Student Theses and Dissertations
Date of Award
Spring 5-1-2018
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts (BA)
Honors Designation
yes
Program of Study
Political Science
Language
English
First Advisor
Till Weber
Second Advisor
Manoj Illickal
Third Advisor
Gerasimos Karavitis
Abstract
Under the puzzling circumstances of a strong domestic economy and the relatively stable mainstream policymaking of the incumbents, Law and Justice (PiS), a right-wing populist party, momentously won the 2015 presidential and parliamentary elections in Poland. Using a comparative approach, the thesis examines the structural forces and policy dimensions/goals, which have provided the necessary conditions for the populist right-wing program to appeal to a wide variety of demographic groups, resulting in an electoral victory and to some degree in the redrawing of political and social boundaries. The conducted field study served as a hypothesis-generating exercise to gauge the voter sentiment informally in Poland. Based on the empirical data from a sample comprised of Poland’s seven post-communist democratic counterparts, statistical models depictive of combinations of structural exogenous conditions, as well as policy packages of political parties, were recorded in an effort to capture cross-national similarities and differences, and to shed light on key success factors that systematically contribute to the rise of right-wing populism in modern Eastern Europe. The empirical analysis was supplemented with widely cited scholarship on the topic of populism, populist adaptation, and populist politics.
Recommended Citation
Koszykowska, Patrycja J., "The Rise of Right-Wing Populism in Poland: Comparative Analysis of Social Structure and Party Strategy" (2018). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/bb_etds/81