Partycypacja mniejszości niemieckiej w polskim życiu publicznym po 1989 r. – przypadek Śląska Opolskiego
Participation in public life in Poland post 1989 by the German minority community – the case of Opolian Silesia

Summary/Abstract: This article is an attempt to analyse (from a political science standpoint) the issue of the participation of the German minority community in public life in Poland in the post-Cold War period. The author analyses the participation of the Polish German community in light of both the contribution made by the German minority organisation in parliamentary and local government elections and their use of the potential support guaranteed to them under Polish law as a national and ethnic minority. The article presents this discussion in three parts. The first deals with the process of the acquisition of societal recognition by the German minority after 1989, and the entry of this community into political life at local, regional and national levels – through participation in parliamentary elections. In the next part, the author discusses, in a synthetic manner, the overall participation of the German minority organisation in local and parliamentary elections during the quarter century between 1990 and 2015. In the final part of the article, the author focuses on the most crucial results of the enactment of laws related to national and ethnic minorities resulting from the activity of the German minority in the Opolskie Voivodeship.

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