Research projects conducted by The Institute of Political Scienceand Public Administration:

Financing institution and duration: National Science Centre 2020-2021

General description: The aim of the project is to examine the level of application of the partnership rule in the process of implementing regional operational programmes (ROP) in Poland in 2014–2019. It has been assumed that the Monitoring Committees (MC) operate as the institutional manifestation of the partnership principle. The analysis focused on five institutional factors: number of Committee meetings in the financial perspective 2014–2020, number of circular voting events, percentage of socio-economic partners in the total number of Committee members, number of working groups within the MCs, as well as the number of meetings of working groups.

Principal Investigator: dr Michał Niebylski
Budget: 29 271 PLN

Financing institution and duration: National Science Centre 2019-2020

General description: The project was aimed to identify the determinants responsible for the emergence of the phenomenon of non-competitive elections in municipal councils. The findings so far show that the emergence of the problem may be favored by the applicable electoral law, in particular Art. 418 § 1 (a division of communes into single-member constituencies), Art. 434 § 1 and 2 (rules for the organization of elections if the number of candidates is equal to the number of mandates to be filled) and Art. 478 § 2 (procedure for nominating candidates for the head of the commune head or mayor) of the Electoral Code. In this sense, regulations create circumstances in which the competitiveness of local elections may decline or disappear. They are not the main source of the problem of uncompetitive elections, the catalog of determinants in this regard may be extended to include social and political conditions, also of an environmental nature. The possibilities contained in the applicable regulations may be used by the authorities of communes. Mayors, taking advantage of a privileged position to other actors of the local political scene. In extreme cases, it may even result in the disappearance of political pluralism.

The implementation of the project will be an important contribution to further scientific exploration of the as yet rather superficially examined problem of the Polish democracy at the local level. The performance of the research will allow the author to bridge a significant gap in the knowledge of current processes determining the shape of the Polish democracy at the local level and will constitute a Polish voice in the international academic debate on the problem of a decreasing interest in local government activities observed in many countries.

Principal investigator: dr Marek Mazurkiewicz
Budget: 11 411 PLN

Financing institution and duration: National Science Centre 2021-2024

General description: The overarching research objective of the presented project aims at analyzing the determinants and dynamics of differentiated integration in Europe from the interdisciplinary point of view. The existing theories of international integration are fragmented and trapped into the disciplinary camps without much dialog between and among them. The starting assumption is captured in the hypothetical statement that the level and scope of differentiation will differ from country to country in various policy areas in line with the time factor as well as a will be determined by a group of factors of socio-political, economic and institutional nature. Against this background, this study derives a number of hypotheses addressing the inter-disciplinary nature of the differentiation in Europe (e.g. “Differentiation increases in polities with proportional more Euro-skeptic citizenry than Euro-friendly population”, “More intra- EU trade (of goods and services) as well as capital and migration flows will result in more pro- integrative attitudes and less differentiation, whereas the less intense economic traffic within the block will result in more differentiation” or “Policy areas with higher integration-related costs will represent greater differentiation, whereas less differentiation will occur in sectors where less costs and risks are anticipated”).

Principal Investigator: prof. Rafał Riedel
Budget:  458 700 PLN

Financing institution and duration: National Science Centre 2017-2020

General Description: The objectives of the research project include the following: 1. Determining the stability (changeability) of the Polish delegation to the European Parliament, 2. Determining the ideological, programme, and operational cohesion of the Polish political parties within the political groups of the EP in the years 2004-2019. The project will contribute to the better understanding of the impact of political parties on the process of European integration and the impact of Europeanisation on political parties.

Principal Investigator: prof. Krzysztof Zuba
Budget: 348 000 PLN

Financing institution and duration: National Science Center 2016-2018

General description: The main objective of the research project is a diagnosis of the possible interdependencies between cultural (national/ethnic) diversity in the communes of the Opole voivodeship and different levels of quality of governance. The project is based on the assumption that the multiculturalism of the Opole voivodeship, mostly experienced in the eastern part of the voivodeship, can be seen as a type of laboratory which gives an opportunity to test the hypothesis concerning impact of ethnic diversity on the quality of local governance. The research will enrich the body of scientific knowledge concerning connections between national/ethnic diversity and development of both civil society and quality of governance.

Principal Investigator: dr Wojciech Opioła
Budget: 121 000 PLN