The Opposition Parties in the Polish Parliament

We consider two context factors, when studying the activities of opposition parties in the Polish parliament during the 2007-11 term. The first one is related to the uniqueness of post-communist experience. The 2007-2011 term was the first one when both communist successor parties did not play on the same side of the political scene. The post-communist cleavage (considered as crucial for Polish politics) has been broken for the first time. We will also study party switching and party split. The second factor, of minor importance, is the global economic crisis. Polish case provides an opportunity to compare findings from other countries with those from the only one not really affected by it (1.8 GDP growth in 2009, with the average of ‑5.8 for all EU countries). We consider possible influence of the European crisis, however. We look at the opposition within relatively fresh democratic institutions. The two major parties compete for power, searching support from smaller groupings to be able to govern. With no real impact on legislation, opposition parties strive for representing their voters mainly through reviewing and criticizing the government performance. We study the opposition’s role in the legislation, using records on roll call voting. We analyze both opposition’s input (bills submitted) and its voting behavior depending on bill’s initiator or policy area. Finally, we also ask questions about emergence of a new type of populist opposition, not really interested in governing.