A Fourth Wave of Populism ? (original) (raw)

Introduction The Polish political system has been significantly reshaped since the transformation process in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Przyłęcki (2012, pp. 68–70) has argued that at least three waves of populism have occurred in the last 25 years. The first wave occurred during the 1990 presidential elections, the second in mid-1995, and the third and strongest wave started with the 2001 parliamentary elections. Consequently, most studies on populism in Poland were published after 2001 and relate mainly to two political parties; the League of Polish Families and the Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland. As we shall see in this chapter, some argue that a fourth wave of Polish populism started during the 2014 European Parliament elections, which affected both the presidential and parliamentary elections in 2015. Most Polish studies have focused on political actors as communicators, and less is known about the relationship between populism and the media and between populism and...