The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Model of Governance and Democracy in Poland

Abstract

Almost the whole of 2020 was a year of governance by pandemic measures. Many governments, in these extraordinary times, formally introduced states of emergency. One exception in this regard is Poland. Although it used, in the second and third quarter of 2020, one of the most restrictive forms of lockdown, the government did not decide on the declaration of a state of emergency. At the same time, the scope of implemented regulations was extensive. This article presents a qualitative research on the instruments used by the Polish government in the year 2020 to deal with the pandemic. The analysis allows us to conclude that the so called “anti-crisis shields” were used to a large extent as an instrument of governance of the country, not a tool to prevent a pandemic. At least part of the restrictions adopted in Poland was beyond the need and unrelated to fighting the pandemic. However, these steps are leading to further deterioration of the state of democracy. The analysis of the tools used by the Polish government is based on the framework on the democratic backsliding and autocratization as well as the V-dem concept of “autocratization by decree”, which can be also applied to the COVID-19 situation.