Vägen från diktatur till demokrati : En kvalitativ studie om EU och dess effekt på demokratiseringsprocessen i Polen.

Sammanfattning: This essay will examine Poland and the potential impact of the European Union on the democratization in the former communist state. From being an integral part of the Soviet Union influential sphere to become one of the biggest countries by population and by military capacity in the EU. Poland joined the EU 2004 but did not get the same status as the importance of Germany or France, however they decided to join because the guarantee that the country would not be marginalized in European politics which they had been before. Dahls´ five democratization criteria which all democratic countries need to follow will be applied to Poland and its democratization process. The purpose of this essay is to see if Poland’s democracy improved after joining the EU with Dahl´s five democratization criteria. Poland has had a very fast democratization process where they in just 15 years went from a totalitarian dictatorship to a full fledge democracy. According to Dahl´s five democratization criteria Poland has managed to achieve them and one of the ways they managed to achieve them were by joining the European Union in 2004. By accepting the Lisbon agreement in 2007 Poland took a giant step in the right direction to be considered a full fledge democracy. This was also a milestone in the democracy in Poland as they now where a part of the deciding part of the European Union.