Rywalizacja międzypartyjna i wewnątrzpartyjna w kampanii referendum europejskiego w Wielkiej Brytanii z 2016 roku
Inter‑party and intra‑party rivalry in the 2016 EU referendum campaign in the United Kingdom
 The objective of this paper is an analysis of the course of the 2016 EU referendum campaign from the perspective of the political battle between the parties and between intra‑party factions. Besides the main goals of the UK’s leaving the EU or remaining within it, the stakes of the battle included the strengthening of one’s own political camp, the weakening of one’s opponents, the gaining of power within a party or, eventually, the gaining of power in the country. The article is divided into two major parts devoted to the analysis of inter‑party rivalry and intra‑party rivalry respectively. Th…
Between Strategic Cooperation and Distrustful Neighbourhood. Polish-German relations in the agendas of Polish governments, 1990–2019
Since 1989 the building of new Polish-German relations has been carried out in the dimensions of both time (historical reconciliation) and space (reintegration eastern and western parts of Europe). This determines their fundamental importance for contemporary Europe. This article presents an analysis of Polish-German relations from the perspective of issue salience. The source base of this paper comprises Addresses by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs (AMFAs), i.e. annual speeches given by foreign ministers presenting the major goals of Poland’s foreign policy. It makes it possible to adopt a long-term perspective (1990-2018). The quantitative analysis was based on the rules of the Comparati…
From fringe to fringe: the shift from the clericalist League of Polish Families to the anticlericalist Palikot Movement 2001–2015
The period between 2001 and 2015 brought two events in Poland that deserve to be called phenomena. In 2001 the rightist, clericalist League of Polish Families entered the Sejm. Ten years later, the leftist, anticlericalist Palikot Movement achieved spectacular success in the 2011 elections. These events give a picture of a radical shift in the Polish political scene: a rightist clericalist party disappeared from the right flank of the political scene, while a new, leftist-anticlericalist formation appeared. The article makes reference to a set of five explanations on both the causes and consequences (and permanence) of the observed changes. I argue that only a concurrence of a number of com…
Polski eurosceptycyzm w kontekście dylematów teoretycznych i porównawczych
Polish Euroscepticism in the context of theoretical and comparative dilemmas The aim of this article is an analysis of two of the most inflammatory issues in the debate over Euroscepticism – the typology of anti‑European attitudes and the main conditioning factors of these attitudes. The first aspect constitutes a certain substitute for a definitional debate, since despite the abundance of studies related to Euroscepticism, such studies contain only trace definitional concepts. In the Polish perspective, the two issues above have been presented in the context of the specificity of Poland’s political scene in the 1990s and early 2000s. This confirms that Euroscepticism is a phenomenon that e…
Not So Much Societal: The Catholic Church in Poland as a Veto Player
George Tsebelis distinguished two forms of veto players’ actions: institutional and partisan. In a democracy, the Church is not able to play either role because it is not an element of the state’s institutional structure. This was the source for Simon Fink’s proposal to look at the Church as a societal veto player (VP). The case of Poland shows, however, that such an approach becomes inadequate in numerous situations. The Church’s influence on political parties, and particularly the state’s institutions, may be exerted outside society. Performed on the basis of the existing literature and political debates conducted since 1989, the analysis of the social and political reality of Poland all…
Through the Looking Glass: The Attitudes of Polish Political Parties towards the EU before and after Accession
Abstract The objective of this paper is a comparison of the attitudes of parliamentary parties towards the European Union in terms of Poland's accession to the European Union. Therefore the parliamentary parties' attitudes after the elections in 2001 and 2005 have been analyzed and compared. Another significant aim of this paper is the identification of factors conditioning these attitudes as well as changes in them. The change from a candidate to a member of the EU forced the political parties to redefine their attitudes towards Europe since the character of the European issue itself also changed. This especially applies to those parties which strongly opposed Poland's accession to the EU.…
Power holders: one versus many. Leadership and elite theories
‘Leadership’ and ‘elites’ are two crucial concepts that refer to individuals who hold power within a community. The aim of the article was to demonstrate to what extent the two concepts and theories are linked with each other in the literature. A quantitative and qualitative content analysis of the encyclopedic and dictionary entries demonstrates a divergence of approaches: on the one hand, a fundamental separation between the two theories, while on the other hand, a tendency to identify the one with the other. This shows the need for much more dialog between the frameworks of these two closely related phenomena.
From the poster boy of Europeanization to the sick man of Europe: thirty years (1990–2019) of Poland’s European policy
The Eurosceptic turnabout which has taken place in the CEE constitutes one of the most significant factors weakening the cohesion of the EU. In this group, Poland is the key element in view of its ...
The Present Through the Past: Polish Presidents and the Post-Communist Debate, 1989–2010
I argue that the category of post-communism, though fuzzy in meaning and theoretically unrefined, did mark an essential point of dispute (albeit symbolic) in the democratization period of the Polish political system between 1989–2010. The dispute over post-communism in Poland was initially conditioned mainly by ideological divisions (first half of the 1990s) and later by a ‘competition of power’ (especially from 2000). The specific role played by the presidents in the debate over the communist past and post-communist reality of Poland resulted from his insufficiently defined position in the political system, as well as from the fact that up to 2010 the presidency was held by key actors on t…