Abstract: The concept of co-creation of public services, which is the essence of this thematic issue of Polish Political Science Review, is part of the current debate on the modernization of the delivery system in the European Union upon Europeanization and globalization. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to enhance the understanding of the factors that assist the co-creation in public service delivery and its capabilities on the both conceptual and practical level. The article works towards presenting the perspective in public governance by examining key aspects which make the ecosystem of the co-creation of public services. In addition, it is intended as an introduction to this thematic issue, and it is a basis for a better understanding of topics discussed in individual articles by authors representing the European research community and non-governmental organizations. The authors present, in detail, considerations on both approach-oriented perspectives and empirical findings, which refer to various socio-cultural, political and economic contexts in different regions of the European Union.To achieve the research aim, following research questions were developed: What concepts and approaches reflect the idea of co-creation of public services in the European Union' Do they impact the institutional practice' Thus, the first part of the article discusses the key concepts and approaches with the aim to provide guidance and a joint understanding, and then introduces the main notions which make up the ecosystem of the co-creation of public services in the European Union understood as a method (citizens’ participation), a process (social innovation) and a system (public governance). The last part of the article is a reflection on challenges and limitations as well as stimulants that determine its practicing in changing settings and contexts. PubDate: Thu, 30 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT
Abstract: The paper illustrates an empirical research project concerning the co-creation process in Reggio Emilia’s public services and their efforts to reduce childhood obesity. The research is based on a participative evaluation research methodology. The project has been implemented within the framework of the CoSIE project, funded by the Horizon 2020 Research Program — Innovation Action. It has been led by the Local Health Unit (LHU) of Reggio Emilia, a mid-size town in north-eastern Italy, and Cup2000/Lepida, a public/private corporation delivering ICT for health service in the Emilia-Romagna Region.The empirical research has been conducted by the University of Bologna, using a mixed method multi-dimensional strategy and combining the Action-Research tradition with the approach of the Theory of Change.The theoretical framework reflects on the co-creation process, distinguishing between its different phases. In particular, it defines the co-production and the co-design phase, operationalising them with the concepts of System Integration and Social Integration. This linkage allows the analysis of the involvement of institutional stakeholders and final users in the co-creation process.Many factors including the actors’ identity, the participation modalities and the impact of each stakeholder on the service, contribute to the model of co-creation in “the shadow of institutions”, characterised by a low level of Social Integration and a high level of System Integration. PubDate: Thu, 30 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT
Abstract: This paper makes a novel contribution by turning an ‘asset’ lens onto social and technical innovation in the context of the small-scale generation of renewable energy. The authors draw on learning from an international project that aimed to develop innovative technologies for the micro generation of energy using wastes and residues. Variations on innovation that cut across the social and technical are introduced. It is noted that although emanating from different traditions, a common theme is emphasis on a distributed knowledge base in which the roles of innovator, producer and consumer overlap or merge. This implies that the (social) innovation process is also one of co-creation. The authors borrow from international development studies the Sustainable Livelihood Analysis (SLA) framework, which is usually used for working with poor households to foreground strengths and resources rather than needs and deficits. To illustrate the utility of SLA for social innovation at local and community level, findings are presented from UK fieldwork on socio economic barriers and opportunities affecting the feasibility of new community energy generation and enterprise options. The importance and the fragility of human assets are highlighted. PubDate: Thu, 30 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT
Abstract: This paper employs critical discourse analysis to examine how Warsaw citizens (residents) perceived and organized the narratives of their participation in the governance of urban regeneration between 2004 and 2016 and how this evolved over that period. The study reveals citizens’ discursive practices, such as the construction of positive and negative identities of the relevant social actors, the binary opposition between ‘us and them’, the development of new interpretations of urban regeneration, and finally, the gradual elaboration of a model of empowered citizenship. Drawing on the concept of democratic urban regeneration policymaking, the research suggests that in the case of Warsaw, one can speak of a shift from a citizen discourse of rebellious participation in non-deliberative governance towards one of more consensual and empowering participation in more deliberative governance. PubDate: Thu, 30 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT
Abstract: Storytelling is a powerful instrument for system change. Telling stories of lived experience, listening to them, and sharing them contributes to a culture of trust based on dignity, mutual respect and shared values. In this paper we draw attention to public service innovation and co-creation with the people the service is meant for. In the past years, public service innovation was result-and output driven, targeting technological and managerial innovation. Stories of service users revealed the unintended negative consequences of such innovation policies and opened new perspectives for conversations of change based on shared values leading to innovations based on human development and dignity. PubDate: Thu, 30 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT
Abstract: Building upon findings from a strategically selected case study of a pioneering Swedish municipality, Jönköping, a participant in a Horizon2020 project on co-creating public service innovations in Europe (CoSIE), this paper illustrates how local municipalities may take a systemic approach to creating the necessary conditions for sustainable co-creation and assesses whether this illustrates an ongoing paradigmatic shift in service management and culture. The strategic change management efforts in adapting a public sector organisation to a co-creation culture, are assessed against a normative theoretical framework for such a transformative change (Finansdepartementet 2018; Torfing et al, 2016;). The study employs the concept of co-creation to highlight the paradigmatic shift in the approach to citizens as service end users from passive clients to active citizens with resources and capabilities to exert an impact on service design, delivery, and value creation. Th e article offers new insights into how a robust organisation may be moving towards a new public administration paradigm that accommodates co-creation, and especially how a new approach to management based on trust may be strategically implemented as a key factor in facilitating systemic change (Torfing et al, 2016). Against the background of a significant shortage of studies exploring how conditions for such a transformative change are created at different system levels, the article examines a longitudinal real-time study and illustrates new management approaches, strategies, and tools used. The study also contributes a normative framework to explore a shift to more trust-based steering and a more nuanced explanation of an ongoing managerial shift towards a ‘co-creation’ paradigm. It argues that achieving trust-based steering has major potential to facilitate a co-creation culture but that a paradigmatic shift towards such a culture requires congruence in discourses and actions on different system levels and a major transformation of approaches, roles, and relationship dynamics between senior and first-line management. PubDate: Thu, 30 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT
Abstract: This article is a review of a paper titled International political authority: on the meaning and scope of a justified hierarchy in international relations written by Daniel Voelsen and Leon Schettler. The growing power and authority of international organizations has been perceived by many as a sign of a new global order where the concept of sovereignty of the state is replaced with the constitutional principles of democracy, human rights and the rule of law. Recently, a tendency has been observed to consider international organizations as autonomous, legitimate institutions possessing political authority. However, it is rather challenging to find one and the complex understanding of political authority that encompasses all components that construct it. Voelsen and Schettler offer a detailed analysis of the concepts of international authority that are present in the literature and even criticize them. In this article, the conducted research is reviewed and scrutinized in detail. PubDate: Fri, 13 Aug 2021 00:00:00 GMT
Abstract: Hungary joined the European Union in 2004 but started to participate in EU crisis management operations well before. Since the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) was a new policy area at that time, it was an extraordinary experience for Hungary to be integrated into a policy still under development.Aft er briefly detailing the foreign and security policy options Hungary faced right after the transition from communism, this paper analyses Hungary’s contribution to the CSDP. The CSDP is based on two pillars — one operational and the other related to capability-building. The paper first analyses Hungary’s participation in the civilian and military operations launched in the framework of the CSDP. Specifically, it explores the operations Hungary has joined, the kind of capacities it has contributed and the deficiencies and problems that have emerged in this sphere. Second, the paper addresses Hungary’s perspectives and aspirations regarding capability development. Specifically, it looks at how Hungary views the future of the CSDP, especially in light of the country’s participation in permanent structured cooperation (PESCO), the central element in the EU’s joint defence capability development.Methodologically, the paper employs qualitative content and discourse analysis, drawing on relevant secondary literature and analyses of official EU and Hungarian (legislative and non-legislative) documents. Surveying Hungary’s participation in EU crisis management operations since the beginning of the CSDP, the paper finds it has joined 42 per cent of civilian and 70 per cent of military operations. These have been in the immediate neighbourhood but also distant locations (Africa, Central Asia, and the Near East). At the same time, distinct challenges have hampered Hungary’s contribution to certain operations, such as a dearth of foreign language skills and a lack of strategic airlift and mobile logistics capabilities. The paper also finds that regional defence cooperation was not the central driver of cooperation within PESCO projects. Overall, Hungary is somewhere in the middle of the pack in terms of the number of PESCO projects it participates in. PubDate: Fri, 13 Aug 2021 00:00:00 GMT
Abstract: In his recent book, Capital and Ideology, French economist Thomas Piketty devotes the final chapter to the changing dimensions of political conflict in Western democracies. The goal of this article is to confront some of his findings with mainstream political science. Piketty’s arguments are confronted with the findings of scholars within political science. To begin the article, we establish two research questions in the introduction. We then delineate the gradual reversal of the educational cleavage and subsequent emergence of the multi-elite system according to Piketty. He demonstrates how the classist conflict prevailing in the 1950s and 60s morphed into the Brahmin Left versus the Merchant Right system, with the “Left” being supported by the more educated electorate and the “Right” being supported by the relative well-offs. In the following two sections, we deal with his arguments regarding the causes and the outcomes of this gradual shift. Firstly, he proposes two hypotheses regarding the metamorphosis of the Left: the social and nativist hypotheses. We argue that neither of the two hypotheses is actually a comprehensive explanation and we propose alternative that takes into account the changing structure of social classes. Secondly, with regards to the outcomes of the reversal of the educational cleavage, Piketty considers one of the consequences of this shift to be a social-nativist trap, a combination of pro-redistribution policies and cultural nativism. We have concluded that the social-nativism is not a trap per se as much as an inevitability resulting from the less advantaged class feeling abandoned in the multi-elite political conflict. PubDate: Fri, 13 Aug 2021 00:00:00 GMT
Abstract: This paper discusses Poland’s policy approach regarding the space-sector. The paper covers the period from 2012 to the end of 2019, i.e. the period of Poland’s membership in the European Space Agency. It tackles the institutional development of the sector. The paper’s main thesis is that positive developments occurred during the analysed period supporting development of the Polish space sector, which however has not resulted in transparent responsibility-division or their concentration in a single ministry. On the contrary, competence disputes have intensified. These disputes do not strengthen the position of the space sector, nor the evolution of the Polish Space Agency. The statutory changes have actually led to the degradation of the significance of the Polish Space Agency and its transition from a space policy integrator to the expert support structure of individual ministries. Therefore, there is no strong entity capable of effective coordination and promotion of Polish space policy in the country and abroad. PubDate: Fri, 13 Aug 2021 00:00:00 GMT
Abstract: The change of the law regarding the Institute of National Remembrance conducted by the right-wing government of Law and Justice in Poland probably led to the most serious diplomatic crisis in Polish-Israeli relations since their resumption in 1990. The whole situation has been widely described in the Polish and Israeli media. The role of this article is to analyse the content of two newspapers: Polish Gazeta Polska Codziennie and Israeli Israel Hayom, between 25 January and 31 March 2018. The two right-wing-leaning daily newspapers selected by the authors are perceived as not entirely objective due to open support for governments in their countries and as openly expressing their opinions, often in a controversial manner. It makes them a perfect case to compare the narrative about the diplomatic crisis between Poland and Israel. PubDate: Fri, 13 Aug 2021 00:00:00 GMT
Abstract: The effects of the observed climate changes constitute a real problem in the surrounding environment due to the scale and frequency of natural catastrophic events. This state of affairs prompts various types of entities, including institutions, to undertake adaptation measures as part of environmental policy, both at the international and local levels. In Poland, the entities responsible for the implementation of this policy at the local level are, inter alia, the voivodeship, the poviat and the commune authorities. The authors present the Urban Adaptation Plans (MPA for short) prepared in 44 Polish cities, which can be an example of a document where the main goal is to increase the adaptability of cities to a changing climate.On the basis of the identified list of types of adaptation measures provided for in all prepared Urban Adaptation Plans, the pragmatic nature of the implemented adaptation measures has been demonstrated, which will not cause any changes to basic attributes of the social and ecological system of cities. Thus, 44 cities in Poland will manage the process of gradual adaptation up to 2024, i.e., until when the Urban Adaptation Plans will require updating. PubDate: Fri, 13 Aug 2021 00:00:00 GMT
Abstract: The question of how satisfied people are with the workings of their national democracy has oft en been criticized but is still the international standard measurement of satisfaction with democracy (SWD). In this paper we explore the benefits of adding questions about remembered and expected satisfaction ‘ten years ago’ and ‘ten years from now’, as were asked in the ISSP citizenship surveys of 2004 and 2014. Based on the data from seventeen European countries, we find that national samples:■ do not show universal ‘nostalgia’,■ produce good guesses of past satisfaction but show no futurist insights,■ give retrospective judgments that do not correlate well with changes in expert opinions,■ give retrospective judgments that do not correlate well with changes in the share of the populist vote.At the individual level we find:■ that in almost all countries expected satisfaction with democracy ten years from now is a better predictor of political trust and feelings of political efficacy than satisfaction with democracy today,■ that in almost all countries expected satisfaction with democracy ten years from now is a better predictor of the preference for populist voting (in one national case study),we note that Poland is the only country in our sample where citizens were, in 2014, retrospectively more positive about the development of their democracy, probably due to the severe economic conditions Poland faced in 2004.Overall, we do not find evidence for the relevance of retrospective judgements, but some evidence for the relevance of prospective judgements. We recommend further research into individual changes in present satisfaction and perceptions of these changes to better understand the frames of reference of ‘satisfaction with democracy today’. PubDate: Fri, 13 Aug 2021 00:00:00 GMT
Abstract: In this article, we compare the solutions which the largest Polish cities apply to effectively manage and administer public urban transport. We pay attention to the legal, administrative, and political limitations of current activities; we also analyse public transport strategies in terms of plans for the future. We state that large Polish cities prefer to entrust public transport services to fully dependent companies, do not seek to diversify service providers and do not allow the coexistence of public and private operators. Our research is the first comparative study which has used the eleven largest Polish cities as a research sample. Its results are important not only for decision-makers, but also for entrepreneurs in the transport industry. Not only does our analysis prove that, currently, urban transport in the largest Polish cities is carried out mostly by companies which fully belong to cities, but also that the future strategies of the target state will not be determined by political decision makers at all, or no significant changes are foreseen. In the largest Polish cities in the future, the tramway sector will be fully controlled by municipal companies; in the bus transport sector, private carriers will be able to count on a maximum of 20–30% share of transport work while the railway sector will remain under the control of regional administration, not local urban administration. PubDate: Thu, 17 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMT
Abstract: This article will analyse which areas rural and urban Local Action Groups (LAGs) in the Kuy-avian-Pomeranian Voivodeship function in. The thesis of this research is : LAGs are a bottom-up tool for local management. The first part presents the main assumptions of public management approaches and shows the LEADER approach and Community-Led Local Development as a form of bottom up approach in the process of public management on the local level. Then comparison analysis between rural and urban LAGs will take places. Similarities and differences were identified in the legal framework of their existence, the actors who create them, the possibility of receiving EU financial support and within the e fields of their activities. These were all analysed, along with financial activities implemented in the rural and urban LAGs in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship through 2014–2020. PubDate: Thu, 17 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMT
Abstract: Until 1989 Wałbrzych was an important industrial center of Lower Silesia. The system transformation which started in 1989 led to the liquidation of enterprises in the mining, ceramics and textile industries. The city began to be perceived in Poland as a city of high unemployment, illegal shallow coal mines or political corruption.The city authorities began to wonder what events from the past could be helpful in creating its new image. They undertook a number of activities in this regard. The questionnaire was to assess the effectiveness of the city’s activities. It was carried out among secondary school students, students and the employees of Wałbrzych city institutions, teachers of Wałbrzych schools and councilors of the City Council. The survey was conducted in October and November 2019. The respondents indicated mainly the activities of the authorities aimed at personalizing local historical policy. The city authorities undertook a number of other initiatives in the field of local remembrance policy. The surveys showed that the initiatives were not known to the inhabitants of Wałbrzych. In the minds of respondents, there were only two historical events, namely May 3 and November 11. To a small extent, they participated in historical ceremonies present in national historical politics (e.g. the Day of the Cursed Soldiers). Apart from the figure of Princess Daisy, most respondents were unable to identify other people important to the region. Although there are a number of organizations and associations in the city, only the Princess Daisy Foundation conducted the eff ective and visible activities in the field of local remembrance policy. Although the respondents declared their interest in history, their knowledge at the local level is low. PubDate: Thu, 17 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMT
Abstract: The Urban Lab concept is aimed at creating innovations and expanding citizens’ participation in decision-making processes. This article presents the main premises of this concept, the specifics of its implementation in the conditions of Polish cities, the structure, objectives and types of activities of Urban Labs as well as functions they may perform in stimulating cooperation of the city with enterprises, scientific institutions and non-governmental organisations. PubDate: Thu, 17 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMT
Abstract: In migration research, one can observe a turn towards locality and interest in the role of municipal authorities in multi-level migration governance. Migration governance can be defined as set of legislation and regulatory measures, as well as actions developed and implemented by public and private actors, at transnational, national and local levels. Integration strategies include long-term programs, as well as short-term and ad hoc activities. Migration and growing diversity in cities bring both challenges and opportunities for the local authorities. The local responses to the settlement of migrants should not be underestimated because of the focus on integration, this can build upon a common sense of belonging. This paper analyses the institutionalization of local integration strategies in two Polish cities: Gdańsk and Wrocław. The goal is to analyse the relations of diverse actors in a multi-level governance context. It looks at the aims of the strategies, tools, target groups and the definition of integration. PubDate: Thu, 17 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMT
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