Polish Strategy for Responsible Development. The New Paradigm of the Nation’s Industrial Policy?

This article constitutes an attempt at a critical assessment of the Polish Strategy forResponsible Development (which became operational in February of 2017). The strategy discussedherein purports to introduce a new development model, one which calls for «creatingconditions for increasing the incomes of Polish citizens, along with increasing cohesion in thesocial, economic, environmental and territorial dimension». The authors comment on the fundamentalpremises of the Strategy, its objectives, and main characteristics, focusing on the viabilityof the development model embedded in the said strategy. Referring in particular to the area ofindustrial policy, they evaluate the validity of the selection of so-called strategic industrial sectorsfrom the perspective of its potential impact on the pursuit of the Strategy’s main objectives.They also tackle the issue of the attainability of selected strategic objectives, taking into accountthe current condition of the national economy. The research methodology applied by the authorsinvolves the analysis of successful development strategies of selected countries, which wereinvoked in the discussed strategy as references for Poland’s new development model, to assesstheir validity in the contemporary and local context, as well as an evaluation of the congruencebetween the document’s specific objectives from the perspective of the potential overall impacton the economic development of the country. The Strategy for Responsible Development constitutesan evidence-based approach to elaborating on the mid-term strategy of economic development.Upon identifying five development traps that adversely affect the long-term developmentprospect the strategy calls for a more activist approach by the state to stimulating developmentprocesses. The comprehensive reforms envisioned in the discussed document appear to addressthe majority of challenges faced by the Polish economy, however, the proposed selection of strategicsectors appears, in some cases, to disregard the objective socio-economic conditions ofcontemporary Poland. The authors conclude that, even though the Strategy effectively identifiesthe development factors that will be instrumental for the country’s economic success in the midtermperspective, the proposed approach to conducting development policy leaves certain issuesunaddressed and may result in some sub-optimal outcomes.