Law and liberal pedagogy in a post-socialist society: The case of Poland

The article offers a reconstruction of the interrelations between law, state, and culture in the design of Polish economic liberalism after 1989 based on an analysis of publications in the liberal journal Przegląd Polityczny. The notion of ‘liberal pedagogy’ is used to connect the liberal transformation design and the social ideal fuelling the democratic backsliding in Poland. The role of law as a pedagogical device is discussed together with the role of the state in liberal transformation design. The vulnerability of the liberal project is explained as a consequence of the liberals’ failure to appreciate the inseparability of the symbolic, epistemic, and organizational facets of the state’s institutional functionalities, including law-making.