Political Participation Rates in Poland

In a successful democracy, I think everyone agrees with me that it is important that the people of the country participate in the politics. The political participation is therefore explained as the different political activities that has the goal to involve citizens in the political process, which can influence the plans and actions of political leaders. When I looked at the average turnout at elections in Poland over the past years, I found that the political participation of Polish citizens in the elections has an average of 50,96 percent.

What causes the low average voter turn-out?

After the fall of the communist regime in 1989, Poland politically and economically evolved very fast. Furthermore, in this period the majority of Polish citizens was very content with the democratic form of government. I will attempt to explain why Poland now experiences democratic backsliding after a successful democratic reformation.

The first and foremost reason for this democratic backsliding can be traced to the political literacy of Polish citizens. However, in order to understand the relationship between political participation and political literacy, I will first explain what political literacy is. It has several definitions, but my colleagues and I refer to it as the knowledge and understanding of the political activities and problems. This allows the people of a country to successfully act as a citizen, for example, by voting and is also understood as the political participation of citizens. Therefore, there is a clear correlation between the political literacy and the political participation of citizens.

Now, how does political literacy have an impact on the average voter turn-out in Poland. It is recognised that the socio-economic status of a citizen has consequences for the educational attainment of citizens and, therefore, the political involvement. In Poland, a part of the citizens do not receive sufficient education, jobs or health care. Furthermore, these citizens do not have stable incomes and do not profit from the improved infrastructure. Therefore, it can be recognised that these citizens have a low socio-economic status. Hence, due to this low socio-economic status, these citizens have low political literacy, which causes them to refrain from participating in elections.

Another argument for the low political participation that can be linked to the socio-economic status of Polish citizens is the democratic deepening. The democratic deepening that was expected after the economic and political reforms after 1989 has faced several challenges. One of the reasons is that the economic reform caused the growth in the inequality gap between the rich and poor. This divided Poland in a created a small, well-educated society on the on hand, and an uneducated, poor society on the other. Because the group with a low socio-economic status is very large, this explains the low political participation. The education of the Polish citizens, another factor of political literacy, is further discussed by my colleague.

There are even more factors that have a consequence for the political literacy and political participation of Polish citizens. However, the continuing poor circumstances that lead to the factor of low political literacy (mentioned in the About Page), namely a low socio-economic status, causes low political participation, and in turn, is responsible for the democratic backsliding of Poland. This will, I presume, have even worse consequences for the Polish citizens.

*Featured Image from Warsaw Institute