The main aim of the article is to examine a new phenomenon which we witness in Central Europe, namely the illiberal shift. The significant victory of Viktor Orbán in 2010 has determined a new era not only in Hungarian but also in European politics. Basic rules and principles of liberal democracy in Hungary have been deeply weakened. The attack on the separation of powers, the rights of the opposition, independence of public institutions are only few examples of the current illiberal matrix used by Fidesz's government in Hungary, but also Law and Justice in Poland. Importantly, this paper analyses the correlation between the transition process of the early 1990s and the current conservative and declarative anti-neoliberal revolution in the region. Readers of this article could also discover some links with even more illiberal political practices applied by the countries of the former Soviet bloc.

The article presents the main ideological and theoretic assumptions of non-representative democracy, having historically strongly left-wing character, not an easy practice of applying this form of democracy in Polish and European conditions. The author tries to indicate a certain dialectic dualism of direct democracy, which more and more often constitutes contemporary crisis of liberal democracy in the contemporary debate on the negative impact of neoliberal globalization on democratic political system.

The author of the article tries to indicate the relationship between the perceived presence of the Catholic Church in public life and the election preferences of Poles. The subject of the research here is the parliamentary elections in Poland in 2011 in the context of the perception by the electorate of the individual parties of the public presence of the Catholic Church in the selected aspects. Among them, the author points to: the issue of crosses and other religious symbols in public space, including the issue of a cross in the Sejm meeting room. She also recalls such matters as: religion lessons in schools, the religious nature of the military oath, priests appearing on public television, the Church taking a stand on laws passed by the Sejm and priests telling people how to vote in elections. The presented analysis is based on the results of the Polish General Election Study 2011.

Celem artykułu jest ukazanie sylwetki ubiegającego się o nominację w wyborach prezydenckich z ramienia Partii Demokratycznej polityka – Berniego Sandersa. Sanders samookreśla się jako demokratyczny socjalista, jego wzorem jest Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Polityk ten jest związany z ruchem alterglobalistycznym, ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem ruchu Occupy Wall Street. Sanders uczynił wiele dla propagowania w Ameryce idei socjaldemokratycznych.

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