Poland: Attempts At Defining Aid By Solidarity, Democracy And Development;

June 3, 2015 16:13 MAC/HORKY Page-iii 9781137505408_01_prexxii

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Development Cooperationof the ‘New’ EU MemberStatesBeyond Europeanization

Edited by

Ondrej Horký-HluchánHead of the Research Department, Institute of International Relations,Prague, Czech Republic

Simon LightfootSenior Lecturer, University of Leeds, UK

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2Poland: Attempts at Defining Aidby Solidarity, Democracy andDevelopmentElzbieta Drazkiewicz-Grodzicka

On 20 March 2012 the Polish Council of Ministers adopted Poland’s firstMultiannual Development Cooperation Programme. Its title ‘Solidarity,Democracy, Development’ reflects the ongoing debates which surroundPolish aid, and the problem with finding an agreement in defining howthe Polish Official Development Assistance (ODA) should look. As I willdescribe in this chapter, since the process of establishing Polish Aid com-menced during the EU accession process up until now, Polish foreign aidprofessionals are trapped between two competing paradigms. Their workis described in terms of ‘democracy promotion’ and ‘sharing transitionexperiences’: a trope which is fulfilling national sentiments and intereststhrough involvement in Eastern Europe, and a modality of aid in which‘development’ is understood as the ‘eradication of poverty’ campaignwith a special focus on Africa. This is a trajectory strongly encouragedby the EU and the OECD, and implemented with the support of the‘Europeanization’ discourse. The respective weights these trajectories arereceiving in the Polish ODA are well illustrated by the 2012 financialallocations; the countries of the Eastern Partnership received allocationsworth PLN 110.4 million (approx. USD 39.42 million), while for Africancountries the corresponding amount was PLN 9.1 million (USD 3.2 mil-lion). The Asia-Pacific region and Latin America receive only marginalinterest from Polish aid programmes (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of theRepublic of Poland, 2012a, 2012b). Yet while the state institutions areclearly prioritizing the ‘Solidarity’ and ‘Democracy’ paths, this does notmean that the other course – ‘Poverty Eradication’ – is of marginalimportance. Interestingly, the supporters of the ‘African trajectory’ aregaining stronger visibility and expanding their scope of activities with

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every year. In a particular way, both of these discourses/trajectories arebeing reconsolidated in a specific narrative in which aid is conceptu-alized as a gift, and becoming a donor as a way of fulfilling the socialobligation to give.

In this chapter, through juxtaposing modalities of Polish aid withthe discourses surrounding them (as they are on display in the policypapers and official state and NGO documentations, but also in informalcommunications and interviews), I will examine how Polish develop-ment cohorts play out the country’s internal and external politics in theprocess of establishing the development apparatus of a country which,since around 2000, has been defined as an ‘emerging donor’. This pro-cess, as I argue, reflects contemporary shifts in global power relations,and Poland’s attempts to realign itself within the post-Cold War worldorder. The classification of Poland as a ‘new/emerging donor’ crafts theidentity of the state and society as historically and politically detachedfrom international politics, in particular from those societies which rep-resent contemporary aid recipients. At the same time it defines the stateand its members as being in an inferior position vis-à-vis other interna-tional actors, who are defined as ‘established donors’ and presented asmore experienced in development politics. However, this hierarchy ofdonors is not only accepted but also reproduced by Polish developmentactivists, both on the NGO and the state side, who often manipulatethe complicated history of aid in order to formulate their own dis-courses of development and promote chosen trajectories and modalitiesof development assistance.

As I will argue in this chapter, for a country still battling against itsimage as a representative of the ‘Second World’, which is neither of theEast nor of the West, and presumed to be detached from global relations(Janion, 2006; Wedel, 1998), attempts to reverse the aid chain constitutean effort to redefine its position within the global hierarchy of givers andreceivers. Participation in the sphere of overseas development aid allowsPoland to establish itself in the international arena and claim the statusof a modern member of the exclusive ‘First World’ club.

Emerging or re-emerging as a donor?

Indeed, Poland only recently became defined as an ‘emerging new non-DAC donor’. In recent decades, the country changed its position in thedevelopment chain several times. In the past, as a member of Comecon,Poland was involved in international assistance as a donor represent-ing the Soviet Bloc. In this role the state was especially active in the


PROOFElzbieta Drazkiewicz-Grodzicka 45

1970s, in the period known as the ‘Gierek era’ – Edward Gierek was theGeneral Secretary of the Polish United Workers’ Party (PZPR) between1971 and 1980. Back then Poland was supporting the New Interna-tional Economic Order (Baginski et al., 2009). Between the 1960s andthe 1990s, Polish engineers and specialists were involved in modern-ization projects in Iraq, Sudan, Mozambique, Angola, Cuba and othercountries, delivering modern designs for state buildings, factories, sportand leisure centres. (Jałowiecki, 1978; Stanek, 2010). Another form ofPolish assistance was medical aid (Knopek, 2008; Kuczynski, 1990, p.10; Stanek, 2010). At the same time, Poland was host to many studentsfrom developing countries.

While the 1970s were marked by Poland’s vibrant involvement as adonor, the country’s own prosperity and generosity were enabled by thelarge scale borrowing that Gierek engaged in throughout the decade.For these reasons, Poland could be defined as an aid recipient. Between1971 and 1975, Poland’s foreign debt increased from USD 100 million toUSD 6 billion, and continued to rise rapidly (Sachs, 1994; Simatupang,2004). As a result, by the end of the 1970s, Poland faced extremelyserious economic disturbances coupled with political unrest. From thebeginning of this crisis, foreign donors supported the Polish societymostly through food and medical aid (Kreihs, 2007; Strekowski, 2005;Waliszewska, 2005). Special efforts were also dedicated to supporting theopposition movement and Solidarity activists (Chwalba, 1997; Jagiełło,1993; Ochojska & Bonowicz, 2000; Riechers, 2005). Since the collapseof the communist regime, however, a new wave of aid has been directedtowards the country (Wedel, 1998). Since 1989 the aim of Polish foreignassistance has been the transformation of the economy and the socio-political sphere (Balcerowicz, 1992; Sachs, 1994). Special emphasis wasalso put on the transformation of the society as a whole, with the ideaof civil society-building being a paramount objective (Buchowski, 1996;Dunn & Hann, 1996).

As a result of these processes, since the beginning of its great transfor-mation in 1989, Poland has been talked about as a country making its‘return’ to Europe. The future Poland was envisaged as a modern mem-ber of the First World, of the West (Buchowski, 2001; Wedel, 1998).However, today the divisions between the East and the West are stillapparent, and the anxiety of being second class citizens of Europe, andthe historical identification of Poland as a product of the Second World,continue to occupy a prominent place in public debates (Buchowski,2006). The same rhetoric is applied externally: Western observers stilldefine Poland in highly patronizing terms as ‘a country getting to grips


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with being normal ( . . . ) [which] still feels apart from “the West” andis struggling with poverty’ (Garton Ash, 2011), and, moreover, is onlyat ‘the start of the road to the 21st century’ (Elliott, 2011). From bothinside and outside perspectives, there seems to be a never ending storyin which Poland continuously tries to ‘make up for lost time’, whilechasing after the ideal of modernity embodied in the ‘ideal westernmodel’.

Significantly, Poland’s involvement in development as a donor coun-try, a practice which had been on hold since the crises of the 1980s,and was re-launched in the mid-1990s, becomes yet another attempt atwrestling with those external and internal identifications. The specific(though surely not exceptional) Polish context provides an interestingcase study of how recent geo-political changes (in particular the end ofthe Cold War) were experienced by an actor who, as a consequence,was exposed to dramatic socio-political change. In development dis-course, this process of change is formulated as the transition ‘from beinga recipient to being a donor’, from being ‘detached’ from internationalpolitics to becoming an ‘important international player’ at the centreof globalization processes. It is additionally reflected in discourses of‘Europeanization’, ‘reciprocity’ and ‘transfer of transition experience’.

Doing development, becoming a donor – becoming a(Western) European

One of the most visible perspectives in promoting and discussing thePolish international engagement points to the EU accession process.Virtually every debate or publication produced (both in Poland andexternally) in the last six years dealing with the subject of ‘why Polandshould get involved in development’ invokes the date of 1 May 2004,when Poland joined the EU (Baginski et al., 2009; Czaplicka, 2007; Min-istry of Foreign Affairs, 2005, 2006; Wojtalik, 2008). This date is treatedby many developmentalists (both those from the MFA and those rep-resenting NGOs) as a milestone marking the beginning of the Polishaccession not just to the EU, but to the community of ‘states deeplyengaged in development aid’ (Wojtalik, 2008, p. 3).

In these narratives, the fifty-year Cold War history of development,which created the very categories of the First, Second and Third World,and shaped the politics of development (Escobar, 1995; Gardner &Lewis, 1996; Rist, 2002), is omitted. One of the most striking char-acteristics of that process is the rejection of Poland’s role as a donorduring the Cold War, and the suggestion that Poland only recently



started to emerge as a donor, and that its contemporary involvementin the world has nothing to do with its past activities. Of course themodality of the Polish developmental engagement has changed sincethe Comecon times: for instance, today, beyond state-led assistance wecan also observe a growing involvement of Polish NGOs across theworld. Yet, despite the suggestions made by the supporters of the ‘no-history’ approach, there is also some visible continuity with the past,For instance, even though the scale of investment has changed, most ofthe Polish projects implemented in Africa continue to focus on infras-tructure (construction work); the definition of Angola as one of the firstAfrican priority recipients of Polish ODA is not incidental, but ratherrepresents a continuation of the international relations that were startedduring the socialist period (cf. Czaplicka, 2007); finally, the current valueof Polish ODA is possible mostly because of the debt relief for loans thatwere issued before 1989.

At the same time, we can observe some new directions in which Polishaid is being aimed, that is, towards countries that previously consti-tuted Soviet Republics. The reorganization of the international arenaafter the end of the Cold War redefined the position of societies thathad been previously active as Comecon members, yet were now identi-fied as low- and middle-income countries. Hence they took their placeon the DAC list of ODA recipient countries. Among them are many pre-vious USSR republics which have become independent countries (forinstance, Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Georgia, and Moldova). As aresult, societies which in the past represented the interests of the Sovietbloc and provided aid to countries dubbed as the ‘Third World’ are todaythemselves struggling with their identification as underdeveloped andin need of assistance. While indeed the positioning of those countrieson the DAC lists might be a novelty, and at the same time involve-ment in these regions might present a new developmental trajectory forPoland, their subjection to modernization practices enforced by a pow-erful metropole is, as Ssorin-Chaikov (2003) observes, a process whichwas also characteristic of the Soviet era.

Yet, instead of this complex and multidimensional consideration ofthe contemporary Polish developmental engagement and its history, inrecent times we are being presented a one-dimensional vision whichresults in the country’s identification as an ‘emerging donor’. Both ana-lysts and development workers themselves are making the suggestionthat it is exactly the end of the Cold War which paved the way for Polishdevelopmental cooperation. In the following sections I will discuss thenarratives which are supportive of that view. I will further contextualize


PROOF48 Poland

these discourses in the current socio-economic debates about Polandand explain not only why the demarcation based on the history is made,but also how it allows both the state and the people involved in foreignassistance to build a new identity.

Follow the West, move to the South – Europeanizationdiscourse in development assistance

The new history of Polish ODA is focused on the EU and OECD acces-sion processes. Indeed, within the state apparatus it was the joiningof the EU which prompted the formulation of ODA structures in itscontemporary shape. The need to comply with the EU (and OECD) reg-ulations regarding development aid, and the signing of the relevantinternational development accords, were two of the conditions in theaccession process. However, the Brussels impact goes beyond instrumen-tal pressures. In fact, Polish state and NGO representatives freely elect tolook at Western countries in search of development templates. This wasespecially visible in the process of reorganizing ODA structures, definingthe national institutions managing development aid, and establishingthe Act on International Cooperation (in place since 2011). In theconsultation process regarding these issues, which took place betweenrepresentatives of the MFA and NGOs, all the stakeholders looked upnot only to Brussels, but also to various other countries representingthe ‘ideal’ ‘Western’ model. These practices were especially on displayin various conferences, publications and debates, which were analyzinghow the development apparatus is constructed in the countries of theDAC/OECD. The aim of such presentations was to put forward foreignsolutions as a potential inspiration for the Polish state. These practicesrepresented a logic in which ‘established donors’ provide knowledge andexpertise to their ‘emerging partners’. Significantly, these practices focuson the examples from the ‘Western’ countries while excluding otherplayers, such as those representing Brazil, Russia, India, China and SouthAfrica (BRICS) or new Member States of the EU. Even though there aresome joint initiatives of the donors representing Eastern Europe1 most ofthem are conveyed in a way which fits into the model described above:the representatives of the new EU Member States meet together inorder to learn ‘how development should look’, yet not from each other,but from Western experts, or Eastern European professionals rehearsingknowledge previously obtained from the ‘traditional donors’.

This view of ‘the West’ as a model to emulate is further mobilizedin discourses which justify the choice of the locations to which Polish



aid should be directed. This is especially the case among the activistswho are calling for ‘global solidarity’, which de facto is understood as asolidarity privileging Africa over other destinations. Evoking an exam-ple of ‘Western donors’ allows the EU to justify the reorientation ofPolish aid from the East of Poland to African locations. However, theprioritization of Africa in the EU approach to development is not fullystraightforward. On the one hand international agreements concernedwith development, which are so often quoted by Polish developmentactivists (especially those representing such NGOs as Polish Human-itarian Action, the Institute of Global Responsibility, the Educationfor Democracy Foundation, the Global Development Research Group,and others), are signed not exclusively with African countries, but alsowith representatives of other regions (cf. European Commission, 2000;United Nations, 2000, 2002). However, on the other hand, as EuropeAidstatistics show, the biggest proportion of European Commission ODA isdirected towards Sub-Saharan Africa (39.3 per cent in 2008 and 34 percent in 2009). In addition the European Consensus on Development statesthe following in point 5.1 (23): ‘The EU has adopted a timetable forMember States to achieve 0.7 per cent of GNI by 2015, with an interme-diate collective target of 0.56 per cent by 2010 (1), and calls on partnersto follow this lead. ( . . . ) At least half of this increase in aid will beallocated to Africa, while fully respecting individual Member States’ pri-orities in development assistance’ (European Commission, 2006). Whilestatistics might suggest a prioritization of the African trajectory in devel-opment, what they and the already mentioned documents do not revealare the political and economic interests of those players in the EU whocreate them. The vision of the development history understood as a‘post-Cold War’ innovation results not only in a dubious definition ofthe EU-12 countries as ‘emerging donors’, but it also masks the politi-cal motivations of the ‘Old Europe’ for engaging in development. Thisis further enhanced by the promotion of the discourse of ‘eradicationof poverty’, which allows donors to present themselves as primarilymoral actors, while silencing the political implications and neo-colonialambitions often driving their development engagement. What is alsoproblematic is the suggestion that ‘Europe’ is unanimous in choosingAfrica as a priority partner for development whereas in fact, the currentstate of affairs is an outcome of the long historical process and powerrelations within the EU. In fact, as Holdar observes, the choice of theAfrican locations and the giving of a privileged status in relations withthe EU to certain parts of the global South are driven by the particu-lar post-colonial interests of France, Belgium and the UK (Holdar, 1998,


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p. 62). Moreover, as Mold argues, ‘though there is surely scope for find-ing more common ground on certain basic issues of mutual interests,calls for Europe to operate with one foreign policy voice are probablymisplaced’ (Mold, 2007, p. 241). As he and other commentators argue,the policy interests of most of the EU countries are simply too differentto be fused into a common European external policy (Holdar, 1998).

In spite of these intricacies, Polish development activists who supportthe ‘African trajectory’ present the EU as a homogenous body where thedecisions regarding foreign aid are undisputed, and which unanimouslycalls for the prioritization of Africa in development pursuits. The powerof this vision is enhanced by the application of the evolutionary visionin which the EU is defined as an ideal model, which sets standards forall international donors. Evoking such dubious and vague slogans as‘Western/European standards’, development professionals call for Polishinvolvement in Africa.

As a result of that view, supporters of the African trajectory, by com-paring themselves to the ‘established donors’ in the West, complain thatPoland, which does not prioritize Africa, still ‘lags behind’, ‘does notmeet European standards’, or remains ‘outside of global trends’ (Baginskiet al., 2009; Czaplicka, 2007; Wojtalik, 2008). Such hierarchical rhetoricis actually possible through the depoliticization of the activities of themost prominent EU politicians and bureaucrats. As a result, what iscreated is a vision of the EU which resembles a fantasy in which devel-opment is a moral rather than a political pursuit. This ‘moral angle’ andshaming practice is an ultimate argument which supporters of the Pol-ish involvement in Africa use to lobby for a rise of development fundsdedicated to that region, and public support for the cause.

(Global) Solidarity and reciprocity

Apart from the Europeanization rhetoric, another narrative – a discourseof reciprocity – is being mobilized to legitimize Poland’s emergenceas a donor. This discourse works on two levels.2 On the one handit conceptualizes development through the general logic of the gift(cf. Mauss, 2002). It defines the relations that link all global actors, defin-ing them in the asymmetrical positions of givers and receivers. Giventhe omnipresence of development (Escobar, 1991), the avoidance of the‘development gift’ chain becomes almost impossible. In fact, as Hattori(2003) observes, one who rejects participation in the aid cycle mightrisk exclusion from broadly understood global relations. One has to takepart in it, either as a receiver or as a giver (or, as the Polish case shows,



as both). This logic has been on display especially in the case of the newMember States, such as Poland, which, in order to gain admission to theEuropean Union, had to sign international agreements obliging them toact as international donors. It is their ability to donate that conditionstheir recognition as powerful international players, and their inclusionin the exclusive club of the EU or the OECD/DAC.

On the other level, we can observe how this general logic of the giftis being translated into a particular Polish version of the reciprocityrhetoric, becoming a specific variant of the Polish domestic ‘culture’of development donorship. As the classic texts of gift theory haveexplained (Laidlaw, 2000; Malinowski, 1920, 2003; Mauss, 2002; Parry,1986), the creation of social relations through the obligation to giveand receive creates between the recipients and the givers a sense ofdebt and gratitude, but also a sense of humiliation on the side of theformer, while elevating the latter to the powerful position of the gener-ous and wealthy. This relationship is hierarchical, and this characteristicbecomes especially powerful in the global relations created by devel-opment. As former recipients of international aid, and contemporarybeneficiaries of the EU subsidy system, Polish actors understand thesedynamics very well. Reflecting these notions, development becameframed as a way of paying back the debt that Poland and Polish soci-ety owes from benefiting from various foreign assistance programmes.This is particularly visible in the responses to the annual public opin-ion polls ‘Poles on Development Assistance’. As they show, among thesupporters of the idea that Poland should be an international donor, thesecond most popular justification for that stand (each year expressed byapproximately 40–50 per cent of the respondents) is that ‘richer coun-tries helped us in the past so now it is our turn to help those who arepoorer’ (TNS OBOP, 2011).3

The promoters of this discourse argue that it is their experiences asrecipients of aid which prompt them to become involved in contem-porary international affairs. This notion is especially expressed by thosewho themselves benefited from Western aid, who directly or indirectlyexperienced Western support while being members of oppositional orga-nizations during the 1980s, and whose social and political activityreceived special support from Western organizations in the 1990s. How-ever, the Polish case not only manifests a specific morality of givingbased on the previous experiences of aid recipients. It actually takesthose sentiments even further, incorporating them into the institution-alized apparatus of aid. A paramount example of applying this logicin practice is the transfer of UKIE (the Department of the European


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Integration Committee) personnel to the state structures managing Pol-ish ODA in the MFA, where they inhabited the freshly establishedDepartment for Implementation of Development Programmes. The ideabehind this move was that this cohort of bureaucrats, experienced inmanaging EU grants for the development of Poland, had considerableexperience in working within project regime systems, but also of giv-ing and being given to. Now, involved in international developmentcooperation they could avoid the patronizing attitudes of their Westerncounterparts. As Silva (2008) observes, donors who do not enjoy thereputation of traditional or established aid providers (such as the ‘emerg-ing donor’ Poland) characterize themselves as more open to contactwith and tolerant of diversity. A similar suggestion has been made byMawdsley (2010), who claims that ‘emerging donors’ might offer alter-native discourses and practices to the dominant ‘Western’ pattern ofaid giving. Indeed, reflecting on Poland’s experience as an aid recip-ient and the identity struggle associated with the stigma of being inneed of foreign assistance, Polish organizations discuss their interna-tional involvement as a counterweight to the ‘insensitive’ and ‘ignorant’position often taken by Western donors. According to Herzfeld (1993)such formulations of bureaucratic practice reflect the intimate connec-tion between those who are at the centre of such bureaucracies andnationalist imperatives.

Sharing experiences of transformation and democracypromotion

The nationalistic angle is, however, most visible in the third discourse,which conceptualizes Polish development aid as a ‘transfer of transfor-mation experiences’ whose biggest emphasis is put on democratizationefforts. The importance of this rhetoric is most visible in the deci-sion to set up the Solidarity Fund – a government funded organizationwhich is an official instrument of Polish ODA and focuses on support-ing democracy abroad. Both the discourse and the idea behind suchorganizations as the Solidarity Fund are rooted in the country’s ownpast and linked to the oppositional movement during the socialistregime. In line with this rhetoric, the specific Polish historical expe-riences of socio-economic and political transformation of the 1980sand 1990s can be applied to different environments and contempo-rary times. The power and popularity of this discourse is most visiblein the popularity of initiatives justified by this rhetoric, and the prioriti-zation of countries representing the Eastern Partnership in Polish ODA,



with Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Moldova and Armenia beingenvisioned as the countries in which ‘Polish experiences’ can be trans-lated most effectively (Fundakowska, 2011). The best demonstrationof this way of thinking about Polish international involvement is theparliamentary debates, where each year a budget for development oper-ations is decided, and where, in 2011, the Act on Polish DevelopmentCooperation was passed.

For MPs involved in the process, the concept of development assis-tance was predominantly linked to the ideas of ‘democracy and civilsociety’ building. This approach could be attributed to the MPs’ ownexperiences as recipients of foreign assistance, since many of themwere dissidents who had benefited from foreign support for their ownopposition activities in the 1980s. As those movements focused, toa large extent, on free media, today, when directly translating theirown experiences from the past, many ex-dissidents argue that themedia possess a particularly important role in bringing about socialchange (hence their strong support for such initiatives as Belsat TV).Similarly, many social movement leaders benefited from foreign schol-arships and study trips to the US or Germany in the early 1990s; nowthey promote exactly the same initiatives as an empowering tool forother activists across the world (the best examples of this approachmight be the Konstanty Kalinowski Scholarship Programme and thework of the Polish-American Freedom Foundation and the Educationfor Democracy Foundation). Such straightforward copying of the ‘Pol-ish experience’ has been popular not only among politicians, but alsoamong Polish activists working in Ukraine, Belarus, and other EasternEuropean countries. The effectiveness of such a practice is, however,dubious. For instance, many alumni of the Kalinowski Programme infact stay in Poland after their studies, thus contributing to the braindrain in Belarus; what can also be questioned here is the selection pro-cess for allocating stipends within this programme. At the same time,the favourite channel of the Polish politicians, Belsat TV, which broad-casts from Poland to Belarus, has, in fact, only minimal numbers ofviewers, and its social impact remains unknown. Moreover in the timeof social media and the internet, which, as the 2011 events in theMaghreb have shown, have a particularly strong power to trigger socialaction, the emphasis of Polish development experts on the promotionof traditional journalism also might be questioned.

Apart from the modalities of aid being promoted in line with thediscourse of ‘sharing transformation experiences’, another problematicfeature in this respect is the idea of translating particular Polish realities


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to the environments of such different socio-cultural backgrounds asthose of Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova, among others. The problemswith translating such vogue but, most importantly, Western-centricconcepts as ‘civil society’ to other cultures has been already criticizedby such scholars as Buchowski,1996a, 2001), Navaro-Yashin (1998),Sampson (1996, 2002) or Verdery (1996). The Comaroffs (1999a, 1999b)have shown that civil society is an idea for which it is especially diffi-cult to find any proper definition, as it is a term filled with vagueness.Paradoxically it is easier to state under what conditions we lack civil soci-ety than to enumerate the conditions which are needed for its creation.Civil society appears through its absence or incompleteness. But eventhough it is a rather elusive term, as well as an abstraction, it is strongenough to set up the imagination of its advocates in a simplified mannernot only as an index of the West, but, more importantly, as opposition tobeing non-modern, non-civilized, and backward (Comaroff & Comaroff,1999a; Verdery, 1996). Effectively the promotion of the ‘civil society’ dis-course has also symbolic implications and ‘offers a new alibi for old-style“human” imperialism’ (Comaroff & Comaroff, 1999b, p. viii). It servesas the gatekeeper of last resort, a dialectic exclusion from the Westernsocieties (Comaroff & Comaroff, 1999a).

However, for Polish advocates of the ‘transfer of transition experi-ences’ such criticism is rejected through the mobilization of the univer-salistic world vision in which societies representing the previous Sovietbloc are being homogenized under the labels of ‘post-socialism’, ‘cul-tural connectivity’, and the ‘unity of Slavs’. Using this rhetoric allowsPolish activists to claim the ability to transfer their specific experiencesto the different environments of other Eastern European and CentralAsian countries. This view is particularly effective, as it speaks to thenational nostalgia referring to the period of Great Poland. It is a nostal-gia based on the memory of ‘Poland from sea to sea’in the 16th centurywhen Jagiellonian dynasty ruled over the Eastern European territoriesup to the Black Sea, or the Interwar period in the 20th century whenWestern regions of Ukraine and Belarus belonged to the Polish territory.At present Ukraine and Belarus are defined as priority partners of Polishaid. While many activists in informal settings recollect that historicalperiod to justify their involvement in that region, what is problematic isthe idealistic image of that time, which is so often replicated in the nar-ratives of supporters of the Polish involvement in these countries: theimage of Ukraine and Poland being unified in brotherhood. Such an atti-tude risks a lack of critical self-awareness on the side of the Polish actors,who often forget to acknowledge that their presence and involvement



in Ukraine might be viewed not only as a positive act of solidarity, butalso as an echo of patronizing and colonizing attitudes.

The ability to neglect Poland’s past as a colonizer is actually possiblethrough the strong emphasis on Poland’s own experiences as a colo-nized society (cf. Cavanagh, 2004; Kopp, 2012). By the term colonialism,I am referring here, first, to the experiences of the Communist regime,which many Poles (especially those of the conservative and nationalis-tic affiliations) refer to as the times of Soviet occupation, with the year1989 marking the end of the Cold War and the gaining of indepen-dence; and, secondly, to the years of the Partitions in the 19th century,which still constitute a very vivid part of the national memory. In spiteof those experiences, Poland is hardly ever explicitly referred to as a(former) colony (both in the public and in the academic discourse).It seems that to speak about oneself in terms of colonialism is to acceptan inferior position. For a country which is struggling to be defined asa member of the First World, to call oneself ‘a colony’ is to take a stepback from the Second to the Third World. Yet even though the termcolonialism does not appear explicitly, other phrases so common inthe public discourse, such as ‘foreign domination’, ‘occupation’, ‘lackof independence’, ‘satellite’, and so on, betray the actual perception ofPolish modern history, and the presence of a postcolonial mentality.As Maria Janion (2006) showed, it is additionally on display in feelingsof powerlessness, defeat, inferiority and fatalism.

In the development discourse the mobilization of arguments inwhich Polish actors evoke the colonial past allows for the expres-sion of sympathy and solidarity. It also offers the possibility to craftPoland as an alternative to the dominant development paradigms,with Polish actors being presented as having the ability to betterunderstand the realities of the societies which are currently exposedto oppressive regimes than their Western partners. This discourse isparticularly visible in the narrations pointing to a similarity of expe-riences that is linked to the realities of resistance. When in 2006the late President Lech Kaczynski addressed the United Nations Gen-eral Assembly (Kaczynski, 2006), in the opening part of his speech,he made direct links between Polish history, experiences of transi-tion and world development: The matters we have gathered hereto discuss today are very important ( . . . ) I am saying this as Presi-dent and as a true man of ‘Solidarity’ ( . . . ). ‘Solidarity’ gave Polandher freedom and sovereignty, and contributed to the fall of Commu-nism in Europe. ( . . . ) We, the Poles, perceive global partnership for


PROOF56 Poland

development ( . . . ) through the optics of our historical experiences,the experiences of the ‘Solidarity’ movement. ( . . . ) Today this valueshould be rediscovered in order to help build a new world based onthe right of all nations and all peoples to live in dignity.

(Kaczynski, 2006)

The rest of the speech was continued in the same spirit. PresidentKaczynski evoked Polish struggles for freedom, and experiences underreforms. According to him, it is those very experiences of ‘shedding atotalitarian regime and taking up the task of modernising the country[that afford] us a special comprehension of the needs of countries thatfollow a similar path and the essence of their transition’ (Kaczynski,2006). The marriage of the myths of ‘Solidarity’ and foreign inter-vention carried out in the name of development, and internationalassistance has been especially on display in the cases of the Polishinvolvement in Ukraine and Belarus. At the time of the Orange Revolu-tion of 2004–05 the ex-prime minister of Poland Jerzy Buzek encouragedthe crowds gathered in Kiev with the following words: ‘I believe that youwill succeed just like we did in the time of Solidarity’ (Radzinowicz &Wojciechowski, 2004a, 2004b). At that time, the slogan ‘Solidarni zUkraina’ (Solidarity with Ukraine), written in the characteristic letter-ing of the Solidarity Movement, became very popular, which, withouta doubt, was related to the opposition movement in Poland from the1980s. The links between the Poland of the 1980s and the Ukraineof 2004 were made not only through employment of Solidarity sym-bols, but also through the involvement of the leaders of Solidarity: LechWałesa, Jerzy Buzek and others served as mediators in Kiev.

For Polish activists the resemblance of the events of the 2004–2005Orange Revolution in Ukraine or the recent demonstrations in Belarus tohistorical events in Poland is unquestionable. The not-so-distant mem-ory of the demonstrations in Poland – of the difficulties of that time, andthe fears and anxiety, but also of the hope for a better future – togetherwith the memory of the importance of external support gives Polesconfidence that their involvement is welcomed and indeed a moralobligation. But there is also something more than a moral call here.The picture of Ukrainians rising up in the Orange Revolution seems toappear as a nostalgic projection, for many Poles, of Polish history. More-over, the Ukrainian revolution was presented in the media as ‘pure’,as a ‘right’, as a ‘fight for justice’, and as ‘authentic’. For many Poles,the nations demonstrating against oppressive regimes bring back mem-ories of Poland in the 1980s. These are memories of Poland being united



in the Solidarity movement, a Poland in which people could put val-ues and the collective good above economic and private needs. Thecontribution of Poland to the development of the world is then itsguidance of other countries in their passage to democracy and modern-ization efforts. The Polish past not only obliged Poland to get involvedin Ukraine and Belarus, but also predestined that the country wouldprovide this assistance in a responsible and effective manner.

However, the importance of ‘resistance’ and the ‘idea to fight forfreedom’ is not only a prerogative of the 1980s opposition, but also con-stitutes a wider part of the Polish national identity. As Janion (2006)demonstrates, since the partition, Polish identity has been associatedwith sacrifice, with innocent victimhood. It is Poland that is aban-doned and betrayed by alliances; it is Poland which is under attack andmolested. At the same time Poland appears as ‘Polonia-Saviour’, as it isprepared to sacrifice innocent blood in the name of freedom. Born inthe 19th century, this concept of Poland as a ‘Saviour of the Nations’, orPolish Messianism, as we could see in the cases described above, seemsto be valid still.

Interestingly, however, while this specific rhetoric is based on Poland’sown experience as a colonized society and, as such, declares a strongsympathy with colonized nations, it is mobilized almost exclusively inrelation to justifying the Polish involvement in former Soviet Republics.At the same time, it is impossible to hide the fact that sympathy withcolonized nations is not a sufficiently strong reason to motivate Poles tobe engaged in Africa. It seems that in the case of the Polish involvementin Eastern Europe and Central Asia, a special importance is given notonly to the anti-colonial attitude, but rather to a solidarity against aparticular colonial power, that is, Russia.

According to an NGO worker whom I interviewed in 2007, and whowas coordinating aid initiatives for Chechnya in the 1990s and throughthe early 2000s, the great willingness of the Polish society to supportassistance to Chechens might be understood exactly through those sen-timents. As she told me in one of the interviews, the motivations behindthat interest were similar to the motivations that usually appear in suchsituations: the driving force was empathy and pity for those undergoingthe horror of war. But in addition the interest was due to Poland’s partic-ular relations with Russia. According to her judgment, what motivatedso many Poles to take action in this case was the fact that it was a waragainst Russians, with Chechens fighting in the name of freedom. Forthe aid worker, although she was visibly ashamed of that fact, it was evi-dent that two factors playing in favour of the Chechens were Poland’s


PROOF58 Poland

‘reluctance’ to sympathize with Russia, and its sympathy for separatistefforts going against this powerful state. The same can be said about themost recent Polish support for Ukraine, which, since the incidents atMaydan in the winter of 2013–14, and throughout the following inse-curity and war in Western Ukraine, became a serious concern for Polishsociety, with many individuals and organizations, including state insti-tutions such as the MFA or the Solidarity Fund, actively supporting thepro-European side of the conflict.

The experience of the struggle for national sovereignty in the last200 years has left Poles with ambivalent feelings toward Russia, andfrequently even with disrespect and contempt for it. Russia is oftenperceived as a threat and an aggressor by them. In the context of devel-opment efforts the most typical images show Russia as an uncivilized,un-modern, non-democratic, and corrupt country still frozen in the eraof Communism. This kind of thinking is not just another stereotype, buta form of Orientalist discourse (Said, 1978). The assistance to Ukraine,Belarus and Georgia eventually became a way of loosening the links ofthese countries with Russia. They might be understood additionally asyet another step taken by Poland in its rivalry with Russia and a wayof facilitating the country’s own path to becoming a regional power.In this way Polish ODA (but also the activities of many Polish NGOs) arein line with the broader Polish foreign policy, which is prioritizing theEastern trajectory and Poland’s close neighbourhood in its internationalrelations.4

Building the aid apparatus – finding a new position in thepost-Cold War world order

At present, judging by the distribution of national funds, and the num-ber of foreign initiatives undertaken by NGOs and local governments,the Eastern trajectory seems to generate stronger support in Poland thanthe African one. For the lobbyists of the African course, who consti-tute a minority, but who often identify themselves as a vanguard of thedevelopment professionals and aim to challenge existing ideas aboutPolish foreign assistance, the transnational networks, such as thosewhich link their agenda to Brussels, are an important source of sup-port. They are strengthening their claims, and allowing for a raising ofthese activists from the position of a trivial opposition to the level ofa strong cohort of experts (cf. Elyachar, 2005). For them, foreign orga-nizations and international institutions such as the EU offer additionalvisibility and empowerment (cf. Alvarez, 1998). However, the very samepowerful centres are often responsible for the tragic situation of the



peripheries (Moyo, 2009), and thus Polish supporters of developmentbecome a source of power and identification; hence the application ofthe ‘Europeanization’ discourse.

As Appadurai (1996) notes, such a globalized experience of the worldis typical for those groups who have the privilege to live it. A studyby Paxton and Knack (2008) confirms that only those who see them-selves as members of the globalized world and who are satisfied withtheir financial situation are likely to support foreign aid. That is whythe specific rhetoric of the African trajectory is mainly popular amongthe youngest generation of the development cohort, those who enteredtheir adult life after the collapse of the socialist regime, who enjoy theability to travel freely, and who have the financial resources to do so.It is them (mostly people in their twenties or mid-thirties) who havean interest in the African trajectory of Polish aid. As this cohort willbe growing (with the new generations of young Poles born after 1989becoming active in the public sphere) it will be interesting to observehow they gain space for their agendas within the Polish developmentapparatus.

While young people are also active in the organizations working forthe benefit of Eastern Europe, the generational differences between thetwo camps are very clear. While the organizations working on devel-opment initiatives in Africa are set up and led by the younger cohort,the leaders of organizations working in the East are predominantlymen in their forties or older. Another clear difference separating the‘Europeanization’ discourse from the rhetoric emphasizing Polish expe-riences is the nationalistic focus of the latter. While the former wassearching for the sources of symbolic power externally, the latter isbuilt around the search for Polish particularities which would let thecountry stand out from the dominant Western ways of thinking aboutdevelopment.

However, even though the two discourses seem to be distant fromeach other and represent two competing ways of thinking about devel-opment, I would argue that in fact they have a lot in common. Theirapproximation became particularly visible in 2011, when the discourseof transition of Polish experiences had been applied to legitimize thePolish ambition to assist Tunisia and Egypt in their post-revolutionarytransformation efforts. The same discourse was also mobilized by theLech Wałesa Institute during its activities in South Sudan at the time ofthe independence referendum.

But most importantly, all these rhetorics, even though they are com-municated in different ways to various audiences, work through theevocation of the same notions, which are linked to contemporary Polish


PROOF60 Poland

identity politics. Even though they do it in different ways, they all reflectthe contemporary frustrations of Polish society with the identity criseswhich sets Poland up as neither East nor West, a country still hauntedby the dream of modernity. As I noted at the beginning of this chapter,becoming a member of the Western club was a goal that Poland set foritself in 1989. However, the divisions partitioning the world along thesymbolic categories of modernity are still remaining with ‘Old Europe’,and DAC members, as more powerful players, are dictating their con-ditions for the coexistence. The West always seems to be ahead, andalways somewhere else – but not in Poland. As the Comaroffs (1993,p. xii) observe, ‘modernity remains the terminus toward which non-Western peoples constantly edge – without ever actually arriving’. Andso the struggle continues today: modernity, capitalism, and the Westhave become the goal with which everything else had to comply. Thenon-West, that is, Poland, which is imagined as a terra incognita, a non-place, had to have its history restart from zero. The new history, thepassage from the pre-modern to the modern, as Mitchell (2000, p. 18)has described it, is always envisioned as a rupture and separation. Thatis why the Polish history of development aid has to start anew, andthe Polish past of the Comecon times is so effectively forgotten anddismissed. Even though its remembrance would perhaps allow Polandto reject the patronizing label of an ‘emerging donor’, the memoryof the Polish activities from the 1970s and 1980s cannot be appliedtoday, as the socialist past is associated with the non-West, with thepre-modern.

But the real idea behind the modernity project is to work toward itthrough processes of emulation of Western concepts. The only strategyfor the East remains mimesis: it is impossible, but necessary, promis-ing to the imitators the power of those who are imitated, and givingthe imitators a hope for a shifting position in the mosaic of the colo-nial hierarchy, as they might gain an identity that would be respectedby the First World (Taussig, 1993). The dynamic and the power of thisprocess are especially visible in Poland’s attempts to become a donor.By engaging in development practices, the Polish state and its mem-bers are sending a message that its modernization reforms might still beongoing, yet its status as a modern country should be approved. Present-ing itself as a country which has a capacity to play the role of an expertfor other countries is a means of offering a proof for this claim. Throughdevelopment aid Poland has a possibility not only to envision itself,but also to present itself at the world forum as an influential, moderncountry – a Western country.



At present, Polish versions of development discourses are, like theirWestern equivalents, crafting the subjects – aid recipients – of these dis-courses (Escobar, 1995; Ferguson, 1994). However, by doing that theyalso significantly craft their own identity and empower their own posi-tion. The Polish involvement in foreign aid is tightly connected to thepolitics of place. It is determined by the condition of marginality: theexperience of not only being peripheral, but also being unable to be eas-ily identified. As Green (2005, p. 132) has pointed out, a lack of sharpboundaries presents a challenge to modernity, which requires neat clas-sifications. The reality of Poland is contradictory to that premise. It isa quality of fragmentation, of being too many things at the same time.Referring to the Balkans, Green (2005, p. 128) defines the reality of mar-gins as fractal. As with fractals, in the Polish politics of place a centralcharacteristic is a constant experience of fragmentation and separation(being neither East nor West). But at the same time it is an experience ofspecific connections: Poland could be like other Easterners, as it is rep-resented that way in the ‘transformation’ discourses, or it could be likeWestern Europe, as the supporters of the EU angle suggest.

Today, by distancing itself from other Eastern countries through con-structing them as those in need of modernization, Poland underlinesits own status as ‘developed’. The same thing is achieved through the‘discovery’ of Africa as a potential space of Polish intervention anddistribution of wealth. By placing itself at the giving end of the aidchain Poland creates a gap between itself and the aid recipients (Silk,2004; Stirrat & Henkel, 1997). However, for Poland, which builds itsdonor identity on the claims of its better understanding of what it islike to experience the humiliation of the gift, such a separation is espe-cially problematic. One way of attempting to avoid these repercussionsis through the application of the partnership model – an idea whichis brought up by Polish developmental activists, who refuse to discusstheir practice in terms of aid and conceptualize it as ‘cooperation’ or anexpression of ‘global solidarity’. However, as Stirrat and Henkel (1997,p. 75) point out, the shift into the partnership discourse masks theunequal relations through the incorporation of the language of equality,while in fact the nature of those relations remains intact. The languageof partnership might lead to the denial of separate identities for differ-ent actors, and it allows for the claim of authenticity to be made, whichis often used as a legitimating tool (see the Polish claim to a ‘betterunderstanding of the recipient position’).

It is exactly this process that we can observe in the ‘transition ofexperiences’ discourse, which promotes ideas about the similarity of


PROOF62 Poland

experiences of different countries under socialist regimes. Most of thosenotions are greatly nostalgic in their nature and are recalled as a greathope for the future. They work as a vehicle for the visions of Poland,which is imagined as an active country engaged in making a differencein the world and regaining control over its own destiny.

The pressure to craft Poland as a modern state is further enforced byits location at the margins of Europe and the post-colonial world. Suchsocieties, as has been pointed out by Herzfeld (2002) and Green (2005),are under constant pressure to prove their modern character, to high-light the fact that they are ‘civilized’. The global hierarchy of culturaland political values enforces the directing of selves to the centres underthe pressure of exclusion – hence the power of the Europeanizationdiscourse and the pressure to match the ‘European Standard’.

What does the future hold?

All three discourses, the discourses of Europeanization, reciprocity, andtransfer of transition experiences, are used alternately by developmentactivists to some extent, especially when they validate the Polish ‘emer-gence’ as a donor externally in international forums. It might beinteresting to observe how they will evolve in the next decade. Par-ticularly in the case of the transition of experiences and reciprocitydiscourses, it might be interesting to pay attention to whether theywill remain strong. The most recent changes in Polish ODA, and the(re)establishment of the Solidarity Fund (previously known as the Pol-ish Know-How Foundation for International Development), which isenvisioned as one of the key pillars of Polish ODA since its institu-tional reform in 2011, might suggest that this Polish aid trajectory willremain strong for a while. The Eastern trajectory of Polish aid addition-ally might be strengthened by the most recent developments in Ukraineand its conflict with Russia. However, at present new generations ofPoles, those born after 1989, who did not benefit directly from foreignaid to Poland, are becoming adults and getting involved in various pub-lic actions, including development assistance. It might be interesting toobserve how their perception of the world and the Polish position in itwill impact the future directions of Polish international involvement.

Notes

1. For instance, ‘Fostering Global Responsibility – Building a Development Pol-icy Knowledge Network to Enhance NGO Public Outreach Initiatives in EU



New Member States’, a project implemented by CASE – Centre for Social andEconomic Research, or ‘GREAT – Global Rights, Europeans Acting Together’,an initiative coordinated in Poland by the Polish Humanitarian Organizationand the Education for Democracy Foundation.

2. For a detailed analysis of this phenomenon please see Drazkiewicz-Grodzicka(2013).

3. By comparison, the most popular answer to the question of why Polandshould support the development of less developed countries is ‘It is our moralduty’ (each year circa 50–60 per cent of the respondents give this answer), andthe third most popular explanation is that ‘helping others might be beneficialto us; e.g. it might improve Poland’s international prestige’ – yet this optionreceives significantly lower support, as the percentage of respondents givingthis answer hovers around 20 per cent each year.

4. The compliance of Polish foreign policy with Poland’s development aid strate-gies is best seen in the weight that they are given by the Polish governmentat the international forums in such countries as Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia orMoldova. Furthermore, Poland was among the main initiators and supportersof the Eastern Partnership initiative within the EU. During the Polish presi-dency the European Endowment for Democracy was established. Poland hasalso been strongly involved in advocating EU–Ukraine talks, and since the2014 Ukrainian crises it has been a particularly vivid advocate of Ukrainein Europe and NATO (Kugiel, 2011; Mikulova & Berti, 2013; Pomorska &Vanhoonacker, 2012). At the same time, however, the ongoing conflicts inPalestine, the Middle East and other parts of the world remain marginal inPolish foreign affairs.

Poland: Attempts At Defining Aid By Solidarity, Democracy And Development;

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