REBUILDING LOCAL GOVERNANCE IN POST-COMMUNIST ECONOMIES THE CASE OF WROCŁAW, POLAND

As Poland embarked on market-led reforms in 1990, local and regional structures of government and governance were underdeveloped. Local policies were the product of agenda that were pursued at a national level, and participatory decision making was non-existent. This article looks at the problems and possibilities of rebuilding local governance in post-communist economies by focusing on the case-study of the Wrocław local economy, situated in the west of Poland. The article begins with a sketch of the Wrocław economy and places it in the context of Polish regional development. The second part of the article reviews perspectives that have dominated discussions about rebuilding civic society and local economic capacity. Evolutionary approaches have provided a strong critique of neoliberal perspectives on transformation, and placed much greater emphasis on the importance of locality. However, it is argued that this perspective has underplayed entrenched and differentiated interests and the role of exogenous institutions. The approach used in this article to understand changes in local governance draws on strands of literature which can broadly be termed institutionalist.1 The framework is underpinned by socio-economic approaches (Granovetter, 1985; Smelser and Swedberg, 1994) and current institutionalist thought on transformation (Nielse