Redistribute and Divide: The Narratives of Poland’s Right-Wing Populism

Between 2015 and 2023, the radical right populist Law and Justice party gradually eroded democratic institutions in Poland. The party's electoral successes have been attributed to rising inequality and the inability of mainstream political parties to implement effective economic redistribution—echoing populist patterns across Europe. Law and Justice capitalised on long-standing economic grievances, a by-product of the rapid transformation from a centrally planned to a free market economy, which produced a large social group of ‘losers of transformation’. Although these grievances had existed for some time, they were largely ignored by successive governments, and the sense of economic injustice was further exacerbated by the economic and migration crises within the European Union. Law and Justice effectively addressed the needs of social groups who felt both economically and culturally excluded from the political community following the democratic transition. They combined a narrative that emphasised the economic divide between ‘liberal Poland’ and ‘solidarity Poland’ with social conservatism, a close relationship with the Catholic Church, Euroscepticism, and a strong anti-immigration campaign.

In this study, we analyse the narratives of Law and Justice that link the articulation of class grievances with anti-elite resentment, welfare chauvinism, and an illiberal backlash. We demonstrate that their broad redistributive policies were not accompanied by a more egalitarian vision of democracy. Instead, the party deliberately fostered divisions among economically disadvantaged groups (based on their political orientation) by exploiting xenophobic and anti-liberal narratives, using redistribution as a form of conditional charity targeted at selected social and occupational groups, rather than as a step towards economically inclusive democracy.