Paweł Swianiewicz, Adam Gendźwiłł, Julita Łukomska, Anna Kurniewicz. Wielkość gmin i powiatów a sprawność ich funkcjonowania. Hipotezy wielkoludów i liliptów. – Warszawa : Wydawnictwo Naukowe SCHOLAR, 2016. – 191 p.

Abstract

The dispute which concerns the size of municipalities and administrative division of countries is constantly current in academic debate and also in political actions. These issues are especially important for areas which have limited experience and practice of democracy and self government. An example of this type of area is Poland, where self government has de facto a short history, therefore a lot of global trends and solution in this issue are implemented with delays. The most significant change in Poland was the public administration reform in 1999 which reduced the number of provinces (voivodships) and restored counties. After implementation of these reforms there were a lot of discussion of scientists and politicians about further reducing of number of voivodeship. Currently an important issue is the separation of the area of Warsaw city from the Mazovia voivodeship. The main imperfection of previous considerations and research on this issue in Poland is the conviction about some well-worn myths such as statement, that small municipalities perform their tasks much better than bigger units. The book of Paweł Swianiewicz, Adam Gendźwiłł, Julita Łukomska and Anna Kurniewicz is noteworthy and innovatory attempt of explanation of the relationship between the effectiveness of functioning of municipalities and their size.