The Political Impact of the Global Crisis in Poland: Delayed and Indirect Effects

Abstract

While the global economic crisis brought no decrease in support of democracy in Poland, its effects turned out to be delayed and indirect. In the pre-crisis survey, a great difference in normative visions of democracy between citizens and MPs, especially concerning economic welfare, has been recorded. Citizens expressed a preference for more redistributive and protective policies while parliamentarians focused mostly on procedural aspects of democracy. Seven years later, we observed a partial convergence of attitudes of these two groups: citizens had lowered their economic expectations, while for MPs economic and redistributive issues became more salient as essential normative characteristics of democracy. However, the extent of this convergence between citizens and political elites differed by political divisions. We argue that differences in post-crisis responsiveness of political elites formed the basis of a major change in Polish politics after 2015