The Department of Legal Studies cordially invites you to the upcoming Brown Bag seminar with visiting professor Maciej Kisilowski on Tuesday, January 23, from 12:30 to 1:30 pm. Prof. Kisilowsk will present his chapter "From Election to Autocracy: Can Strategic Decentralization Bring Us Back?", to be published in the edited volume Law, Comparative Public Law in the Twenty-First Century edited by Susan Rose-Ackerman (Routledge, forthcoming).
The seminar will be held in hybrid format.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://ceu-edu.zoom.us/j/93295643857?pwd=UnBEVnIzem1WaERMOWgxTEFZNFNPdz09
Meeting ID: 932 9564 3857
Passcode: 876130
Room: B-319 Senate Room
Abstract
This chapter introduces the research project led by Kisilowski and Anna Wojciuk (University of Warsaw), aimed at proposing a new democratic constitutional settlement for Poland based on the principle of strategic decentralization. The project culminated in May 2023 with “Let’s Agree on Poland” [Umówmy się na Polskę] (Znak 2023) – an edited volume co-authored by a diverse group of 28 Polish intellectuals, representing views from the left and liberals to the conservative right, all of whom subscribed to the constitutional proposal presented in the book. The volume was praised as “the most important book on Polish politics since 1989” in the country’s main “Polityka” opinion weekly (Oct. 17, 2023), as “a decisive step forward in the reconstruction of Polish democracy” by Bruce Ackerman (Yale University), and as “an absolutely extraordinary book, unlike anything I know of in the legal, political or sociological literature in Poland today” by Wojciech Sadurski (University of Sydney). Unusually for an edited volume about constitutionalism, it has become a nonfiction bestseller, currently being in its 5th print.
The chapter from the Rose-Ackerman book provides not only a theoretical introduction to the proposal (as the English edition of the book itself is many months away), but also expands on the key constitutional and moral dilemmas involved in the project. The author claims that decentralization holds the unique promise of contributing to a more stable democratic settlement. Alas, that settlement will come with painful costs, especially to the uniform and expanded application of policies aimed at ensuring far-reaching equality of rights and opportunities. In response to the challenge of modern right-wing authoritarianism, constitutional designers and reformers face deep, wrenching tradeoffs involving distinct benefits and risks of both centralized and decentralized constitutional solutions. The chapter makes that fundamental Decentralization Calculus explicit.
To learn more about “Let’s Agree on Poland” project, one can consult:
· the recordings of recent lectures by Kisilowski and Wojciuk at Harvard (https://youtu.be/dC4A3Iz2Ehs?feature=shared and Cornell (https://einaudi.cornell.edu/programs/institute-european-studies/events/challenges-democracy-europe-speaker-series);
·Kisilowski’s podcast with Rector Randeria (https://www.ceu.edu/article/2023-11-08/maciej-kisilowski-polish-elections-0);
·Various Project Syndicate commentaries about the project (https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/national-reconciliation-needed-to-defeat-populism-slovakia-poland-hungary-by-maciej-kisilowski-and-anna-wojciuk-2023-10); (https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/poland-democratic-deficit-european-union-by-maciej-kisilowski-and-wojciech-przybylski-2019-05); (https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/poland-turkey-elections-opposition-defeat-populists-rebuild-democracy-by-maciej-kisilowski-and-anna-wojciuk-2023-05)
Speaker bio
Maciej Kisilowski is an Associate Professor in the Legal Studies Department at CEU, having previously served as the Faculty Director of the CEU Executive MBA. Prof. Kisilowski’s research interests focus on the application of innovation strategy to various nonmarket fields, including public law and regulation. He received his doctorate in law and master’s in law degrees from Yale Law School, M.P.A. in economics and public policy from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and M.B.A. with distinction from INSEAD. He also holds another Ph.D. and M.A. in law from Warsaw University.
Prof. Kisilowski designed and teaches a number of graduate and executive classes, for which he was awarded the CEU Distinguished Teaching including Award in 2016. Prof. Kisilowski is involved in a number of social change projects at the intersection of strategy and governance, including The Social Contract Incubator in his native Poland. He's a consultant to governmental organisations, progressive political parties, advocacy groups and businesses in Central Europe and beyond.