Pandemic measures as tools of governance – case of Covid-19 pandemic in Poland

Plot of worldwide known dystopia – “V for Vendetta” – starts with the virus pandemic which allowed autocrats to grasp more power and autocratically govern the country. Who could expect that 2020 became the year of governance by the pandemic measures. Many governments all over the world, in those extraordinary times, introduced states of emergency. But not Poland. Although it used in the second and third quarter of the 2020 one of the most restrictive forms of lockdown, the government did not decide about declaration of the state of emergency. At the same the time a scope of implemented regulations was broad. The government ruled by introducing so-called “anti-crisis shields”. The paper presents qualitative research on the instruments used by the Polish government in 2020 to deal with the pandemic. The analysis allows us to conclude that “anti-crisis shields” were used as an instrument of governance of the country, not a tool to prevent pandemic. At least part of the adopted in Poland restrictions is beyond the need and completely unrelated to fighting the pandemic but leads to further deterioration of the liberal democracy. The assessment of the tools used by the government is based on Anna Lührmann et.al concept of types of violations of democratic standards for emergency measures during the Covid-19 pandemic and idea of “Autocratization by Decree”. The paper presents a part of the research within the project “De-democratization at the times of Covid-19” carried out at the University of Warsaw within the 4EU+ Alliance.