Anti-Elitism or Elite Substitution? The Changing Landscape of Civil Society in Contemporary Poland

Over the three years since Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość) party took power in 2015, Polish civil society has changed considerably. In response to reforms concerning judiciary, public media and the Constitutional Court mass protests involving tens of thousands people have been staged, and new nationwide civic networks and local organizations have been formed in the country. However, these mobilizations have emerged in the context of a shrinking civic society space, characterized by closing communication channels between power holders and society, tightening state control over financial resources for NGOs, as well as privileging civil society actors that cooperate closely with right-wing populists and establishing new organizations and institutions closely connected to the state. Under the claim that the current legislation and funding schemes privilege liberal and left-oriented NGOs from large cities, in 2017 Law and Justice party introduced a bill changing the structure of the state-civil society cooperation. The Act on the National Freedom Institute – Centre for the Development of Civil Society established a new administrative body, with the task to distribute public funds among non-governmental organizations. I would argue that the Institute, centralized and fully dependent on politicians, epitomizes the logic of the Law and Justice party reforms, oriented towards completing democratization process by establishing new social hierarchy and creating new elites. In the sphere of civil society this process includes withholding support for any organizations considered liberal, or left-leaning, and co-opting civil society actors by channeling the funding to civic activities that meet PiS policy objectives. Based on quantitative data and qualitative analysis of official documents and interviews with civil society actors, the presentation aims to fill a gap in existing studies on elites in Poland, which tend to focus either on political or on business elites, but do not include civil society elite.