ABSTRACT
A radical systemic change gives rise to two issues: legitimization and consolidation of the new regime. They serve as the foundations of the stability and sustainability of the system that appeared from the rubble of the ancien régime. Both legitimization and consolidation are social processes and must be considered within a dynamic framework. Legitimization is a widespread belief among the governed that the social system and the authority that is wielded in accordance with the system's own logic are legal, just, and better than any imaginable alternatives. Consolidation is a process of the stabilization of a new system, strengthening and formalization (in the form of the law) of the rules of the game, and routinizing the activities of the system's basic institutions. The Polish model of the transition from communism to liberal democracy is undoubtedly characterized by a significant number of features that are universal rather than strictly Polish.
