Trzy generacje polityczne regionalnej elity samorządowej
Three Political Generations of the Polish Regional Elite

Summary/Abstract: The article presents the results of the empirical study on regional elite in Poland done from the theory of elites perspective. The sample consists of 400 councillors of the 2014-2018 term of regional (voivodships’) assemblies and town councils of big cities. Research questions relate to the exchange of elites (circulation-reproduction thesis) and the differences in structural characteristics and the ways of the recruitment into the regional elite between three political generations. The initial premise was that political generations formed in different phases of systemic change and having various tasks to perform would be significantly different. A distinction between three political generations has been drawn: transformational (started political activity before 1997), post-transformation (in 1997–2003) and the EU generation (2004 or later). The key findings indicate that an exchange of elites is limited. Moreover, there are relatively small differences between generations in both structural properties and the ways of recruitment into the elite. We hypothetically associate this with the fact that representatives of transformational and post-transformational generations do not reflect the characteristics of their generations during these generations’ formation period (before 1997 and before 2004, respectively). They reveal the features of only those who survived in the regional-political positions until 2017.

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