COMPETITION IN POLITICS

The article illustrates the competition in politics which takes place in two parallel dimensions, i.e. during regular electoral campaigns and during the period of debating the final version of the legislation. One of the ways to the appropriate treatment of competition in politics is focusing research efforts on the analysis of political entrepreneurs behavior. It involves obtaining an advantage over players aiming to achieve identical objectives through the use of various instruments which exert influence on the preferences of political consumers as well as public decision of politicians and bureaucrats. The author argues that these behaviors are an adjustment to the conditions in which competition takes place on the political market. The methodology adopted in the study based on the hypothesis that individuals make public choices thus affecting the final outcome of the political process, and a direct relationship between the private cost and private benefit, which is a fundamental feature of the market selection, can be transferred to the analysis of public sphere.