ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author describes how the dilemma is apparent in subnational Polish politics and to explain its implications for policy making and implementation. He examines a dilemma in Poland and its effect on the making and implementation of policy. This consideration will be organized into three parts: local issues, with particular attention to the politicizing role of developmental policies; the accretion of local power; and horizontal linkages and the role of people's councils in effecting those ties. Horizontal integration does, occasionally, cease to be merely those ties and contacts related to the orientation of localism and become a political tactic. With the institutional link between the people's council presidium and Polish United Workers' Party bureau in local units, the conditions for horizontal integration as a political tactic are complete. Edward Gierek, and Wladyslaw Gomulka before him, have not been ignorant of the danger represented by localism and its manifestation in policy processes as horizontal integration.
