Assistant Professor, Institute of Sociology, University of Warsaw; Member of the Board, Kultura Liberalna Foundation; Senior Fellow, Center for Liberal Modernity
Reading Room 303, Mandel Center for the Humanities, Brandeis University
Nearly 30 years after its democratic breakthrough, Poland poses
a puzzling and fascinating case for scholars, public intellectuals, and
journalists. Has Warsaw since 2015 witnessed a "democratic
regeneration" as the current government claims, or rather it embarked on
a road towards authoritarianism? What has Prawo i Sprawiedliwość
exactly changed during the past two years? To what extent can we speak
of a continuation of the transformation's logic, and to what extent is
this a construction of a new state model by the current Polish
government? Is Poland’s current
path similar or different than that of Hungary or Turkey? And, perhaps
most importantly - why did this party win the last elections and why is
its popularity still so high in opinion polls?