Abstract
This article examines how the European Union (EU) has impacted party politics in Poland. Before the 2004 accession, party politics in Poland were turbulent. In this period, the EU, as a reference point, helped to create a pro- and anti-EU party cleavage. With this impact admitted, the article turns to the post-accession party politics. Centering on the nationalist Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, PiS), the article attempts to explore the EU’s impact on the PiS by studying the latter’s adaptation preferences. To do so, I employ James N. Rosenau’s political adaptation theory. Central to the article is the argument that since political parties are the protagonists in member states’ domestic politics, the EU can only affect the party politics in Poland indirectly, but not inconsequentially. Without mandate notwithstanding, the EU can create bottom-up pressures through civil society; meanwhile, since EU norms and political parties’ particular interests are not necessarily incompatible, the EU can take the initiatives to make a balance between them through policy innovations.
Highlights
After escaping Moscow’s orbit in the late 1980s, Poland has mainly gone through three scenarios; namely, the scenarios of democratization (1989–2001), democratic consolidation (2005–2014)1 and autocratization (2015–present).2 In each scenario, the European Union (EU) serves as a significant if not the sole reference point.Concerning party politics, their nature is characterized by the left–right cleavage in Western Europe
The article centers on Poland, which spearheaded the third wave of democratization, but lagged behind other Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) countries in pace
For Peter Mair (2000), Europeanization only has a “limited impact” on Western European countries’ political parties. Be that as it may, political parties take a late departure in Poland; the EU’s impact in Poland does not necessarily follow the same trajectory as that in Western Europe
Summary
After escaping Moscow’s orbit in the late 1980s, Poland has mainly gone through three scenarios; namely, the scenarios of democratization (1989–2001), democratic consolidation (2005–2014) and autocratization (2015–present). In each scenario, the European Union (EU) serves as a significant if not the sole reference point. The European Union (EU) serves as a significant if not the sole reference point Concerning party politics, their nature is characterized by the left–right cleavage in Western Europe. A generalization of CEE’s party politics vis-à-vis the EU is not impossible, the generalization as such risks neglecting different paces and trajectories of party politics in the region With this in mind, the article centers on Poland, which spearheaded the third wave of democratization, but lagged behind other CEE countries in pace. Compared with the PO’s pro-EU commitment, the PiS’s nationalist credential, at first glance, seems incompatible with EU norms advocating cosmopolitan values.5 Be that as it may, the PiS did not behave so; instead, it changed its adaptation preference first by allying with the PO and with populist parties before heading to the present “soft dictatorship” (Kamusella 2017: 121). The third section delves into the PiS’s adaptation preferences in detail, and the last section concludes by summarizing the article
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