Conflicts, competition and cooperation between territorial self-government units after the administrative reform in 1999: Wielkopolska

ABSTRACT

In 1999, the administrative structure in Poland, similar to that existing until 1975, was restored in the territorial dimension, but in the organizational dimension the competences of individual levels (levels), i.e. local (municipal as early as in 1990), subregional (poviats, which were liquidated in 1975) and in new large regions (voivodeships), were divided between regional self-governments and the central government. In Wielkopolska voivodeship established in 1999, a number of areas of conflict or rivalry between administrative units occurred and they concerned, among others:

a / the way of restoration of poviats pattern in 1999, which could take the form of (1) a return to the division from 1975, (2) a slight modification of the division from 1975, taking into account the functional connections created in the years 1975–1998, (3) a significant modification of the division, selected medium-sized towns;

b / the conception of the management of the voivodeship’s capital (Poznań) together with adjacent municipalities in the form of a metropolitan association and the assessment of the effectiveness of this form of management;

c / taking over rural areas by neighbouring cities;

d / obtaining the status of a town by some centres of the voivodeship.

KEYWORDS:

• Administrative reform
• Poland
• Wielkopolska voivodeship

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Publishers’ Note

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Poviats in English are also called counties.

2 Territorial communities in which regional attitudes developed and formed a new regional identity became in the 1990s the defenders of this administrative division.

3 Budner, Kaczmarek, and Matykowski (1993), Kulesza (2000), Swianiewicz (1995), Chojnicki and Czyż (2000), Karliński, Nelicki, and Płoskonka (2000), Kaczmarek (2001, 2016), Kaczmarek and Matykowski (1993), Miszczuk (2003), Walczak (2012), Dziki (2013), (Powiat i województwo 1992; Projekt podziału 1993).

4 Grochowski (1997), Wollmann (1997), Yoder (2003), Swianiewicz (2002, 2010), Sakowicz (2012), Swianiewicz, Gendźwiłł, and Zardi (2017); Ebinger, Kuhlmann, and Bogumil (2019).

5 Wagstaff (1999), Arsen (2002), Kaczmarek (2005), Brennetot and de Ruffray (2015).

6 in Poland, the Spanish model was generally perceived as a model of broad autonomy in a unitary state, as the former provinces could form regional communities voluntarily.

7 Szymańska 1988; Labasse 1989; Whitehand 1989; Krzysztofik 2006; Sokołowski 2014; Krzysztofik and Dymitrow 2015; Konecka-Szydłowska, Trócsányi, and Pirisi 2018.