Special Issue “From Conflict to Dialogue? Lessons of the Polish Round Table ‘89“; Guest Editors: Mirosław Kofta, Michał Bilewicz, and Stephen Reicher [Vol. 14 No. 4 (2019)]
The special issue presents a social-psychological analysis of an important historical event: the Polish ’89 Round Table Talks, which opened the gates to a rapid transition for Poland, as well as the rest of post-communist Eastern Europe, to become part of the democratic world. What made us to look for the psychological underpinnings of the Talks? Why were we interested in a psychological understanding of why they were initiated, how they proceeded, what happened to the attitudes of the negotiators and how they saw each-other, what led to the success of the negotiations, and what were the immediate and longer-term consequences of the Talks?