The article attempts to analyze Central Eastern European Countries (CEECs) focusing on the restructuring of governance and on the evolution of the complex network relations constituting the framework for decisional processes concerning economic, social and territorial development in Poland. The evolution from the highly hierarchical structure of the pre-1989 period towards the governance model characterising the transformation period will be looked at as a process increasingly embedded in a scenario dominated by international agents such as international financial institutions, the European Union, international capitals. It is possible to affirm that the presented transformation did not coincide with a withdrawal of the state, but mainly with a process of restructuring of apparatuses and hierarchies, following the guidelines of the neoliberal approach. The claimed neutral position of the state, guaranteeing complete freedom to the market, while provoking the dismantling of the socialist welfare system, implied a strongly biased behaviour as the state provided the necessary framework for new economic mechanisms to freely reproduce themselves.
