Gmina jako przedmiot badań geografii politycznej - wybrane problemy

One of the characteristics of the contemporary political geography is the broad scope of interest in the local settings. This fact results, in particular, from the tasks which are formulated for geography by the political institutions interested in the establishment of an efficient system of the administrative-spatial organization of the country, the electoral preferences, the grass-roots intiatives, etc. The need of conducting the micro-scale studies is connected with the wish of having a better representation of the spatial conditioning of the socio-political phenomena and of cognizing the mechanisms decisive for their development. In Polish conditions the optimum local setting worth consideration in the framework of political geography is constituted by the commune („gmina”), which can be considered in two perspectives: as the basic spatial unit of study in the analyses encompassing larger areas, or as a self-standing object of study. The results of research already conducted demonstrate that the output from the analyses in which the commune is treated as the basic spatial unit allows for a better recognition of the socio-economic, cultural and political structures and processes in their spatial aspect. The recent years brought a distinct increase of interest in the commune as the proper subject of geographical study. The most important research problems facing political geography include the study of economic (especially financial), as well as social policies of local authorities, the intercommunal cooperation (including that of international and transboundary nature), the political culture of the inhabitants and their electoral preferences, the social mobilization and local conflicts, the relations between the central administration and the local authorities, as well as the optimum size and territorial organization of the commune.