Elections In Poland Research Articles

Spatial patterns of electoral support in the 2023 general election in Poland

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: This article focuses on identifying the spatial patterns of electoral support for the main political actors, and searching for adequate determinants that explain this distribution of support, based on the results of the 2023 general election in Poland. THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS: Is there a relationship between the basic morphological features of the voting space in Poland and the hierarchy of the settlement structure, along with the arrangement of regions associated with the country’s historical and political heritage? The methods used in the study include analysis of descriptive statistics, estimation of spatial autocorrelation, discriminant analysis, and cartographic methods. PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: The research process involves a two-stage procedure: 1) identifying a general picture of spatial variation in electoral support for selected groupings, and basic clustering patterns of electoral support; and 2) estimating links between the observed patterns of support and their presumed determinants; that is, the country’s settlement hierarchy and historical-political divisions. RESEARCH RESULTS: The spatial variability of the support indicators is characterised by a distinctive territorial distribution, based on the units of the settlement system and the boundaries of former historical divisions. The nature of this linkage indicates the changing layout of the voting space, associated with the increasing polarisation of citizens’ political preferences. CONCLUSIONS, INNOVATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS: The current pattern of urban-rural differentiation is related to the different preferences of metropolitan (over 20,000 inhabitants) and rural or small-town (up to 20,000 inhabitants) communities. The east-west heterogeneity of Poland’s voting space is increasing due to similarities of preferences among the inhabitants of former Austrian and Russian Poland, on the one hand, and Prussian Poland and the Recovered Territories, on the other.

From Love to Hate: The Catholic Church in Poland in the Public Opinion

Poland is a country that is still considered Catholic. Faced with a series of image problems of the Catholic Church, this opinion is being increasingly revised. People, especially young people, are increasingly turning away from this centuries-old institution in search of their moral principles. The percentage of Catholics in Poland is decreasing. The author of the study decided to find out: (1) What do Poles think of the Catholic Church today?; (2) How do they evaluate the various areas of activity of the Catholic Church in Poland?; (3) Is there a predominant opinion in Polish society about the necessity of separation of state and church?; (4) What political consequences does this have? These questions are answered through desk research analysis of reports by the Public Opinion Research Centre and statistical analysis of the author’s quantitative survey conducted after the 2023 parliamentary elections in Poland. The survey results indicate that various areas of activity of the Catholic Church in Poland are evaluated in different ways. The respondents are most critical of the Church’s influence on political authorities and the problem of solving the issue of paedophilia among the clergy. The results of the survey confirm that Law and Justice voters are the people who have the highest opinion of the Catholic Church in Poland and are closely associated with Christian values.

Czy Andrzej Duda jest Prezydentem RP? Wybrane aspekty legalności wyborów na Prezydenta RP w 2020 roku

The article presents results of a legal analysis of the most important actions aimed at holding presidential elections in Poland of 2020. The results show that although the May elections were legal, the June-July elections were carried out with no valid legal basis. At the end of the article theoretical political conclusions are drawn. One of them is that according to Georg Jellinek’s theory of the state the Polish Republic may not exist anymore.

Going in Different Directions? The 2023 Elections in Poland and Slovakia and Their Aftermath

Going in Different Directions? The 2023 Elections in Poland and Slovakia and Their Aftermath

Constructive patriotism predicts voting intentions: Evidence from state parliamentary, EU parliamentary, and presidential elections across different EU countries

In the present research, we investigated the link between different forms of national identification (i.e., constructive patriotism, glorification, and conventional patriotism) and intentions to vote in state parliamentary elections in Poland and Spain (Study 1, N = 1,270), presidential elections in Croatia (Study 2, N = 640), and elections for the EU Parliament in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Croatia (Study 3, N = 1,238). In Study 3, we additionally measured European identity. Moreover, we asked about actual voting behavior in Poland (Studies 1 and 3) and Croatia (Studies 2 and 3). The results consistently show that constructive patriotism is linked with greater intentions to vote in all types of elections and across all countries, and with a greater likelihood of voting in state parliamentary elections. In contrast, conventional patriotism had no link with intentions to vote or with actual voting behaviour in any type of election in any of the countries studied. Glorification was linked to lower intentions to vote only in state parliamentary elections. European identity was linked with greater intentions to vote in EU elections. Overall, our results suggest that constructive patriotism is a form of national identification that has particular electoral relevance.

Factors Determining the Greater Participation of Women in Local Government Presidential Elections in Poland

The issue of women’s representation in the bodies of executive power in Polish local government is generating increasing interest in the context of women’s activity in local politics. The purpose of the publication is to explain the reasons affecting the low representation of women in local presidential elections. The author answers the question of the low representation of women in mayoral elections and examines whether existing stereotypes about the role of women in society are the main barrier affecting the decision to run in these local government elections. Are there also other reasons that hinder running for the city’s executive body? With the research questions posed in this way, the author aims not only to initiate a discussion on women’s participation in local government bodies, but also to determine the reasons for their underrepresentation and to identify effective methods of counteracting this phenomenon once the barriers are identified.

THE POLITICAL FUNCTION OF PUBLIC FINANCE. THE POLAND EXAMPLE

The article concerns the function of public finance. The authors attempt to provide an answer as to whether, in addition to the classic functions of public finance – the allocative, redistributive and stabilizing functions – one can arrive at a claim that public finance also plays a political function. These reflections are based on the course of 2023 parliamentary elections in Poland and the analysis of election programs presented by the individual political parties. Extracted from the programs were all the promises which could impact the redistribution of public goods and services and would involve their public funding, as well as those which could impact the tax revenues of the state. The analysis leads to the conclusions that the scope of public spending and the degree of fiscalism were one of the main factors encouraging the voters to vote for a particular political party. Since election promises have a major impact on the election results and they can be turned into legal regulations impacting public budgets, the claim concerning the political function of public finance is justified.

Political transformations in Poland: will a change of government lead to a change of course?

The article examines the consequences of the change of the Polish government, headed by the right-wing Euro-skeptical Law and Justice party, which has led this country since October 2015. The article presents an analysis of the results of the parliamentary elections in Poland, held on October 15, 2023, in which the PiS won a formal victory, which, however failed to form a majority coalition. As a result, the ruling alliance, which received the right to form a government, was made up of the pre-election association of the parties Civic Coalition, which included the Civic Platform parties led by former Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Modern, the Greens and the Polish Initiative, the Third Way association, which included the parties Poland 2050, the Polish People's Party, the Center for Poland, and the Union the European Democrats, as well as the union of the Left, consisting of the parties New Left and Left together. The assessment of the activities of the leading Polish political parties over the previous four years is given, the main provisions of the election platforms of the main parties and coalitions that were elected to parliament following these elections are analyzed. To identify the dynamics of changes in the political situation in Poland, a comparative analysis of the results of the leading political parties of this country in the elections of 2019 and 2023 was carried out, as well as their main characteristics. The key differences in the approaches of the country's leading parties to the IpR and the Civic Platform on domestic and foreign policy issues, including their attitude to Russia's special military operation in Ukraine, are analyzed. The process of forming a new Polish government and the influence of the country's President Andrzej Duda on it is considered.

Evaluation of the “Street and Abroad” Strategy Implemented by Political Opposition in Poland under the Rule of Law and Justice

After the 2015 parliamentary elections in Poland, the parties that moved to the opposition declared themselves the “total opposition” and adopted the “Street and Abroad” strategy, the aim of which was to organize anti-government protests in the country and to use foreign fora, including above all EU mechanisms, to fight the new right-wing government, criticize its actions and eventually remove it from power. The paper aims to assess the effectiveness of the strategy adopted by the Polish opposition after seven years of right-wing rule. The subject of particular interest is, on the one hand, the evaluation of the “Street” strategy on the example of mass protests concerning courts, abortion, and the media. On the other hand, the “Abroad” strategy was analyzed through the impact of the European Parliament’s resolution on social mobilization, electoral preferences, and the level of support for the ruling party. For this purpose, the leading indicators of support for opposition parties published by opinion polling centers were used in the examples analyzed.

Protection of critical infrastructure (facilities) in the process of organizing elections in Poland

This paper analyses the concept of critical infrastructure (CI) in the context of electoral process organization. I will determine whether the seats of circuit electoral commissions (CECs) meet the relevant criteria. How can such facilities be effectively protected? What does international, European, and national law prescribe in this regard? I will examine doctrine and the provisions of the current legal system, including the documents of the National Electoral Commission (NEC). I adopt the statutory1 assumption whereby critical infrastructure should be understood as systems and their functionally interdependent facilities, including buildings, equipment, installations and services that are essential to the security of the state and its citizens, serving to ensure the proper functioning of public administration bodies, institutions and entrepreneurs. Critical infrastructure is comprised of systems which, for example, ensure the continuity of public administration.

Kobiety a wybory parlamentarne w Polsce w 2023 r.

The article is an attempt to define the most important factors that decided about record participation of women in the 2023 parliamentary elections in Poland (73.7 percent of eligible women voters). The authors concluded that the main reasons for women’s record turnout in elections were: opposition to the anti-women policies of the Law and Justice (PIS), the political party that had been in power since 2015; political mobilization of women by non-governmental organizations, and above all, proturnout initiatives and campaigns, as well as addressing the issue of women’s rights by political parties, both in election programs and during the election campaign. The main research method was the analysis of various sources (reports, political programs, articles, opinions) available through the internet.

The Elections in Crisis: Media Coverage of the Postponed 2020 Presidential Elections in Poland

In Poland, the presidential elections were primarily scheduled on May 10th, 2020. However, due to the COVID-19 circumstances, the elections were postponed and eventually took place in late June (first round) and mid-July (second round) 2020. The aim of the paper is to examine media coverage of the postponed presidential elections in Poland. In particular, the paper explores frames used by journalists in their coverage of the postponed elections. For the purpose of this study we conducted a quantitative content analysis of news items from three TV newscasts, four radio stations, and three online platforms. The material was collected on May 10th (a day of primarily scheduled the first round of elections), and June 30th (a day when the results of the first round of postponed elections were officially announced). The findings showed that both amount of the news coverage and the main frames used by the media across time differed. Although episodic frame prevailed in the media coverage on both days. thematic frame was used more often in the media coverage on the day when voting was supposed to take place, than on the day when results of the first round of presidential elections were announced. On contrary, conflict frame was used more often in the media coverage of results of the elections than on a day without election. The political orientation of the media outlets affected the way journalist employed responsibility and consequences frames.

Widać zabory? Analiza zróżnicowania przestrzennego nieważnych głosów w wyborach centralnych w Polsce w latach 2004–2019

The percentage of invalid votes in national elections in Poland, has not been studied as extensively as in the case of local elections. There are many research gaps in this area, starting with the description of the spatial patterns of this diverse phenomenon. This article has this main goal: to describe the spatial patterns of the percentage of invalid votes in the elections to the Sejm, the European Parliament and the President of the Republic of Poland in the years 2004–2019. The key of this study is a long-term analysis of the above-mentioned problem, as well as a look at the changes taking place in space-temporal terms. For this purpose, the methods of comparative map analysis, spatial classification and statistical analysis: Kruskal-Wallis and Student’s t-tests were used. The most important conclusion from this work is the universality of spatial patterns of the percentage of invalid votes in the case of elections to the Sejm and the European Parliament and some differences in the case of presidential elections. The persistence of interregional differences is also noticeable, but we can observe strengthening of these differences in the case of parliamentary and presidential elections, and weakening in the case of elections to the European Parliament. The article also presents an explanation for the significant increase of invalid votes in the Bydgoszcz district in the 2005 Sejm elections, which was caused by the unusual design of the brochure ballot card.

Voters’ Attitudes towards the Gender Quota System in Elections in Poland and the Possibility of Its Modification

The article concerns the support for the gender quota system in the elections in Poland. The research was conducted on a double sample of adults for a representative national research, by means of quota sampling method (n = 2119). The respondents who believed that there is insufficient representation of women in parliament outnumbered those with the opposite opinion. We have observed a reluctance among the respondents to introduce solutions aimed at strengthening women’s representation. The difference in views were determined by political preferences, gender, age, domicile, and education. Women and leftist supporters more frequently believed that there are too few women in parliament and supported quotas, as opposed to men and persons with right-wing views. The differences were observed in the youngest age category, where women more often opted for quotas than men.

Konstytucyjne zasady prawa wyborczego w wyborach samorządowych w Polsce a rozwiązania europejskie – przyczynek do dyskusji

The subject of the article is an attempt to compare the constitutional principles of holding local government elections in Poland and in other EU countries. Preliminary studies of this issue indicate that in the case of elections of the constitutive bodies of local government units, three model solutions may be indicated: (1) lack of regulation of the principles of electoral law in the constitution, which means that the ordinary legislator is left with some freedom in regulation of this issue; (2) constitution regulates a limited catalogue of the principles of electoral law (usually two or three); (3) constitution regulates a full catalogue of the four fundamental principles of electoral law (universality, equality, directness, secret ballot). Similar remarks apply to executive bodies of local self-government units. The aim of the article is to classify Poland into one of the above-mentioned models and to try to answer the question of what were the premises behind such a regulation of this issue in the Constitution of the Republic of Poland of 2 April 1997.

Participation in Polish Local Elections: Sheer Rational Choice or Social Embeddedness Fate?

In this article, a modest attempt is undertaken to connect the rational choice theory mechanism with the sociological theory of voting, as efforts to juxtapose both theories are still rare, although some cited accomplishments offer interesting insights. Our dependent variable is participation in a local election in Poland. The local government elections in Poland seem to offer a setting particularly well-suited for a test of the rational choice hypothesis and its relation to sociological explanations of voting behavior. The essential contribution of the article derives from our conviction that social embeddedness and rooting into the social milieu and local community matter for both the cost of participating in a local election and the cost of deciding whether to participate. In the world of post-cleavage politics, individualization of political behavior and involvement in (new) social networks play an increasingly important role. The general finding can be summarized as follows: the social embeddedness of citizens does enhance the probability of participation in an election; however, it does not substitute for the impact of rational motivation factors, nor does it significantly decrease the latter’s net impact on our dependent variable.

Interactive Election Campaigns on Social Media? Flow of Political Information Among Journalists and Politicians as an Element of the Communication Strategy of Political Actors

ABSTRACT This study examined politicians’ communication strategies with journalists in Poland within the context of the flow of information on social media (Facebook and Twitter). The main questions posed in the article concerned which entities used which patterns of information flow, and whether during election campaigns, politicians communicated with journalists on social media by reacting to the latter’s published posts. The study focused on pre-electoral periods of two consecutive parliamentary elections in Poland conducted in 2015 and 2019. The results showed that politicians rarely reacted to journalists’ Twitter posts. If they did, they most often used reactive communication. Additionally, political actors from opposition parties more intensely used information flow patterns with a higher level of interactivity in 2019 than in 2015.

Organization of General Elections during a Pandemic. A Comparative Analysis of Poland and the Czech Republic

The aim of this paper is a comparative analysis of the new methods used to organise the 2020 general elections in Poland and the Czech Republic, which were held in the state of the SARS-19 virus pandemic. This paper analyses the voting methods introduced in connection with sanitary regulations in both countries and the scale of votes cast in this way in relation to the total. It discusses and compares the requirements introduced that voters and electoral commission members had to meet on voting day to minimise the risk of infection with the virus. The text shows a number of similarities in both countries in terms of the measures applied to prevent the spread of the virus associated with a personal visit to a polling station. An additional aspect of the comparative analysis of the covid-voting methods in the two countries was a discussion of voting rules for those infected or in quarantine on voting day. Analysis of the data showed that in both countries the alternative voting method, was not very popular.

Dilemmas of Political Parallelism: Polish Weekly Opinion Magazines in the Face of the Migration Crisis of 2015

Within the article activity of media broadcasters during the migration crisis of 2015 has been analysed – the crisis whose peak coincided with the period of political campaign preceding the parliamentary elections in Poland. In this context, strong emphasis on issues related to the migration crisis, which had become one of the leading themes of the parliamentary campaign, could have been expected in Polish press market, especially taking into consideration strong political affiliations of weekly opinion magazines existing in the said market at the time. In the presented article, 207 issues of the following opinion weeklies have been analysed: “Newsweek”, “Polityka”, “wSieci” and “Do Rzeczy”, in order to determine the media importance of migration-related themes and of the level of political parallelism of the studied media (political/axiological or party profiling of media releases). The study used the content analysis method with reference to the concept of framing.

Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe wobec Rosji, Ukrainy i Białorusi w latach 2015–2019

Eastern policy is one of the most important areas of Polish foreign policy. It regards the countries (of the former Soviet Union), that do not belong to the Euro-Atlantic structures. In 2015, Law and Justice won the parliamentary elections in Poland. Witold Waszczykowski was assigned as the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and was replaced in January 2018 by Jacek Czaputowicz. The aim of the study is to find an answer to the question: what was the attitude of the Polish People’s Party to Russia, Ukraine and Belarus in 2015–2019 and what premises influenced its shape? A working hypothesis was adopted: “The Polish People’s Party in 2015–2019 opted for a partnership model of Poland’s relations with Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, shaped on the basis of pragmatic premises”. The time limit for the research covered the period from July 17th, 2015 to November 11th, 2019. The analysis of the collected material made possible to answer the question (contained in the introduction to the article), and also confirmed the validity of the adopted working hypothesis. Moreover, it showed that for the Polish People’s Party, matters concerning eastern policy were not the leading thread in the reflection on Polish foreign policy.