ABSTRACT
This chapter concludes the book devoted to analysing the quality of local and regional democracy in Poland between 2010 and 2023. It revisits the book's central question: How does national politics affect the quality of local and regional democracy? It first presents the general picture of the state of subnational democracy in Poland, followed by the impact of the national level, the role of regional and local factors, the role of “democratic enclaves” and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. While local democracy overall can be presented as one of the biggest achievements of the post-1989 Polish transformation, at the same time, it suffers from a range of long-term deficits related to the quality of political competition, incumbency advantage, low political culture that affects various participatory and deliberative components, and issues related to media freedom, among others. These deficits significantly intensified during the national government of the Law and Justice party between 2015 and 2023, which, among others, witnessed a marked shift towards “creeping recentralization”. The chapter ends with broader implications and avenues for further research.
