The Polish Raison d’État. Democratic Sovereignty vs the Liberal Minimum

Abstract

The paper discusses Liberalism after Communism by Jerzy Szacki, in the light of the commonly accepted research method (including by Szacki himself), and his idea of history and the general attitude towards the past. The paper focuses on how Szacki tackles the problem of transporting the liberal ideas onto the Polish ground after 1989; on how he discloses the dilemmas and restrictions of Polish liberalism; on the historical dimension of Polish liberalism; and on whether the liberal Weltanschauung is universal or incidental. In the end, the paper attempts to examine the problem of the liberal minimum in Szacki’s analyses, in the context of the Polish raison d’état and the question of populism, as well as the current political crisis in Poland.