At a time when democracy worldwide is under strain, Let’s Agree on Poland offers a bold vision of how divided societies can escape deadlock. Born of a cross-partisan initiative uniting progressives and conservatives, the book blends rigorous analysis with innovative storytelling. It presents a concrete blueprint for reform, tested through financial models and public-management insights, and dramatized in five stories about fictional “dream” voivodeships. Adapted from Poland’s 2023 bestseller, this international edition adds new essays diagnosing today’s global democratic crisis and charting the mindset needed to overcome it.
Poland’s further economic development requires stable institutions. If the building of these institutions is based on an analysis of international solutions and knowledge of regional Poland – and these are contained in this outstanding book – then we have a proposal that can be of great help to the Poles.
Ph.D Michał Rutkowski, Regional Director for Human Development for Europe and Central Asia (ECA), World Bank
This book represents a decisive step forward in the reconstruction of Polish democracy.
Professor Bruce Ackerman, Yale University
The Incubator of the Social Contract has succeeded in rereading and building on the historical achievements of Polish constitutionalism while responding to contemporary challenges.
Professor Kim Lane Scheppele, Princeton University
This book gives hope. Europe and the world need a strong Poland, united in its diversity.
Professor Peter L. Lindseth, Connecticut University
Every citizen who cares about democracy in Poland should read this volume.
Professor Monika Nalepa, Chicago University
Is true togetherness achieved in a „winner-takes-all” logic, or in a system that gives voice to many people? Polish constitutional practice has favored the former option so far, often with disastrous results. This book presents a pluralistic alternative
Professor Martin Krygier, University of New Southern Wales
The authors have proposed original and innovative ideas on how to not only improve the functioning of democracy, but also to adapt institutions to the expectations and needs of increasingly diverse societies.
Professor Grzegorz Ekiert, Harvard University
Written at a critical time for Poland, this book has a resemblance of the spirit and determination of Alexander Hamilton.
Professor Elżbieta Matynia, The New School for Social Research
This book is the realization of a great idea: you can be different and yet work together in an institutional court. There is hope!
Professor Adam Czarnota, Riga Graduate School of Law
Regardless of their beliefs, every Polish man and woman should read this excellent book and work through it.
Professor Wojciech Sadurski, Sydney University and University of Warsaw
A creative and intelligent response, giving hope of overcoming political and cultural division.
Professor Wolf Linder, University of Bern
We are in need of a 'governance plan from the level of municipality to Brussels’ and the outlines of such a plan are being sketched by a group of serious analysts representing different political backgrounds.
Professor Jan Zielonka, Oxford University and University of Venice
A beautiful example of the participation of intellectuals in public debate. At all levels of knowledge, different views must have a say.
Professor Pola Cebulak, University of Amsterdam
I’m strolling through a new Poland conjured up by twenty-eight realist dreamers weaving their dreams of new provinces.
Professor Kalypso Nicolaidis, European University Institute and Oxford University
The Social Contract Incubator—known as IUS, the abbreviation of our Polish name Inkubator Umowy Społecznej—was created
to answer a pressing question: can democracy endure when a nation is bitterly divided?
EXPLORE THE STORY BEHIND THE SOCIAL CONTRACT INCUBATOR:
Poland in the mid-2010s was consumed by what many called the “Polish–Polish war.” Some feared that the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) was steering the country toward authoritarianism; others dismissed such concerns as partisan exaggeration. Yet across the divide one truth resonated: the conflict itself was weakening the country at a dangerous historical moment. That realization brought together more than 130 intellectuals from the left, center, and right. Each kept their ideological identity, but all agreed to seek something larger than daily disputes: institutions strong enough to contain disagreement. Prof. Arkadiusz Radwan, one of our conservative colleagues, gave us the phrase that became our motto: “Agreed, we are different” [Pol. Zgoda. Jesteśmy różni.].
Explore more
is a new international discussion series inspired by the book. Bringing together the authors, members of the Social Contract Incubator, and diverse voices from politics, academia, and civil society, it explores contractarian approaches to redesigning the democratic rules that shape our common future.
HERE ARE THE UPCOMING AND PAST EVENTS
Let’s Agree on Poland is the result of the voluntary efforts of a diverse group of contributors. Authors, editors, and members of the Social Contract Incubator came together across disciplines and perspectives to design a shared vision for Poland’s democratic future.
The ideas behind Let’s Agree on Poland are sparking debate well beyond our events. Here you can find op-eds, interviews with the co-authors, and reviews that continue the conversation in leading media outlets.
In this episode of Democracy in Question, CEU’s Shalini Randeria speaks with Maciej Kisilowski about Poland’s 2023 election, geographic and generational polarization, and how democracies can deter authoritarian relapse. Kisilowski argues for a contractarian, decentralizing path to coexistence: institutions built not for domination but for competitive democracy across deep differences—while warning that the right will morph rather than vanish.
Link to the source
In their Verfassungsblog essay A Constitutional Settlement Is Poland’s Only Hope, Anna Wojciuk and Maciej Kisilowski argue that the June 1 presidential election closed the era of “restoration” and opened one of reinvention. They call for a new constitutional deal—rooted in decentralization, regional power-sharing, and locally legitimized courts—as the only realistic path to democratic stability in an enduringly polarized Poland.
Link to the source
In this episode of The Review of Democracy, Maciej Kisilowski discusses Poland’s post-election landscape and argues that only a new, decentralized constitutional settlement can make democracy sustainable across ideological divides.
Link to the source
In their Project Syndicate essay, Maciej Kisilowski and Wojciech Przybylski argue that nation-states can learn from the EU’s governance model. Drawing on Poland’s polarization, they propose decentralization as a path to democratic resilience.
Link to the source
As populist movements reshape the political landscape from Warsaw to Bratislava, Anna Wojciuk and Maciej Kisilowski argue that defeating them requires more than moral outrage or electoral victories. Writing for Project Syndicate, they call for bold, inclusive projects of national reconciliation and constitutional compromise — lessons drawn from Poland’s own experiment in bridging divides through the Let’s Agree on Poland initiative.
Link to the sourceEvery movement needs a starting point. For IUS, it was the draft Voivodeship Charter—the first concrete legislative
proposal created by an ideologically diverse team under the direction of Prof. Maciej Kisilowski in 2019.
The idea that constitutional reform should begin with a regional charter, not a sprawling amendment to the national constitution or a heavy white paper, came from Prof. Antoni Dudek. It drew on the same instinct that later inspired us to devote half of Let’s Agree on Poland to fictional stories: People understand institutions best when they can see how they would actually work. By experimenting at the voivodeship level, we and our readers could gain a far more tangible feel for decentralized democracy than abstract theory alone could ever provide.
As we shaped the Charter, we made a radical choice. Instead of formatting it like a typical legal code, with articles and subsections, we wrote it as a series of questions and answers—the very ones citizens might ask about their regional government. In our proposal, this is not just an FAQ about the law—the FAQ is the law. Nothing better reflects our mission of bringing democracy closer to the people than expressing fundamental rules in clear, accessible language. Below you can explore the full Model Charter, and we invite you to leave your comments alongside each answer.
Explore moreWhen arguments reach their limits, imagination can step in. To break through Poland’s polarized climate, IUS turned to storytelling—asking what everyday life might look like under our proposed constitutional settlement.
We call these stories “dreams” not only because they describe a reality not yet achieved. Like ordinary dreams, they provoke, inspire, and expand our imagination. Written in early 2023, they imagined a moment when, in the face of resurgent Russian imperialism, Poland’s political camps realized that their war was weakening the nation. In this imagined future, both sides still clung fiercely to their values but agreed to channel their disputes into a new social contract.
For this international edition, we have not updated the stories. They now read less as visions of a distant future than as an alternative present: a Poland in 2025 that has already chosen institutions strong enough to hold its differences. The starting point is the December 2023 constitutional amendment. It gave each voivodeship its own Charter, approved by referendum. Voivodes gained local democratic legitimacy, the Senate became a chamber of regions, and fiscal autonomy was expanded. Ordinary laws reinforced citizen participation, regional cooperation, and local media oversight.
The process of drafting the first Charters in 2024 sparked genuine debate in assemblies, town halls, and even schools. For many citizens it was the first time constitutional law was something they could argue about and shape, rather than a text handed down from Warsaw. On May 28, 2024—thirty-four years after Poland’s first free local elections—voters elected new regional governments and decided how far to adapt the model Charter. Most adopted it with modest adjustments, proving that decentralization could deliver both stability and diversity.
Three of the dreams explore how progressive, leftist, and liberal traditions might flourish within this framework.
In Progressive Pomerania, a patchwork family arriving from abroad discovers a region proud of its Hanseatic openness. Integration policies are written into the Charter, smart-home technologies support the elderly, and young volunteers turn innovation into solidarity. Though same-sex marriage faces resistance from the Constitutional Tribunal, partnership status and anti-discrimination programs—summed up in the slogan “Family by Any Name”—anchor equality in daily life.
The other two stories show how conservative and Christian Democratic visions thrive under the same settlement. Christian Democratic Subcarpathia builds its identity around subsidiarity, inspired by Catholic social teaching but firmly pro-European. Counties are replaced with service hubs tailored to communities, and the voivode is chosen by the regional assembly to encourage coalition government. The Aviation Valley industry links with Ukraine’s reconstruction, while transport, healthcare, and education finally receive systematic attention. Together, these five dreams are not blueprints but provocations. They show how shared constitutional rules can host radically different ways of life, each legitimate, each vibrant, each accountable to its own citizens. In times of division, they remind us that democracy’s strength does not come from uniformity. It comes from institutions capable of holding our differences.
In Conservative Podlasie, a family gathering near Suwałki shows a region that prizes tradition while embracing innovation. Agricultural Valley 4.0 modernizes food production, the Charter enshrines respect for religious institutions, and policies encourage marriage, Sunday rest, and vocational education. Relations with liberal Białystok are managed through the new voivodeship senate, while cooperation even emerges with leftist West Pomerania.
Why These Dreams Matter
To support accurate referencing, we provide suggested citation formats for the book and each chapter, along with downloadable files compatible with major citation managers (EndNote, Zotero, Mendeley, RefWorks, BibTeX).
