Governance and Public Management Practice in Poland

Assuming this office of Prime Minister (Deputy Prime Minister, minister) I do solemnly swear to be faithful to the provisions of the Constitution and other laws of the Republic of Poland, and that the good of the Homeland and the prosperity of its citizens shall forever remain my supreme obligation (So help me, God.) Art. 151 of Constitution of the Republic of Poland

Synthetic Characteristic of Empirical Research

The aim of this chapter is the empirical verification of realisation of public management from the point of view of deliberate selection of 12 Polish Prime Ministers, who subsequently exercised the office from 24 August 1989 to 16 November 2007 (100 %)—Table 6.1.

Despite the repeated invitations and arrangements, the Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who governed between 2007 and 2014, did not take part in the interviewbased research.

Quantitative statistical research in relation to economic growth, unemployment, inflation and public debt were calculated for the period of 1989–2014 on the basis of International Monetary Fund's GFS (Government Finance Statistics) corresponding to the range of classification of the whole public financial sector in Poland.

Due to the fact, that individual Prime Ministers have governed in different periods of socio-economic transformation, it is necessary to present the main juxtapositions of state's economic parameters. Those parameters by numeric/percentage representations on the one hand indicate successes, failures, possibilities and threats, on the other hand clearly reflect economic development juxtaposed with GDP synthetic indicator, which was made through the whole transformation period of political transformation with various indicators of inflation, unemployment and public debt (Table 6.2, Figs. 6.1 and 6.2, Table 6.3, Fig. 6.3). This means, Table 6.1 Characteristics of interviewed Prime Ministers

No.	Name	Year of birth	Period of governance	Age at time of taking the office
1.	Tadeusz Mazowiecki	1927	24.08.1989–4.01.1991	62
2.	Jan Krzysztof Bielecki	1951	4.01.1991–6.12.1991	40
3.	Jan Olszewski	1930	6.12.1991–5.06.1992	61
4.	Waldemar Pawlak	1959	5.06.1992–10.07.1992	33
4.	Waldemar Pawlak	1959	26.10.1993–7.03.1995	33
5.	Hanna Suchocka	1946	10.07.1992–25.10.1993	46
6.	J,ozef Oleksy	1946	7.03.1995–7.02.1996	49
7.	Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz	1950	7.02.1996–31.10.1997	46
8.	Jerzy Buzek	1940	31.10.1997–19.10.2001	57
9.	Leszek Miller	1946	19.10.2001–2.05.2004	55
10.	Marek Belka	1952	2.05.2004–11.06.2004	52
10.	Marek Belka	1952	11.06.2004–31.10.2005	52
11.	Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz	1959	31.10.2005–14.07.2006	46
12.	Jarosław Kaczyn´ski	1949	14.07.2006–16.11.2007	57
13.	Donald Tusk	1957	16.11.2007–22.09.2014	50a

aWithout interview Source: own

that the economic growth has been achieved with various mechanisms and tools of influencing the economy, which affected the economic turnover and its participants.

A limitation to the research is purposeful abandonment of the detailed analysis of the sources of growth for the synthetic approach to the GDP indicator. The research does not include either statistical restructurisation analysis of state expenditure, tax system or economic turnover development in free market economy. Firstly, it results from the fact that the main aim of the research is not the analysis of the whole shape of economic activity, but indicating the main trends accompanying the transformation process in the process of public management. Secondly, the key and priceless element of the research are direct interviews with heads of subsequent governing teams in Poland. They allow a step-by-step investigation of ways of thinking, planning and decision-making dilemmas and other key problems associated with the executive authority and to help understand the practical dimension of public management.

Table 6.2 Selected economic indicators for Poland in the years 1989–2014

Name of Polish Prime Minister	Prime Miniester's period of governance (days)	GDP (per capita)					Unemployment			Inflation
Name of Polish Prime Minister	Prime Miniester's period of governance (days)	GDP for governance period (million $)a	Average daily GDP for governance period (million $)b	Lowest GDP growth (%)	Highest GDP growth (%)	Change at the end of governance period (%)	Lowest during governance period (%)	Highest during governance period (%)	Change at the end of governance period (%)	Lowest during governance period (%)	Highest during governance period (%)	Change at the end of governance period (%)
Tadeusz Mazowiecki	496	307,051	619	-3.71	7.73	0.01	0	11.80	11.80	70.30	585.80	-180.80
Jan Krzysztof Bielecki	336	197,819	591	-3.71	-3.71	0.00	11.80	11.80	0.00	70.30	70.30	0.00
Jan Olszewski	181	111,310	612	-3.71	4.45	4.26	11.80	13.60	1.80	43.00	70.30	-27.30
Waldemar Pawlak	35	21,529	615	4.45	4.45	0.00	13.60	13.60	0.00	43.00	43.00	0.00
Hanna Suchocka	472	297,690	642	4.45	6.59	6.18	13.60	16.40	2.80	35.30	43.00	-7.70
Waldemar Pawlak	495	345,962	707	6.59	8.95	14.58	11.40	16.40	-3.05	27.80	35.30	-7.50
J,ozef Oleksy	336	250,920	774	8.26	8.95	7.63	12.36	13.35	1.00	19.90	27.80	-7.90
Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz	631	547,738	868	8.26	8.98	8.24	11.26	12.36	1.10	14.90	19.90	-5.00
Jerzy Buzek	1445	1,202,275	832	3.49	8.98	19.44	10.59	18.26	7.01	5.50	14.90	-9.40
Leszek Miller	923	1,040,478	1127	3.09	8.10	15.39	18.26	19.94	0.71	0.80	5.50	-2.00
Marek Belka	546	754,002	1381	6.81	8.10	6.38	17.75	18.97	-1.23	2.10	3.50	-1.40
Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz	255	389,521	1528	6.81	9.88	8.81	13.84	17.75	-3.91	1.00	2.10	-1.10

(continued)

Table 6.2 (continued)

Name of Polish Prime Minister	Prime Miniester's period of governance (days)	GDP (per capita)					Unemployment			Inflation
Name of Polish Prime Minister	Prime Miniester's period of governance (days)	GDP for governance period (million $)a	Average daily GDP for governance period (million $)b	Lowest GDP growth (%)	Highest GDP growth (%)	Change at the end of governance period (%)	Lowest during governance period (%)	Highest during governance period (%)	Change at the end of governance period (%)	Lowest during governance period (%)	Highest during governance period (%)	Change at the end of governance period (%)
Jarosław Kaczyn´ ski	489	812,241	1661	9.66	9.88	8.99	9.60	13.84	-4.24	1.00	2.50	-1.50
Donald Tuskc	2488	5,179,549	2076	2.51	9.88	27.42	7.12	10.97	1.37	0.90	4.30	-1.10

aGDP calculated for the actual number of days as Prime Minister of Poland on the basis of annual GDP

bDaily GDP calculated on the basis of the actual number of days as Prime Minister of Poland and the GDP calculated for the period of government

cData for the table from the following sources contain data current to 2013 and from January 1st 2014 are forecasts

Source: own, on the basis of: International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook Database, April 2013, Paryz˙ 2013, imf.org/external/pubs/ft/ weo/2013/01/weodata/weorept.aspx?sy¼1989&ey¼2015&scsm¼1&ssd¼1&sort¼country&ds¼.&br¼1&pr1.x¼69&pr1.y¼5&c¼964&s¼NGDP_R% 2CNGDP%2CNGDPRPC%2CNGDPPC%2CLUR%2CLP&grp¼0&a¼#notes (Date of access 29.03.2014), Gł,owny Urza˛d Statystyczny, Roczne wskaz´niki cen towar,ow i usług konsumpcyjnych w latach 1950–2013, Warszawa 2014, stat.gov.pl/gus/5840_1634_PLK_HTML.htm, (date of access 29.03.2014), Kancelaria Premiera, Okresy rza˛d,ow premier,ow III RP, Warszawa 2014, https://premier.gov.pl/ludzie.html#poprzedni-premierzy (date of access: 29.03.2014)

6.1 Synthetic Characteristic of Empirical Research 157

Fig. 6.1 Daily GDP in million $ for each Prime Ministers of Poland. Source: own on the basis of IMF data, World Economic Outlook Database, April 2013, Paris 2013, imf.org/ external/pubs/ft/weo/2013/01/weodata/weorept.aspx?sy¼1989&ey¼2015&scsm¼1&ssd¼1&so rt¼country&ds¼.&br¼1&pr1.x¼69&pr1.y¼5&c¼964&s¼NGDP_R%2CNGDP%2CNGDPRP C%2CNGDPPC%2CLUR%2CLP&grp¼0&a¼#notes (Date of access 29.03.2014)

Fig. 6.2 The growth of public debt during the governments of Prime Ministers in Poland (billions PLN). Source: own, on the basis of: Kancelaria Premiera, Okresy rza˛d,ow premier,ow, op. cit.; GUS, Roczne wskaz´niki cen towar,ow, op. cit.; International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook, op. cit

The analysis of Pearson correlation between GDP, inflation, unemployment confirmed a negative value (-0.399) between GDP and inflation at the level of bilateral significance level of 0.05. In addition, there is a Pearson correlation of (-0.468) between inflation and unemployment of bilateral significance at the level

0.05 (Fig. 6.2), which indicates that the decline in inflation contributed to the growth and effectively eliminated the economic instability.

Table 6.3 Pearson correlations between GDP, inflation, unemployment in annual terms for the years 1989–2014 (forecast for GDP, unemployment for the years 2013–2014, inflation for 2014)

		GDP	Unemployment	Inflation
GDP	Correlation coefficient	1.000	-0.109	-0.399a
GDP	Significance (bilateral)		0.596	0.043
Unemployment	Correlation coefficient	-0.109	1.000	-0.468a
Unemployment	Significance (bilateral)	0.596		0.016
Inflation	Correlation coefficient	-0.399a	-0.468a	1.000
Inflation	Significance (bilateral)	0.043	0.016

aCorrelation is significant at the level of 0.05 (bilateral)

Source: own on the basis of: Kancelaria Premiera, Okresy rza˛do,w premiero,w, op. cit.; GUS, Roczne wskaz´niki cen towaro,w, op. cit.; International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook, op. cit

Minimum inflation Maximum inflation Change of inflation at the end of the Governments

Fig. 6.3 The percentage change in the inflation rate during the governments of Prime Ministers of the Republic of Poland. Source: own, on the basis of: Gł,owny Urza˛d Statystyczny, Roczne wskaz´niki cen towar,ow i usług konsumpcyjnych w latach 1950–2013, Warszawa 2014, stat.gov.pl/gus/5840_1634_PLK_HTML.htm, (Date of access 29.03.2014)

At the beginning of political transformation there was hyperinflation, which only in the period of governance of J. Buzek (1997–2001) was reduced to single-digit value, and in recent years (2004–2015) remains crawling (5 % per year)—Fig. 6.3.

Only introduction of statistical grounds reflecting the role of state in economy,

especially in neutralisation of negative outcomes of market functioning and decisions made in consequence of certain events, allows to present the qualitative research through synthetic responses of Prime Ministers on public management. They were made on the basis of the accepted methodology reflecting state through the perspective of institutions being its framework (Table 6.4).

This summary should be analysed together with the interviews (Sects. 6.2.1– 6.2.12). In majority of cases understanding of the context depends from the necessity of learning about not only the response of selected respondent to the

Table 6.4 Determination of the main perception of the Prime Ministers of the Republic of Poland in the years 1989–2007 in the field of management of the state

No.	Prime Minister	State as organisation	Planning	Organisation	Managing	Social	Prime Minister's authority
1.	Tadeusz Mazowiecki	– Serves citizens – Strong – Able to act	– Coordination and managerial function of Prime Minister – Strategic planning – Joint and several liabilities of the Council of Ministers	– Structures of state – Balance of executive authority – Cutting bureaucracy – Stopping distorting the institution – Strengthening of the civil service	– Challenge – Carrying out constitutional changes – Self-motivation	– Ensuring achievement of goals – Overcoming resistance to action – Reward for good work	– Strong position of Prime Minister – The primacy of national interest above party – Government to govern – Influence of public opinion on the governing process – Media disturb the work of Prime Minister
2.	Jan Krzysztof Bielecki	– Built by citizens – Free market	– Common goals – Iron discipline – Unrealistic tasks – Planning like crisis management – Systematic adjustment plans	– Delegating responsibility to local governments – The creation of market economy institutions – Creation of offices	– Ability to communicate – Learning management institutions – Overcoming problems	– Monitoring rate of transformation – Assessment of legal system – Supervision of work	– Cooperation with President – Compromise in appointing Ministers – Chancellor's model is good
3.	Jan Olszewski	– The story of his history – Opportunity to build a state from	– Development of solutions in a small group	– Management of state assets – Reduction of state	– Financial and economic management	– A necessary condition to check the status of the state and the degree of	– Large authority of Prime Minister – Making responsible

(continued)

No.	Prime Minister	State as organisation	Planning	Organisation	Managing	Social	Prime Minister's authority
		the perspective of generations – State is responsibility – State basis or lack thereof is the educational system	– Development of guidelines for projects – Planning like crisis management	administration – Preparing state for development challenges – Creating legal regulations	– The need to reconcile political interests – Prompt decision making – Chronic lack of time – Resignation from less important goals	tasks implementation – To stop wild action	decisions – Bad law impedes governance
4.	Waldemar Pawlak	– Using the subsidiarity principles – State as subsidiarity organising global order – Organisational community	– Directional character of strategy – Decisions to be consulted with professionals – The basis should be economic progress and decline in unemployment – Decisions depend on circumstances	– Use of the best practices – Reluctance of institutions to modernize – Political promotion of positive evolution – Reluctance to changes in administration – The possibility of creating a socioeconomic system	– Skills of communication and knowledge management – Leading others – Coordination at a high level of generality – No time for details – Implementation of quality – Social dialogue	– Ability to change the general trends in the country – Checking the applicability of the Pareto principle – Preparation for unexpected scenarios	– Insufficient authority – Chancellor's model of Prime Minister's authority – Limited ability to manage
5.	Hanna Suchocka	– Form of organisation of society	– Setting strategic goals	– Change or assessment of the existing state	– The need to seek agreement	– Monitoring and evaluation of the	– Power depends on political structures

– Inevitability of formation of supranational communities

– Globalisation processes will not change the essence of the state

– Owns identity and traditions

– The creation of market economy

– Assignment of the basic objectives of sub-targets

– Search for a compromise

– Dilemmas associated with decisionmaking

– Reduction of government

– Proper functioning of local government

– Stable

administrative structures

– The need to make concessions

– Motivating discouraged people

– Making unpopular decisions

– Public opinion poll

reforms and introduced changes

– Chancellor's model of government

– Lack of mechanisms to ensure continuity of authority during political crisis

– Taking into

account the voice of society

J,ozef Oleksy

– Form of organisation of society

– Protection against external threats

– State is institutions

– Owns

instrument of coercion

– Is necessary, particularly at the strategic dimension

– Requires

expert support

– Lack of planning is improvisation

– Deregulation of the state

– Increasing local government tasks

– Delegating

official tasks outside

– Cutting bureaucracy

– Creating a citizen-friendly state

– Breaking heaviness government apparatus

– Exchange of

personnel

– Elimination of party structure of authority

– Overcoming the inertia of the state apparatus

– Checking the degree of realization of the goals

– To reduce the share of foreign capital in the privatization process

– High power

– Consultative responsibilities make it difficult to govern

– Party staff selection weakens management

Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz

– Lack of universal definition of state

– Need to build a common economy

– The main role of the Prime Minister in making decisions

– Early conflict

intervention

– Development of functional structure of the state

– Reorganization of the necessary structures

– Elimination of party structure of authority

– Apolitical Prime Minister

– Motivating

members of the

– Opportunity to clarify the difficult issues

– Measure of economic growth

– Verification of

– Very high authority

– Taking into account the voice of society

– Exposed to strong

lobbying

(continued)

No.	Prime Minister	State as organisation	Planning	Organisation	Managing	Social	Prime Minister's authority
		– EU countries do not return to the nation-state model – Europe is not making its potential	– Saving and good use of time – Requires a broad public consultation		government to act – The concept of governance	effectiveness of planned activities	– Bilateral cooperation of president and government – Accepting the role of arbitrator – Balancing the authority of the Prime Minister President is good
8.	Jerzy Buzek	– The best form of organisation of society – Democracy – Free market economy	– Maintaining continuity of actions – Possibility of complete change – Clearly defined goals – Early intervention	– Based on civil service – Apolitication of civil service staff – Cannot impede actions	– Common achievement of previously planned goals – Politicization of staffing – Motivating people – Responsibility for future	– Checking the degree of implementation of all planned tasks and goals – Requires less expenditures with good human resources	– Strong enough authority – Prime Minister consultation with President – Coalition consultation
9.	Leszek Miller	– Global society organization – Organization open to the world	– State management plan – Development of projects by consensus – Decisions that require	– Decentralization of state functions – Strategic decisions at the central level – Strengthen the authorities of local government	– Development of competences – The most important is human factor – Need for explaining what	– Checking the degree of implementation of all planned tasks and goals – Evaluation of human factor	– High power – Limitation of the role of president – Taking into account the voice of society – Not taking into account all the

large amounts of money or of setting coalition

– Improving the functionality of the office

the reason of state is

influence on the outcomes of actions

opinions

– Too large parliamentary interference in the change of government bills

10.

Marek Belka

– Mismatch of the state and market actions

– Limited sovereignty of the state in economic matters

– Poor self-

organization of Polish society

– Matching people to jobs

– Review and definition of changes

–

Abandonment of a decision taken at risk

– Ensuring the efficiency of actions

– Crisis situation is able to assess the degree of organization of the state

– Creating institutional cooperation

– Strengthening the civil service

– Continuity of state action

– Use of fiscal conservatism

– Checking the degree of implementation of all planned tasks and goals

– In the case of coalition—control is made difficult

– High power

– Basic task of government is administration

– President should

be counterbalance to the Prime Minister

11.

Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz

– Form of organisation of society

– Tripartite division of authority

– Proper operation

– Preparation of activities

– The ability to

achieve goals

– Improvement of social security

– Working out compromises

– Large number and dispersal of non-governmental organizations

– Need to consolidate government

– Need for the designation of institutions coordinating actions

– Elimination of bureaucracy and the reluctance of officials to change

– Checking the degree of implementation of all planned tasks and goals

– Full authority of Prime Minister

– Close cooperation

of Prime Minister and President

– Lack or Prime

Minister's intellectual base

– More difficult possibility of regrouping tasks

(continued)

No.

Prime Minister

State as organisation

Planning

Organisation

Managing

Social

Prime Minister's authority

12.

Jarosław Kaczyn´ski

– Form of organisation of society

– The strongest

entity

– Authority over citizens

– The main role

of the transaction policy

– Widespread

legitimacy and value

– Focus on the common good

– Overview of the tasks and goals of ministries

– Developed vision and governance plan

– Prepared way of decisionmaking

– Consultation and consensus

– Competitively proper separation of authorities

– Need to

strengthen the authority of Prime Minister (expert support)

– Demanding policy

– Acceleration and

change of the legislative process

– Need to change the electoral law

– Need to work under pressure of the media

– Mobilization of

all ministers and deputy ministers of the government to work

– Realization of real rather than fictitious strategy

– Uniformity of policy

– Checking the degree of implementation of all assigned tasks and goals

– The need for an assessment based on the facts, not the media

– Enables the effective elimination of irregularities and pathology

– Large authority of Prime Minister

– Parliament support of Prime Minister and cooperation with President

– Long governance

period of presidential authority instead of Prime Minister's authority

Source: own

question, but also the necessity of comparing it to corresponding responses of other respondents and even all the responses to the questions.

It was stated, that further conclusions, which could have presented the analysis of focus in various management functions, will not necessarily reflect canon of meaning in the context of the terms associated with even greater standardization of basic concepts.

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