Dr. Artur Kościański from the PAS Institute of Philosophy and Sociology explains how civil society works in Poland and how the Internet contributes to its development.

The paper emphasizes the contemporary relevance of civility, understood as a respectful way of treating the other and recognition of people’s differences and sensibilities. It outlines the sociological importance of civility as being connected with its role as both a normative guidance orienting us towards prescriptive ideals and as an empirical concept with important social impact on identities and actions. The paper examines Adam Smith’s theory which roots civility in a commercial society, analyses Elias’s (1994) history of civility as the folding of the logic of the civilizing process, and it debates theories linking the idea of civility to civil society. In conclusion, emphases are put on the importance of civility, seen as the act of respectful engaging with people across deep divisions, for the quality of democracy.

Contemporary Polish historiography tends to focus predominantly on the main actors of the political transformation of 1989 and there are communist and opposition elites considered as such. In that perspective, Polish society remains a community on which the views of the elites are projected, and the myth about the birth of ci-vil society on the ruins of communism as early as 1989 may serve as a perfect example of such process. In reality, however, the Polish society was overwhelmingly apolitical, uninterested in political par-ticipation and to a large extent socially inactive. There are many reasons which caused this situation: starting from the martial law, which in December 1981 broke the backbone of the mass social movement that was the legal ‘Solidarity’, as well as the very 45 years of communism themselves, during which a social initiative was na-tionalized, and citizens were in fact deprived of it. As a result, the interpretations of the events of 1989 should be demythologized, al-so in order to understand the popularity of the slogans about “end-ing the 1989 revolution”, which still tend to appear in the public discourse in Poland.

Cities are changing before our eyes. Civilization trends should be accompanied by the appropriate management styles of local development. The crisis of civil policy and the power of representation undermines the essence of the current model of democracy and the effectiveness of local policy. Therefore, it evolves towards governance. The influence of civic activity is mostly visible at the local level. Its importance is multidimensional and it shapes the social, economic and environmental conditions of urban life. The article guides the reader through various meanders of research and public debate on engaging inhabitants in local policy. Its aim is to indicate the scope of resident’s influence on the current policy of Polish cities, in particular with regard to the investment policy. The paper is based on the extensive literature studies and the primary research carried out in all of the cities in Silesia voidvoship.

The term “comfort women” refers to the women, mainly from the Korean Peninsula and China, who had been forced to serve as sexual slaves by the Japanese Imperial Army during the Second World War. The problem emerged at the beginning of the 1990s and became an impediment especially in relations between Japan and South Korea. The article analyzes how the “comfort women” issue was approached to by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in both countries. It is argued that while the problem led to invigoration of civil society institutions, it also incited strong nationalist movements. Anti-Japanese feelings in South Korea contributed to lack of flexibility in negotiations with Japan and rejection of the apologies by the government of that country. Such reaction, in turn, weakened the position of moderate NGOs in Japan that tried to compensate the victims, and made them prone to criticism from right-wing movements. The paper examines these complex developments.

The Polish political transformation of 1989 brought significant changes not only on the political and social levels but also on the economic level. The Polish economy, which until then had been a centrally planned economy, had to be rapidly changed into a free market economy. As a result of this, a lot of areas of the economy had to be transformed including the mining industry, especially hard-coal mining. In 1990, there were seventy-one mines in operation in Poland, employing nearly 400,000 people. The process of decommissioning these mines, which continues to this day, began in 1994. Walbrzych coal mines were among the first to be liquidated. Poland has long been dependent on coal for energy production, but the country is facing increasing pressure in the transition to cleaner and more sustainable energy sources in order to reduce carbon emissions and mitigate the effects of climate change in order to fulfil EU climate policy assumptions. Civil society organizations in Poland were associated with the political transformation, as the changes in the system has opened the doors for the social participation in decision-making processes. Civil society organizations in Poland have been actively pushing for policies and initiatives that promote renewable energy, energy efficiency, and the phasing out of coal. However, it should be underlined that the role of civil society in energy transformation is crucial as on the one hand, it should be an advocate of change, but on the other hand, civil society has to take an active part in the discussion on the challenges of the transformation, such a change in the employment structure which is an inevitable consequence of the energy transition. The scope of the paper is to provide a set of tools for the civil society participating in energy transformation processes.