Committees in the post‐communist polish sejm: Structure, activity and members

Abstract

The development of committees in the Polish Sejm illustrates the process of institutionalisation in newly democratised legislatures. The Polish committee system is reviewed through documentary sources and three sets of member interviews. While the formal attributes of the committee system closely resembles those of continental western Europe, we also find that the transitional difficulties of new democratic systems, especially member characteristics, stability of both membership and leadership, relations with parliamentary parties and the government, and the place of committees in the legislative process, all lead to uncertainties in the functioning of committees in the Polish Sejm. The newly democratised parliaments of central Europe are adapting their committees, as a communist‐era inheritance, to the conditions of the democratic transition, thereby illustrating institutionalisation as an ongoing dynamic process.