Experiences from Poland

The objective of this paper is an attempt to answer if non-competitive elections to commune councils in Poland may be the result of incumbency advantage of mayors. The author assumes, that the effects of incumbency advantage of mayors in influence not only the competition for the office of mayor, but also the entire local political scene. These effects may weaken the competitiveness of elections and lead to the cartelisation of local political scenes. In extreme cases, it may even cause the degeneration of political pluralism and lead to non-competitive elections at both the executive and legislative levels. The paper analyses relationships between the competitiveness of elections at the lo…

Polish local democracy in crisis? Non-competitive elections and the supply of candidates for councillors

Competitive elections are the basis of democracy; without them there is no freedom of choice. Elections without competition are associated with the façade nature of elections in undemocratic systems. There are, however, exceptions to the belief that in a democratic system every election must be competitive. We can also observe them in Poland, particularly in small communes with up to 20,000 inhabitants. They take two forms: non-competitive elections of commune leaders and councillors. The latter case is known in the literature under the legal term of filling seats without voting. In 2018, as many as 8% of Polish councillors obtained their mandate without votes. In 2018 compared to 2014, the…