We observe the democratic backsliding in Central and Eastern Europe. The literature has focused mainly on the national tier but we should investigate also the subnational levels as well as the impact of the national politics on democracy at these levels.
The proposed paper is aimed at analysing the impact of particracy and political polarisation at the national level on subnational democracy. Poland has been chosen due to the presence of all aforementioned national processes. The analysis focuses on 2015-2025 – the period of the Law and Justice (PiS) ruling in 2015-2023 as well as governing of coalition government led by the Civic Coalition (KO) in 2023-2025. The key question will be about how the political conflict between the two major parties – PiS and KO and related political polarisation at the national level influences the quality of subnational democracy. Other related questions will be: Is there a difference between voivodeships and lower territorial tiers (cities?) in this regard? Does the time of the PiS ruling differ with the period of governing of the declaratively democratic political forces? The paper is a qualitative study based on the content analysis of subnational media as well as transcripts of 2 FGIs and 32 IDIs, presenting a part of findings within the 4-year project financed by the Polish National Science Centre.
