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About Sławomir Sierakowski

Sławomir Sierakowski is founder of the Krytyka Polityczna movement and Director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Warsaw.

The Left Will Decide Poland’s Future

by Sławomir Sierakowski on 1st October 2018

Sławomir Sierakowski

On October 21, Poland will hold local elections, which will be followed by the European Parliament elections in May 2019, national parliamentary elections next fall, and a presidential election in May 2020. Taken together, these four elections may be the country’s most important votes since 1989. As the European Union’s largest former communist state, Poland […]

Will Defunding Hungary And Poland Backfire?

by Sławomir Sierakowski on 4th June 2018

Sławomir Sierakowski

Discussions surrounding the European Union’s 2021-2027 budget are intensifying, owing to many European policymakers’ insistence that regional development funds be disbursed only to member states that are in compliance with EU rules. Under the Copenhagen Criteria, all member states are required to uphold the institutions of liberal democracy, the rule of law, respect for human rights, […]

Germany’s Populist Temptation

by Sławomir Sierakowski on 24th April 2018

Sławomir Sierakowski

Because populism is not an ideology in itself, it can easily appeal to mainstream political parties seeking to shore up flagging electoral support. There are always politicians willing to mimic populist slogans and methods to win over voters, even if doing so divides their own party. This has been proven by Republicans in the United […]

Understanding Populism In Eastern Europe

by Sławomir Sierakowski on 21st February 2018

Sławomir Sierakowski

Eastern European populism differs from that in the West in important ways, owing to the region’s weak liberal tradition, which translates into ineffective checks and balances on government and shallow support for institutions such as freedom of expression and independent courts. Sławomir Sierakowski, the founder of the Krytyka Polityczna movement, explains. Republication forbidden. Copyright: Project […]

Jarosław Kaczyński’s Jewish Question

by Sławomir Sierakowski on 12th February 2018

Sławomir Sierakowski

The Polish government has provoked yet another international crisis, this time by adopting a law that is ostensibly meant to combat the phrase “Polish death camps.” The law targets a geographical shorthand, sometimes used abroad, for the extermination camps that the Nazis established on Polish territory during World War II. But there is more to […]

How Eastern European Populism Is Different

by Sławomir Sierakowski on 8th February 2018

Sławomir Sierakowski

In 2016, the United Kingdom’s Brexit referendum and Donald Trump’s election to the US presidency created an impression that Eastern European-style populism was engulfing the West. In reality, the situation in Western Europe and the United States is starkly different. As political scientists Martin Eiermann, Yascha Mounk, and Limor Goultchin of the Tony Blair Institute […]

Mourning Poland’s Burning Man

by Sławomir Sierakowski on 3rd November 2017

Sławomir Sierakowski

Late in the afternoon on October 19, a 54-year-old man outside the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw distributed several dozen copies of a letter addressed to the Polish people. Then he set himself on fire – a protest and sacrifice that called to mind the protests of Buddhist monks against the Vietnam War […]

Poland After Trump

by Sławomir Sierakowski on 18th July 2017

Sławomir Sierakowski

Donald Trump came, he saw, he conned. The US president’s trip to Poland, a stop on his way to the G20 summit in Hamburg, was arranged at the last minute: Trump’s administration, fearing the reception he would receive in the United Kingdom, decided that Europe’s most pro-American country was a much safer destination. And, indeed, […]

The Female Resistance

by Sławomir Sierakowski on 9th February 2017

Sławomir Sierakowski

Antagonism is mounting between today’s right-wing populists and a somewhat unexpected but formidable opponent: women. In the United States, much like in Poland, women’s rights have been among the first targets of attack by populist leaders. Women are not taking it lying down. Traditional conservatism in the West has largely come to terms with the […]

What Trump’s Win Means For Eastern Europe

by Sławomir Sierakowski on 25th November 2016

Sławomir Sierakowski

The rule of economic liberalism in the West is leading to the demise of political liberalism. A growing number of key countries are experiencing not elections, but plebiscites on liberal democracy – plebiscites decided by the votes of those who have lost out from liberal democracy. In the United States, Donald Trump’s election as president […]

The Populist War on Women

by Sławomir Sierakowski on 27th October 2016

Sławomir Sierakowski

Jarosław Kaczyński and Donald Trump, two politicians who have shocked the world this past year, have mostly gotten away with their outrages. But not anymore. When Kaczyński’s Law and Justice (PiS) party came to power last year, it immediately seized control over key Polish institutions, including the Constitutional Tribunal, the state prosecutor’s office, public media […]

The Illiberal International

by Sławomir Sierakowski on 13th September 2016

Sławomir Sierakowski

Stalin, in the first decade of Soviet power, backed the idea of “socialism in one country,” meaning that, until conditions ripened, socialism was for the USSR alone. When Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán declared, in July 2014, his intention to build an “illiberal democracy,” it was widely assumed that he was creating “illiberalism in one […]

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The Positive Economic Impact Of Germany's Statutory Minimum Wage

With the empirical analyses of the macroeconomic effects of the introduction of the statutory minimum wage in Germany, the IMK tries to determine the short-term and expected medium- to long-term growth, price and employment effects with the help of a macro-econometric model. As a result, economic growth tended to be stimulated by the introduction of the minimum wage. This was mainly due to the higher wages of the minimum wage beneficiaries and a spillover effect on adjoining wage groups. In particular, this benefited people whose low savings rate led to a particularly strong increase in real private consumption. The price increases triggered were negligible on a macroeconomic scale.


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Social Europe Edition Book

Is an unconditional basic income without means-test or work-test compatible with social justice and individual self-worth? Does it open up the space for an end to demeaning labour and a resurgence of voluntary work and cultural life? Is it affordable? This collection of short but compelling essays, all previously published in Social Europe, allows both proponents and opponents to make their case and is designed to extend this vital discussion to a wider audience.


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Sustainable Equality Report. Well-being for everyone in a sustainable Europe

Our societies are in the midst of political, economic, social and ecological crises, which permanently feed into each other, and already undermine democracy. Progressive politics with a common and strong vision are crucially needed. Ahead of the next European elections, the Sustainable Equality Report championed by the S&D Group through its Progressive Society initiative addresses this need, resulting in more than 100 concrete policy proposals by thirty policy-makers and renowned experts.


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Energy scenario: Employment implications of the Paris Climate Agreement

This new report shows that the successful transition towards a low-carbon economy, as defined by the Paris Climate Agreement, is projected to result in a 1.1% growth in GDP and a 0.5% growth in employment, in the EU between now and 2030. This is compared to a ‘business as usual’ baseline forecast. Globally, China is also projected to benefit from a low-carbon transition, but the United States would experience a 3.4% drop in GDP, and a 1.6% decline in employment.


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Social Europe Edition Book

Zygmunt Bauman was a towering intellectual who saw and analysed – right up to his death in early 2017 – the great socio-political changes, often convulsive, in modern western society long before his peers. Here we highlight his prescient insights into what he dubbed ‘liquid modernity’ with 24 chapters on topics ranging from online loneliness via precarity/poverty/inequality to migration, fear of the ‘Other’ and the decline of the nation state. Chronicle of Crisis, 2011-16, written by one of the great chroniclers of our times, will be read and re-read for decades and more to come.


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Work in the platform economy

This paper presents a case study of the food delivery platform, Deliveroo, in Belgium in 2016-2018. The case offers insights on the nature of platform work, the workers who perform it, the preferences of workers, the strategy of the platforms, and the role of local regulations. Interestingly, Deliveroo in Belgium employed workers through an intermediary, SMart, and we also observed the termination of their co-operation in the period under analysis. Using administrative data provided by SMart and a survey of workers, we analyse patterns of work and also focus on pay.


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