The Power of Habits: BCG Vaccination and Building the Socialist State in Post-war Poland

The article discusses the BCG vaccination campaigns in post-war Poland. The issue of vaccination is examined as a space for the exercise of power by the socialist, authoritarian state. It is also studied as social situation-a realm where top-down and bottom-up agency meet. The BCG vaccinations are considered on the one hand as a fragment of a political project and, on the other as a practice blended into everyday life. The text is an attempt to identify factors that affect the degree of vaccination acceptance in Poland in the first two decades of the Polish People's Republic. Drawing on Chandra Mukerji and Patrick Joyce works, I argue that in the making a habit of BCG vaccination, its incorporation was derived from the intersection of two types of agency: (i) top-down political will (strategic power) and (ii) locally situated control over materiality (logistic power).