Abstract
The article discusses selected impacts of the fiscal policy conducted by Poland’s government from 2020 to 2022. The countermeasures it implemented in the public finance area in response to the COVID-19 pandemic to support industries most affected by lockdowns and local governments, mainly through special-purpose funds, entailed an uncontrolled surge in public spending, as well as increasing public debt, the centralisation of decision-making, and the obscurity of the public finance system. The unfolding pandemic crisis was aggravated by the war in Ukraine and its consequences. The article’s main focus is on analysing local governments’ financial independence, which suffered from the establishment of special-purpose (off-budget) funds and the national tax system reform. Changes in local financial independence are examined based on structural ratios of local authorities’ own and total revenues and less quantifiable measures enabling the government to gain more authoritarian executive power. The analysis is set in a wider historical context outlined by Michael Wohlgemuth, a German economist, philosopher, and historian of ideas, in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic and the Leviathan hypothesis. Special measures and regulations that governments use to tackle crises and extraordinary situations may impair the mechanisms of democratic control and serve as an excuse for governments to expand their executive and political powers. Historical experience shows that special processes, instruments, and practices are difficult to eliminate; consequently, they become part of the post-crisis system, which frequently leads to the emergence of Leviathan.
Author Information
Beata Guziejewska, University of Lodz, Poland
Paper Information
Conference: ACSS2024
Stream: Economics and Management
This paper is part of the ACSS2024 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Guziejewska B. (2024) Leviathan and Restricted Local Financial Independence as the Consequences of the COVID-19 Crisis: The Case of Poland ISSN: 2186-2303 – The Asian Conference on the Social Sciences 2024: Official Conference Proceedings (pp. 85-92) https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2186-2303.2024.8
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2186-2303.2024.8
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