Plurality in Poland
When an idea reaches another country, a translation of a book is not always the way in. Sometimes the way in is an event to which people are invited, and sometimes institutions built on similar ideas are already running inside the country. Poland is a case where, with no translation of the book Plurality, the ideas and institutions around it have appeared along separate paths.
In short
As of October 2026, no Polish translation has been found of Plurality, the book by Audrey Tang and E. Glen Weyl [1][2]. The most visible point of contact is a pair of events held in Łódź and Warsaw in October 2022 by RadicalxChange, the movement and organization started by Weyl and others. The evening conversation in Łódź was titled "Plurality" [3][4].
Poland, for its part, has the citizens' panel (panel obywatelski, a forum where residents chosen by lot discuss an issue and make recommendations), which the city of Gdańsk started in 2016, and the citizens' budget (budżet obywatelski, a system in which residents decide how part of a budget is spent) [5][6][7]. These institutions rest on ideas that overlap with the book, but no material has been found showing any link between them and the book or RadicalxChange.
For example
RadicalxChange in Łódź and Warsaw (2022). On October 15–16, 2022, at the festival Igrzyska Wolności (Freedom Games), held at the cultural venue EC1 in Łódź, RadicalxChange put on a program titled "21st Century Infrastructure: From State Capacity to Shared Capacity". It was supported by the Łódź think tank Fundacja Liberté! [3]. The program had sessions on citizens' assemblies, deliberation technology, data trusts and more. On the evening of the 15th there was a session in which "Audrey and Cory" talked under the title "Plurality" [3]. Polish Wikipedia lists Audrey Tang among the speakers at the 2022 festival [8]. On the 18th, "RadicalxChange Warsaw: Europe and The Futures of Pluralism" was held in Warsaw [4].
An interview before the events (August 2022). Liberté! published, in Polish, an interview with Jack Henderson of RadicalxChange. Henderson said the following [9].
- RadicalxChange began in 2018 out of enthusiasm around Radical Markets, the book by Weyl and Eric Posner [9]
- Taiwan's government and the state of Colorado have used quadratic voting, and Gitcoin has used quadratic funding [9]
- For quadratic voting, the preference is now shifting toward calling it "głosowanie pluralne" (plural voting); quadratic funding is called "finansowanie pluralne" (plural funding) [9]
- "liberalny radykalizm" (liberal radicalism) is what is now called "pluralizm" (pluralism) [9]
In more detail
Translations and bibliographic records
The book's manuscript repository (on GitHub) has 160 copies (forks) (a provisional count by this site, October 2026). None of them contained a folder for a Polish translation. "pl (Polski)" is registered in the language list of the book's official website plurality.net, but there is no repository holding a translated text [1].
A search of the bibliographic records of the National Library of Poland also returned zero results for Polish editions of Plurality or Radical Markets, or for books by Weyl, Posner or Tang (a provisional count by this site, October 2026). The subject heading "Tang, Audrey" returned only one item: an article by Kai Strittmatter in the magazine Forum (2019) [2]. The Polish Wikipedia article "Audrey Tang" does not mention the book either [10].
Tang in the press
When Tang appears in Polish-language reporting, it is mainly in stories about Taiwan's response to COVID-19. Business Insider Polska presented an article from the Swiss newspaper NZZ and announced Tang as a speaker at its own event, Global Trends Festival (October 19–23, 2020) [11]. Nowa Konfederacja gave the map of mask stocks built by Tang and civic programmers as an example of trust between government and citizens [12]. The technology conference Infoshare was held online in 2020, and Tang was one of its speakers [13][14].
On March 5, 2020, Łukasz Grzymisławski, a reporter for the newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, asked Tang during a conversation with a group of foreign journalists how Taiwan deals with disinformation coming from China [15].
In 2025, Krytyka Polityczna reported what Tang had said at an evening event of the AI Action Summit in Paris. The story was that Taiwan's government, whose support had been falling, sent open questions that cannot be answered yes or no to a large number of people chosen by lot, and used AI to read their voices. The author, Katarzyna Przyborska, writes that this scales up with AI a line running from the Greek agora (public square) to today's citizens' panels [16]. This connection with citizens' panels is the journalist's view.
Almost the only example found of the book's name itself appearing is the cryptocurrency outlet bitcoin.pl listing a speaker at the Tokyo event WebX 2024 as "Audrey Tang (Plurality / …)" [17]. Weyl's name appears in a Holistic News article introducing quadratic voting (2019), and in the paragraph on the Harberger tax (podatek Harbergera) in the Polish Wikipedia article on tax theory [18][19].
Overlapping institution 1: Gdańsk's citizens' panels
As the city of Gdańsk explains it, a citizens' panel works as follows [20].
- Residents chosen by lot, taking into account gender, age, district and education, hear from officials, experts and others and discuss the issue
- The panel's recommendations become binding if 80% of the participants support them
- In parallel, an open consultation is held in which anyone can submit views
In the explanation of how one round's members were chosen, invitations were sent to about 10,000 people in order to choose 56 members and 8 alternates from all 34 of the city's districts [21].
Marcin Gerwin, author of the handbook Panele obywatelskie (Citizens' panels, 2018), describes how it started [5].
- After parts of Gdańsk flooded again in 2016, Gerwin proposed a citizens' panel to Mayor Paweł Adamowicz [5]
- The mayor agreed on the spot to hold a panel, and also accepted right away that the city would follow the results if they had at least 80% support [5]
- The direct inspiration for designing the process was the panels organized by the newDemocracy Foundation in Australia [5]
Polish Wikipedia gives the first round (2016) as 63 people from 34 districts, and lists a round on air pollution in 2017 and a round in Lublin in 2018 [6]. In 2019, when a referendum on development was being considered in Lublin, Gerwin argued that a citizens' panel would be better than a referendum [22].
Overlapping institution 2: citizens' budgets, civic tech and mObywatel
- Citizens' budgets. In Poland the first was in Sopot in 2011, and according to Polish Wikipedia about 320 cities use them [7].
- Civic tech (social participation through technology by citizens). Fundacja ePaństwo was founded in 2010, and in 2013 it started "Koduj dla Polski" (Code for Poland), which can be called a Polish version of the US group Code for America. The same Polish Wikipedia article also mentions Taiwan's g0v and Tang [23]. The watchdog group Sieć Obywatelska Watchdog Polska, in its report on the international conference TICTeC 2025, introduced Polis, a tool that gathers opinions and looks for common ground, together with the example of Uber regulation in Taiwan [24].
- mObywatel. This is the government's official app. It was released in 2017, became version 2.0 after a major rebuild in 2023, and had been downloaded more than 16 million times by January 2024 [25]. The government's page introduces mDowód, an identity card used on smartphones, and a virtual assistant that uses PLLuM, a Polish-language language model [26].
So far, no material has been found that directly links the institutions listed here with the book, RadicalxChange or Tang.
Ties with Taiwan
In January 2023, in an interview about a visit to Lithuania, Tang thanked the representative office in Poland for its work on a joint project supporting Ukraine [27]. In another interview, she said she would stay one night in Warsaw on the way back [28]. According to Polish Wikipedia, the two countries have no formal diplomatic relations but maintain representative offices in each other's countries, and in 2020 an agreement on cooperation in criminal matters was concluded between the two offices [29].
What is debated
- Quadratic voting and the power of money (2019). Holistic News explained quadratic voting as a form of buying votes with money, and then pointed to a weakness: people with a lot of money could buy votes and sway the result [18].
- Criticism of Community Notes (2024–2026). In 2024 the fact-checking group Demagog explained how X's Community Notes (a system in which users attach notes to posts) shows a note when people who disagree with each other agree on it (bridging). It then pointed out that on polarized topics such as politics, agreement is hard to reach and many notes never appear. It also wrote that early research found no reduction in exposure to misleading information [30]. A 2026 article cited an analysis finding that fewer than 10% of the notes written on X are published [31]. Another article from the same year reported that Meta's Oversight Board had given a critical assessment of plans to extend the notes system to other countries [32].
- An unsettled placement (2025). The history outlet Historykon presented vTaiwan in a section headed "demokracja cyfrowa z ludzką twarzą" (digital democracy with a human face), writing that Tang was the first in the world to design a mechanism linking online discussion with real influence on legislation. Yet in the conclusion of the same article, it places Tang among those who have criticized democracy [33].
- A clash of words. The Polish word "mnogość" (multiplicity) is also used to translate plurality in the context of dissociative disorders. The site "Przewodnik po mnogości" (Guide to Plurality) belongs to that context and has nothing to do with the book [34].
Where it fits in Plurality
In Poland, the book's ideas were discussed mainly from the side of RadicalxChange. The mechanisms Henderson explained in the interview are the following [9].
- ⿻ Voting (quadratic voting), covered in chapter 5-6 of the book
- Quadratic funding
- "własność pluralna" (plural ownership), the idea behind the Harberger tax
- Data dignity
- Soulbound tokens (digital credentials that cannot be handed over to others)
On the institutional side, citizens' panels built on lot and deliberation stand in a position that can be compared with augmented deliberation in chapter 5-4 of the book and with Taiwan's Alignment Assemblies. That comparison, however, was made by the Krytyka Polityczna journalist, not by Tang herself [16].
How the book has fared in other language areas is summarized in Plurality in the German-speaking world and Plurality in Italy, and the state of the book's translations in Editions and translations of the book.
Further reading
- RadicalxChange, "2022 Freedom Games" (English, event page) — https://www.radicalxchange.org/events/2022-freedom-games/
- Tang's conversation with foreign journalists (English, transcript, 2020, CC0) — https://github.com/audreyt/transcript/blob/main/2020-03-05-Conversation-with-International-Journalists.md
- Interview with RadicalxChange (in Polish, article, Liberté!, 2022) — https://liberte.pl/radical-xchange-z-jackiem-hendersonem-rozmawia-wlodzimierz-gogloza/
- City of Gdańsk, "Czym jest panel obywatelski?" (What is a citizens' panel?) (in Polish, city page) — https://www.gdansk.pl/panel-obywatelski/czym-jest-panel-obywatelski,a,63364
- Marcin Gerwin, Panele obywatelskie (in Polish, handbook, 2018) — https://citizensassemblies.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Panel-obywatelski-przewodnik_PL_web.pdf
- Demagog, "Uwagi społeczności na X" (Community Notes on X) (in Polish, article, 2024) — https://demagog.org.pl/analizy_i_raporty/uwagi-spolecznosci-na-x-poradnik-dla-samodzielnych-weryfikatorow/
Sources
- List of forks of pluralitybook/plurality (scanned 2026-10-02) — https://github.com/pluralitybook/plurality/forks [CC0]
- National Library of Poland, bibliographic API (queried 2026-10-02) — https://data.bn.org.pl/api/institutions/bibs.json
- RadicalxChange, "2022 Freedom Games" — https://www.radicalxchange.org/events/2022-freedom-games/ [CC0]
- RadicalxChange, "2022 Warsaw" — https://www.radicalxchange.org/events/2022-warsaw/ [CC0]
- Marcin Gerwin, Panele obywatelskie. Przewodnik po demokracji, która działa (2018, in Polish) — https://citizensassemblies.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Panel-obywatelski-przewodnik_PL_web.pdf
- Wikipedia (Polish), "Panel obywatelski" — https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panel_obywatelski [CC BY-SA 4.0]
- Wikipedia (Polish), "Budżet partycypacyjny" — https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bud%C5%BCet_partycypacyjny [CC BY-SA 4.0]
- Wikipedia (Polish), "Igrzyska Wolności" — https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igrzyska_Wolno%C5%9Bci [CC BY-SA 4.0]
- Włodzimierz Gogłoza, "Radical Xchange – z Jackiem Hendersonem rozmawia Włodzimierz Gogłoza" (Liberté!, 2022-08-04, in Polish) — https://liberte.pl/radical-xchange-z-jackiem-hendersonem-rozmawia-wlodzimierz-gogloza/
- Wikipedia (Polish), "Audrey Tang" — https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audrey_Tang
- Business Insider Polska, "Jak Tajwan poradził sobie z koronawirusem?" (2020-09-21, in Polish) — https://businessinsider.com.pl/wiadomosci/audrey-tang-jak-tajwan-poradzil-sobie-z-epidemia-koronawirusa-covid-19/jbeefz8
- Paweł Behrendt, "Azjatycka recepta na koronawirusa" (Nowa Konfederacja, 2021-01-04, in Polish) — https://nowakonfederacja.pl/azjatycka-recepta-na-koronawirusa/
- MamStartup, "Rusza Infoshare 2020" (2020-09-10, in Polish) — https://mamstartup.pl/rusza-infoshare-2020-najwieksze-europejskie-spotkanie-wiedzy-i-biznesu/
- MamStartup, interview with Grzegorz Borowski (2021-08-19, in Polish) — https://mamstartup.pl/najbardziej-brakowalo-mi-spotkania-z-uczestnikami-na-zywo-na-szczescie-w-tym-roku-wracamy-do-stacjonarnej-edycji-grzegorz-borowski-infoshare/
- 2020-03-05 Conversation with International Journalists — https://github.com/audreyt/transcript/blob/main/2020-03-05-Conversation-with-International-Journalists.md [CC0]
- Katarzyna Przyborska, "Sztuczna inteligencja potrzebuje planety" (Krytyka Polityczna, 2025-02-18, in Polish) — https://krytykapolityczna.pl/swiat/ue-paryz-konferencja-ai/
- bitcoin.pl, "WebX 2024 w Tokio" (2024, in Polish) — https://bitcoin.pl/webx-2024-w-tokio
- Holistic News, "„Wybory do kwadratu". Szansa czy zagrożenie?" (2019-05-02, in Polish) — https://holistic.news/wybory-do-kwadratu-szansa-czy-zagrozenie/
- Wikipedia (Polish), "Teoria optymalnego opodatkowania" — https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teoria_optymalnego_opodatkowania [CC BY-SA 4.0]
- City of Gdańsk, "Czym jest panel obywatelski?" (in Polish) — https://www.gdansk.pl/panel-obywatelski/czym-jest-panel-obywatelski,a,63364
- City of Gdańsk, "Jak wybierani są paneliści?" (in Polish) — https://www.gdansk.pl/panel-obywatelski/jak-wybierani-sa-panelisci,a,87269
- Marcin Gerwin, "Lublin: Panel obywatelski będzie lepszy niż referendum" (Krytyka Polityczna, 2019-01-13, in Polish) — https://krytykapolityczna.pl/kraj/lublin-panel-obywatelski-referendum/
- Wikipedia (Polish), "Civic technology" — https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civic_technology [CC BY-SA 4.0]
- Sieć Obywatelska Watchdog Polska, "Technologia na rzecz demokracji – relacja z TICTeC 2025" (2025-07-22, in Polish) — https://siecobywatelska.pl/technologia-na-rzecz-demokracji-relacja-z-tictec-2025/
- Wikipedia (Polish), "MObywatel" — https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/MObywatel [CC BY-SA 4.0]
- gov.pl, "mObywatel" (in Polish) — https://www.gov.pl/web/mobywatel
- 2023-01-18 Interview with TaiwanPlus — https://github.com/audreyt/transcript/blob/main/2023-01-18-Interview-with-TaiwanPlus.md [CC0]
- 2023-01-13 Interview with Reuters — https://github.com/audreyt/transcript/blob/main/2023-01-13-Interview-with-Reuters.md [CC0]
- Wikipedia (Polish), "Stosunki polsko-tajwańskie" — https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stosunki_polsko-tajwa%C5%84skie [CC BY-SA 4.0]
- Piotr Litwin, "Uwagi społeczności na X. Poradnik dla samodzielnych weryfikatorów" (Demagog, 2024-01-09, in Polish) — https://demagog.org.pl/analizy_i_raporty/uwagi-spolecznosci-na-x-poradnik-dla-samodzielnych-weryfikatorow/
- Anatola Stabryła, "Czy uwagi społeczności skutecznie zastąpiły fact-checkerów?" (Demagog, 2026-07-25, in Polish) — https://demagog.org.pl/analizy_i_raporty/czy-uwagi-spolecznosci-skutecznie-zastapily-fact-checkerow/
- Magdalena Lis, "Uwagi społeczności nie zastąpią fact-checkingu. Opinia Rady Kontrolnej Mety" (Demagog, 2026-04-09, in Polish) — https://demagog.org.pl/analizy_i_raporty/uwagi-spolecznosci-nie-zastapia-fact-checkingu-opinia-rady-kontrolnej-mety/
- Historykon, "Krytycy demokracji: głosy sprzeciwu wobec ustroju większości" (2025-05-14, in Polish) — https://historykon.pl/krytycy-demokracji-glosy-sprzeciwu-wobec-ustroju-wiekszosci/
- chocolate-pancake/przewodnikpomnogosci — https://github.com/chocolate-pancake/przewodnikpomnogosci
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