Abstract

The article analyses the organisation of the Law and Justice party (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość [PiS]) in Poland. The case of PiS does not only allow us to explore the organisational features of a strongly institutionalized, incumbent party which uses populist radical right (PRR) politics. PiS, we argue, is also an ideal case to contrast what such parties might rhetorically declare and substantively do about their organisational features. Using party documents, press reports, quantitative data, and insights from the secondary literature based on interviews with activists, we evaluate the extent to which PiS has developed a mass-party-related organisation, and centralized its intra-party decision-making procedures. We find that while PiS made overtures to some aspects of mass-party-like organisation for electoral mobilization, the party remained reluctant to actively expand its membership numbers and put little effort into fostering the integration and social rootedness of its members through everyday intra-party activities. Furthermore, despite attempts to enact organisational reinvigoration, in practice PiS continued to revolve around strongly centralized structures and, in particular, the absolutist leadership style of the party’s long-time Chair Jarosław Kaczyński. The analysis contributes to assessing the variety and functions of organisational features and appeals within the comparative study of PRR parties. Most particularly, it invites further research into the still relatively under-researched interactions between PRR party organisation and active party communication.

Highlights

  • The case of the Law and Justice party (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość [PiS]) in Poland offers interesting insights that can further contribute to our growing understanding of the diversity across populist radical right (PRR) party organisations (Albertazzi, 2016; Bolleyer, 2013; Heinisch & Mazzoleni, 2016)

  • Following the conceptual framework proposed by Albertazzi and van Kessel (2021), in this article we focus primarily on the extent to which PiS made substantive efforts to develop a mass‐party‐related organisation, and to centralize its intra‐party decision‐making procedures

  • We find that while PiS used overtures to some aspects associated with mass‐party‐like organisation for electoral mobilization, the party put little effort into actu‐ ally recruiting a large number of engaged party mem‐ bers or fostering their social rootedness

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Summary

Introduction

The case of the Law and Justice party (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość [PiS]) in Poland offers interesting insights that can further contribute to our growing understanding of the diversity across populist radical right (PRR) party organisations (Albertazzi, 2016; Bolleyer, 2013; Heinisch & Mazzoleni, 2016). While in Western Europe parties have gradually shifted from mass towards electoral‐professional organ‐ isations (Farrell & Webb, 2000; Panebianco, 1988), after 1989 Polish politics witnessed a much swifter emergence of instant electoral‐professional parties In this context, we could expect even less attempts from established parties—and those with office ambitions pursuing flexible vote‐ maximizing strategies—to develop mass‐party‐type organisations, which we characterize here by efforts to recruit a large number of active party members and to foster their intra‐party social rootedness (cf Albertazzi & van Kessel, 2021). We approach this question by accounting for what parties using PRR politics might rhetorically declare and substantively do about their organisational features To achieve these goals, we trian‐ gulate multiple data sources, including party documents, press statements, quantitative data, and insights from secondary literature based on interviews with activists. Most espe‐ cially, our results invite further research on still rela‐ tively underexplored aspects in this research field: the relationship between PRR organisations and mediatisa‐ tion of politics (Art, 2018), and most on the interactions between PRR organisation and active party communication

The Law and Justice Party and Populist Radical Right Politics
Did the Law and Justice Party Pursue a Mass‐Party‐Type Organisation?
Organisational Complexity
Law and Justice Party Membership in Context
Why Didn’t the Law and Justice Party Actually Pursue Mass‐Party Organisation?
Centralization
Intra‐Party Democracy
Findings
Conclusions
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