Obywatelska inicjatywa ustawodawcza w systemie przedstawicielskim jako przykład niedopasowania instytucjonalnego
Civic Legislative Initiative in the Representative System as an Example of Institutional Mismatch

Summary/Abstract: The article shows how citizens’ legislative initiative works in Poland and attempts to compare it with similar regulations and practices in other European countries. The basic questions raised by the author relate to real social activities generated by legal solutions in force. The author also considers whether, and to what extent, these activities corresponded to legislators’ intentions to systematically increase the direct involvement of citizens in decision-making and governance in the state. The meditational and empirical dimensions are discussed here.Firstly, legal solutions regulating the described sphere of social reality are analysed and records of the Sejm debates are reviewed to reconstruct the legislators’ detailed assumptions and expectations related to the introduction of this initiative to the legal system in Poland. Secondly, the author shows in what forms, and to what extent, the initiative channels civic activity over time and attempts to assess its effectiveness. Finally, she formulates the hypothesis about the ‘institutional mismatch’ between this form of direct democracy and the existing framework and practice of representative democracy.

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