Polish Parliamentary Elections Research Articles

2023 Polish Parliamentary Elections: Victory for Women’s Rights or Empty Promises?

2023 Polish Parliamentary Elections: Victory for Women’s Rights or Empty Promises?

Old Empires, Modern State: Legacies of Partitions on Voting Behaviour in the 2023 Polish Parliamentary Elections

Abstract The legacies of former partitions are still visible in today’s Poland in the economy, society and politics. Our article integrates the historical and geographical perspective into the study of electoral behaviour in Poland. We conduct a geographical description of electoral results in the 2023 parliamentary elections and determine how economic and cultural attributes related to different paths of development associated with the former partitions are reflected in the apparent spatial differences. We distinguish between direct and indirect influence. It is indirect when differences in economic development (e.g. changes in agrarian structures) or cultural transformations (e.g. secularisation) resulting from former policies are reflected in different electoral choices. The influence is direct if belonging to a former empire determines electoral behaviour regardless of the economic and cultural determinants of the vote. We found that the influence concerns primarily the former Russian and Austrian regions. The analysis is conducted at the county (powiat) level.

Die Parlamentswahlen in Polen 2023. Wahlkampfberichterstattung in katholischen Wochenzeitungen

The Catholic press in Poland is known for its biased reporting and thus disregards the journalistic principle of objectivity. A quantitative content analysis was used to investigate whether and to what extent the Catholic weekly publications “Niedziela”, “Gość Niedzielny” and “Idziemy” reported objectively on the election campaign ahead of the Polish parliamentary elections in 2023. The results of the analysis indicate deficits in the reporting. The newspapers reported predominantly negatively on politicians and the activities of the opposition parties. In contrast, they only expressed approval of the activities, election campaigns and election programs of politicians from the Law and Justice party and President Andrzej Duda.

“Kukiz’15” And “Korwin”: The Essence Of The Polish Populist Rise And Its Possible Causes

The article analyzes the configuration, ideology, program and electorate of two national-populist parties in Poland — “Kukiz’15” and “KORWiN”, which showed significant results in the 2015 and 2019 elections and thereby demonstrated society has a demand for change. Further, the possible reasons for the populist success are considered in terms of the increase in the amount of demand because of the socioeconomic situation, the problem of migration and the high volatility of the party system. And from the point of view of increasing the quality of the proposal the article deals with the development of communication channels “party — voter”, the use of the Internet in electoral campaigns and adaptation to the policies pursued by the ruling party “Law and Justice” (Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc). The 2015 Polish parliamentary elections were characterized by the successful debut of the right-wing populist and anarchist “Kukiz’15”. Nearly a quarter of her voters in 2015 voted for the left-wing populist “Palikot Movement” in 2011, when it debuted in elections and entered parliament. However, ideologically these are diametrically opposite forces. They are related only by aggressive and irreconcilable discourse and, of course, populism. Thus, the success of these parties did not come so much from the ideologies and programs they proposed, but from the fact that in recent years the Polish voter is consciously ready to choose any non-systemic radical alternative protest force, which is expected to be populists, as opposed to the established party establishment.

Disentangling the factors behind shifting voting intentions: The bandwagon effect reflects heuristic processing, while the underdog effect reflects fairness concerns

In today’s elections, abundantly available polls inform voters what parties lead and what parties trail. This allows voters to accurately predict the likely outcomes of elections before the final results are in. Voters may react to these ex-ante election outcomes by shifting their votes either toward leading parties, often termed the “bandwagon effect” or toward trailing parties, often termed the “underdog effect”. The published literature presents different perspectives on the strength of both effects and the underlying psychological processes. Three preregistered studies (total N = 1,424) test the psychological causes of both effects. Exploratory Study 1 relates differences in interpersonal, moral, strategic, and epistemic psychological factors to shifts in voting intentions before the 2019 Polish parliamentary elections. Results suggest that the bandwagon effect reflects a lack of political expertise, whereas the underdog effect reflects fairness concerns. To provide experimental evidence, Studies 2a and 2b manipulate these two factors in a simulated election design. The results confirm that low expertise increases the bandwagon effect and that fairness concerns increase the underdog effect.

Gender Ideologies and Polish Political Parties

AbstractThis article explores the gender dimension of ideology and representation by analysing the political parties that ran in the 2019 Polish parliamentary elections, using a novel analytical framework based on gender claims and gender-related policy pledges. This article demonstrates that a left and liberal ideology largely determines feminist and pro-LGBTQ+ promissory representation. However, the gender ideologies of right-wing political parties vary in their traditional types and can include a populist element. This article contributes to comparative gender and politics scholarship by examining gender ideologies in the Central and Eastern European context, where on the one hand, populism and anti-gender campaigns have taken hold, and, on the other, feminist and progressive movements have challenged traditionalism and illiberalism. This article also differentiates a scholarly meaning of gender ideology from its populist meaning.

Between Cooperation and Competition: Electoral Alliances of the Parliamentary Opposition in Poland during the 2018–2019 Series of Three Elections

The 2019 Polish parliamentary elections were the last in a series of three elections held within 12 months (chronologically: local elections, European Parliament election, elections to the Sejm and the Senate). The three consecutive elections opened up the possibility for cooperation within the parliamentary opposition with the aim of political victory. This article examines the relations between opposition groups in 2018–2019. Each election is analyzed in terms of the nature of relations within the opposition as well as cooperation and interparty competition. The hypothesis assumes that the types of relations among parliamentary opposition groups were shaped by the character of the given elections and the decisions taken by individual parties choosing between maintaining their independence and steps to potentially increase their electoral chances. The analysis shows that during the period in question the opposition did not develop a stable unified model of cooperation and that relations between individual groups were dominated by competition; however, depending on the election, cooperation was possible and was pragmatically pursued by the parties, as in the case of the European Coalition. The only stable cooperation was between Civic Platform and Modern.

Counter-movement at a critical juncture : A neo-Polanyian interpretation of the rise of the illiberal Right in Poland

This article seeks to explain the causes of the growing popularity of the illiberal right, taking the Polish political party Law and Justice as an example. The adopted analytical approach combines insights derived from the work of Karl Polanyi and the tradition of historical institutionalism. The victory of Law and Justice in the 2015 Polish parliamentary elections is argued to constitute a critical juncture that initiated a fundamental break with the liberal order. Following Polanyi, we argue that the seeds of the recent anti-liberal counter-revolution can be found in the malfunctioning of the Polish economic order built during the period of transition. However, Law and Justice has managed to make use of the critical juncture arising from social discontent and has used it instrumentally to dismantle liberal constitutionalism and the rule of law.

Idea sekularyzmu w polskiej kampanii parlamentarnej 2019 roku

<p>Celem artykułu jest ocena stopnia obecności idei sekularyzmu w programach wyborczych głównych partii politycznych startujących w polskich wyborach parlamentarnych 2019 roku. W artykule przyjęto rozumienie tzw. sekularyzmu politycznego i odniesiono je do instytucji Kościoła rzymskokatolickiego ze względu na kontekst badań, a także na fakt, że katolicy stanowią dominującą część społeczeństwa polskiego i ze względu na doniosłe znaczenie społeczno-polityczne Kościoła katolickiego w Polsce.</p><p>Materiał badawczy stanowiły programy wyborcze partyjnych komitetów wyborczych, jak również przemówienia ich liderów politycznych wygłoszone podczas głównych wyborczych konwencji programowych.</p><p>Artykuł zwiększa wartość poznawczą zagadnienia komunikowania politycznego dotyczącego idei sekularyzmu w okresie kampanii parlamentarnej 2019 r. Badania dowiodły, że religia stała się istotnym czynnikiem dyskursu politycznego w czasie kampanii parlamentarnej w Polsce w 2019 r. Temat dotyczący roli instytucji Kościoła katolickiego w sferze publicznej był jednak podjęty jedynie przez Prawo i Sprawiedliwość oraz Lewicę. Odnotowano wyrazistą dychotomiczność poglądów tychże komitetów wyborczych. PiS wypowiedział się przeciw idei sekularyzmu, zaś Lewica tę ideę wsparła. Konfederacja, PSL oraz KW Koalicja Obywatelska przemilczały w programach wyborczych kwestię idei państwa świeckiego.</p>

The idea of situational leadership in political parties

The results from the Polish parliamentary elections in 2015 showed a significant change in the behaviour of the electorate. Two completely new political groups have entered the Sejm. For the very first time in the history of the Third Polish Republic, a new balance of power emerged, which excluded the left-wing parties from political discourse without assigning them a parliamentary mandate [Dudek 2016: 687]. In the face of this turn of events, it is difficult to maintain the thesis concerning the freezing of the circulation of political elites in the current political system. The Modern political party was established on 31 May 2015 [Kim jesteśmy?] while the Kukiz'15 political movement formed only three months before the parliamentary elections [O stowarzyszeniu – wladze krajowe i okregowe]. These two political organisations were able to overcome the electoral threshold and achieve unexpected success in such a short period of time and without an extensive party structure or significant financial base. The mobilisation of the electorate took place outside the parliamentary structures. In view of this, is the phenomenon of 'over-parlamentisation' [Żukiewicz 2011: 343] involved in the creation of political leaders still valid? Is it to be believed, that in the face of ever more frequent grassroots social initiatives, the real political struggle still only takes place within the parties and political leaders who are not traditional participants of political party games but who appear as activists associated with other areas of public life? On the other hand, the changes that take place in the electorate do not directly translate into the reorganisation of party structures. The tendency to block political advancement by the already established political elite still persists. Traditional political parties are afraid of this new situation, which can significantly harm their interests. Impeding these changes may seem to be an obvious reaction, inscribed in the rules of political struggle [Żukiewicz 2011: 345]. However, the constant increase in tension between the demands and expectations of the electorate and the offer of these parties may indicate that the current balance of power will not last for long. Upcoming transformations cannot be avoided however attempts should be made to control them. For this reason, leaders of traditional political parties should decide on utilising such a mechanism for selecting leaders as it would not exclude them from the political space while at the same time be a guarantor of power. Being part of the 21st century, we have all witnessed and participated in the intensification of globalisation processes as well as the generational change and the popularisation of ideas related to the information society. The significant increase in the importance of the phenomenon of mediatisation of politics causes a reversal of the hierarchy of attributes and predispositions which are desired by society [Schulz 2004: 87-101]. The image of political leaders on social media begins to outweigh their actual leadership skills. There is a danger that the new mechanism responsible for creating party structures will indeed facilitate the circulation of the elite, but unfortunately at the expense of the quality of potential leaders. That is why it is so important that the transformation process of the political power system proceeds as designed, and not in a chaotic manner, succumbing to bottom-up trends. In addition, external factors of an international nature make it difficult to conduct research on the latest political phenomena. The changes currently occurring in society require new research perspectives and approaches. Traditional theories concerning the political system and the understanding of party structure may turn out to be insufficient.

Do Parties and Voters Counteract Quota Regulations? The Impact of Legislative Gender Quotas on Ballot Ranking and Preference Voting in Poland

AbstractThis article investigates how the introduction of gender quotas affected female representation in an open-list proportional representation system. Based on the Polish parliamentary elections of 2005, 2007, 2011, and 2015, it attempts to explain the gap between the share of female candidates and the share of female legislators. The authors estimate changes in individual electoral chances using logistic regression. Subsequently, counterfactual reasoning is applied to display the results in the metrics of seat shares. The analyses of candidate-level data demonstrate that after the introduction of quotas, significantly more women ran for office, but parties and voters, on average, changed their preferences to the disadvantage of female candidates, even when incumbency and previous electoral experience were controlled. The article demonstrates that women benefited from the introduction of quotas, but not right away. The desired effect of gender quotas (an increase in female legislative representation) was mitigated mainly by the unequal distribution of “electoral capital” among candidates of both genders. The impact of this factor was moderated by ballot ranking patterns. Once women acquire more electoral capital, the role of party elites’ negative bias in ballot ranking becomes more visible.

A New Populist Divide? Correspondences of Supply and Demand in the 2015 Polish Parliamentary Elections

This paper uses a new set of questions to analyse the impact of populist attitudes on party preferences and voting behaviour in the 2015 Polish parliamentary elections. At these elections, voters faced a choice between two broad blocs: parties that accepted the “liberal-orthodox” model of post-communist politics, and those that rejected this model and the political elites associated with its implementation. I find that there is a coherent set of populist attitudes among the Polish electorate, and that it correlates with economic and cultural attitudes in ways consistent with the supply-side divide between liberal and anti-liberal parties. Analysis of the individual and combined impact of these attitudes on voting behaviour reveals that populism plays a significant role both in structuring the sentiments of voters towards particular kinds of political parties and in determining how they cast their vote.

Spoiler effects in proportional representation systems: evidence from eight Polish parliamentary elections, 1991–2015

I consider a model of multiple winner elections with several types of spoilers. In single-office elections, a “classic” spoiler turns a winner into a non-winner and a non-winner into a winner. Such spoilers rarely appear in multi-office elections. In such elections, spoilers include a “Kingmaker”, who turns a non-winner into a winner; a “Kingslayer”, who turns a winner into a non-winner; a “Valuegobbler”, who subtracts from some competitor more seats than it receives; and “Selfspoilers”, who may be hurt by competing separately rather than creating an electoral coalition. Various strategic spoilers, such as fake parties, are possible as well. I look for spoilers in eight Polish parliamentary elections that have taken place since the fall of communism in 1989. In two elections, the consequences of spoilers were massive. In 1993, multiple spoilers on the right helped the two post-communist parties return to power, slow down decommunization and create strong institutional obstacles to further democratization. In 2015, a spoiler manufactured a majority for the largest party (PiS) and, as a consequence, enabled PiS quickly to implement radical reforms. In other elections, spoilers had smaller, but noticeable consequences. The results suggest that parliamentary elections using PR party-list systems are vulnerable to spoiler problems that may cause significant political effects.

The Political Consequences of Economic Shocks. Evidence from Poland

How do economic shocks influence domestic politics? We take advantage of a surprise revaluation of the Swiss franc in early 2015 to identify the Polish citizens with clear and direct economic exposure: those repaying mortgages denominated in Swiss francs. Using original survey data collected just prior to the 2015 Polish parliamentary elections and comparing current with past foreign exchange borrowers, we show that individuals directly exposed to the shock were much more likely to demand government support. Those with no exposure to the shock were less likely to express an opinion on the matter. Current borrowers’ preferences for a generous resolution scheme translated into distinct voting behavior. Among former government voters, Swiss franc borrowers were more likely to desert the government and vote for the largest opposition party, the PiS, which had promised the most generous bailout plan. The evidence suggests that the PiS was able to use the franc shock to expand its electoral coalition beyond its core voters to include those directly affected by the franc shock, a subgroup otherwise unlikely to support the PiS. Simulation results indicate that, absent the franc shock, the PiS is unlikely to have won a parliamentary majority.

Populizm w Polsce – między demagogią i demofilią

The goal of this paper is to present the evolution of populism in Poland using the examples of two political parties: the “Samoobrona” (“Self-Defense”) political party of Andrzej Lepper (a populist party which garnered most support in the first decade of the 21st century) and the “Kukiz ‘15” movement – the dark horse of the last Polish parliamentary elections. Both of these groups superbly illustrate the demagogy characteristic of populism, linked with an affirmation of the people (nation) which in turn would not be possible without the anti-establishment stance of the political leaders and the electorate. A comparison of these two examples allows us to monitor the transformations occurring in populist groups over the last few years, especially in the age where the Internet is employed as a vital means of communication. The paper presents the alternative conceptualizations of the idea of populism, and moves on to employ the N. Baar scheme (2009) and secondary and primary data (data obtained from the “Barometr Wyborczy” voting advisory application), and press releases to draft various types of correspondence between these two cases, which makes it possible to identify new, interesting characteristics of populism.

Report on Corporate Governance in State-owned Enterprises – the Polish Perspective

Since the last Polish parliamentary elections in 2015, some deep changes have been announced in the legal framework of state-owned companies. The changes are supposed to be mainly targeted at setting different rules of remuneration policy of the boards’ members compared to private-owned companies. They are meant to conquer recognised abuses in management and supervision areas of state-owned companies, which have not been overcome by recent, quite liberal legal regulations, nor by self-limitation and self-control. In addition corporate governance in Polish state-owned enterprises is facing massive changes. At the beginning of 2016, former Minister of Treasury Dawid Jackiewicz announced liquidation of the Ministry of Treasury in January 2017, and the revision of State’s supervision over the SOE. After liquidation of the Ministry of Treasury, ownership rights over SOEs will be exercised by sector ministries. The aim of the paper is to analyse the implementation of Chapter II of the OECD Guidelines on Corporate Governance of State-Owned Enterprises’ provisions into Polish legal order governing state-owned enterprises.

CZY DUŻE OKRĘGI WYBORCZE ZAWSZE ZWIĘKSZAJĄ PROPORCJONALNOŚĆ WYBORÓW? NOWE DOWODY Z POLSKICH WYBORÓW PARLAMENTARNYCH

Traditional studies on political consequences of electoral systems were recognising electoral formula as the most important variable responsible for the consequences generated by a given electoral system. Meanwhile, recent studies suggest that the impact of this variable is defi nitely overrated. The article shows how the number of seats won in electoral districts affects the political parties and their candidates' chances of winning both in the proportional representation voting systems as well as in the majority and plurality ones. Using the examples of Polish parliamentary elections, the present paper both examines the thesis according to which larger electoral districts always increase proportionality and identifi es the conditions under which the thesis fi nds its application.

Gender Trouble in Poland

In the Polish parliamentary elections of October 2015, the right-wing Law and Justice party won enough seats that, for the first time since the fall of communism, Poland is being governed by one party alone. The new government has acted swiftly, aggressively attacking feminists, “the homosexual lobby,” and the liberal values of a threatening West. In response to this new level of mobilization against any and all feminist ideas and values, the Network of East-West Women (NEWW), an international feminist organization connecting and developing support among feminists in post-communist countries and the United States, has gathered to discuss ways to fight back. At the moment, Poland has Law and Justice; the United States has Trump. Recognizing the parallels and together crafting possible responses is one kind of internationalism that feels urgent now.

Stabilizacja za wszelką cenę? Negocjacje koalicyjne po wyborach parlamen-tarnych w 2005 roku

The article presents the political situation in Poland after the 2005 Polish parliamentary elections and describes key points of the political program of Law and Justice, which was titled “Czwarta Rzeczpospolita”. The elections in 2005 were won by Law and Justice, a conservative party, who were led by Jarosław Kaczyński. Civic Platform occupied second place. Both parties wanted to cooperate in creating a majority coalition in the lower House of Parliament but the victory of Law and Justice and the troubled negotiations along with the triumph of Lech Kaczyński in the presidential election brought an end to the collaboration between these parties. The victorious party had to look for a partners to govern among the remaining parties. Eventually, the chiefs of Law and Justice decided to sign a stabilization pact with League of Polish Families and Self Defense Party. The agreement, signed in February 2006, did not bring about an end to the crisis of politics in Poland, therefore political leaders decided to announce an early election in 2007.

Strategie celebrytyzacji polityki na przykładzie medialnego obrazu kampanii parlamentarnej w 2011 r.

The purpose of this article is to analyse the most commonly used strategies in 2011‘s Polish parliamentary elections. Political communication took place in media in 2011 referred to the tradition of American political marketing. Many mechanisms were also inspired by a popular culture, despite the extraordinary situation in the country after the tragedy in Smolensk in 2010 (as a result of the plane crash where the President of Poland and many MPs passed away). Many surveys show that Polish voters are not interested in politics and above all they do not understand the difficult political speeches. Politicians in the election campaign presented themselves and their programs, but also sought among voters the visibility and popularity. This article analyses the methods used in the polish parliamentary campaign in 2011. Many of them came from popular culture, such as the intense presence of celebrities in medial scene and elements of the show, happenings, festivals, popular events, props and gadgets in political campaigns. The result of the analysis is extract of new strategies for candidates image building: 1) support of politicians, celebrities, 2) politicians as celebrities, 3) celebrities as politicians. Election promises are on the border of politics and entertainment. This raises concern about the trivialization of communication in politics and shallow election campaign resembling elements of carnival and festivals.