NGOs and Their Vulnerabilities During the Time of Transition: The Case of Poland

Abstract

This paper focuses on the development of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Poland, as a case study of the sector’s development in the Central and Eastern European countries of transition. It is argued that, in this situation, the development and growth of the NGO sector though shaped, as in the West, by a set of legislative, political, economic, cultural, and historical forces, nevertheless is circumscribed by the specific conditions of political transformation. The nature of and the power with which legislative, fiscal, or organizational forces condition the development of the sector varies according to the scale at which they operate (local, national, or international). Moreover, it is argued that the position of NGOs is significantly regulated by the state’s political ideology, and the formative and evolving character of the latter translates into instability in states’ actions vis-à-vis the nonprofit sector.