Marta Kotwas

Dear friends, Jan Kubik has finally joined BlueSky as @kuba2025.bsky.social - please drop him a follow to sweeten up his transition from the platform which shall not be named.

What took you so long?

And @benstanley.eu how did you achieve this? Bribe or blackmail?

Our next deadline for special cluster proposal submissions is 31 April. For detailed submission guidelines please contact the Editorial Office (eeps@eepsfoundation.org). We look forward to receiving your proposals.

I can't stand bullies. President Zelensky is now trying to stand up against two of them. We should have his back. #SlavaUkraïni

Poland has a new government led by the liberal pro-European Donald Tusk; many, including myself, thought this was nearly impossible after eight years of democratic backsliding under PiS. But, against all odds Poland is back!!

Kaczynski just called Tusk ‘a German agent’ during the Sejm plenary…

Sejm chooses Donald Tusk for Prime Minister with:
248 votes in favour and
201 votes against.

Vote of confidence for his cabinet is scheduled for tomorrow morning.

The majority of the new viewers who flocked to their screens today is likely to ridicule its content and intention. Associations with this scene from the cult Bareja’s “Teddy Bear” movie are inevitable and will strengthen the perception of PiS government’s departure as “the end of an era” in Poland.

Whereas the need to mark the end of the 8-year dominance of PiS by its MPs is understandable, the logic behind the planning of this spectacle is surprising - especially bearing in mind the huge viewership.

… growth in investment in this area. Are you planning to continue this impressive and successful strategy?” There was also plenty of room for criticism of the Civic Platform’s policies from over 8 years ago.

The vast majority of the 100+ interventions were examples of preposterous fawning rather than questions. The typical format would be something like: “I would like to thank the PM from the bottom of my heart for taking exceptional care of the X region/sector. We’ve seen an unprecedented…

The only MPs who signed up for the questions represented Law and Justice and its former coalition partners. The MPs notoriously went over their allocated time in an apparent attempt to cause a delay in the proceedings.

After a presentation of his programme by PM Morawiecki and brief responses from the party representatives, the floor was opened to questions from all MPs. Then PM responded to the questions which was followed by the vote of confidence for his government (lost only a few minutes ago).

Today’s proceedings of the Polish Parliament have record viewership - including a crowd gathered in a Warsaw cinema and over 260.000 peak viewers watching the live YouTube broadcast.

A short🧵on the style of the debate 1/n

The Law and Justice party is out of government with PM Morawiecki’s cabinet losing the vote of confidence with:
190 votes for
266 votes against.

Still tonight the Sejm will choose Donald Tusk as the new PM. He will present his cabinet and programme to the MPs tomorrow morning.

Rethinking post-communist regimes – a roundtable discussion Organised by the UCL SSEES Politics and Sociology seminar series and SSEESing seminar series

Are post-communist regimes just about a struggle btw democracy and autocracy?

Roundtable @UCLSSEES with Bálint Magyar & Bálint Madlovics @Ceu, Alena Ledeneva (@UCLSEES), @sstroschein2 (@UCLSPP), Henry Hale (@ElliottschoolGW)
Wed 29 Nov. 1500 (GMT) In-person/online

www.ucl.ac.uk/ssees/events...

That the elections of 15 Oct was mired in ambiguity - neither fair nor obviously fraudulent - highlights this deliberate distortion designed to dramatically increase the incumbent’s chances of staying in power.

We argued that although populists often claim that #illiberalism does not threaten #democracy in its essence, but merely challenges its liberal component, in fact they gradually and purposefully destroy the principle of electoral fairness in a hard-to-capture manner.

TL;DR We reflected on the idea of electoral fairness and show how the incumbent PiS party was using its position and state resources to tilt the playing field. In that respect we identified key practices concerning the electoral law, public resources, and the media.

Destructive Ambiguity: How Polish Populist Incumbents Tinker with Electoral Fairness | illiberalism.... Ahead of Poland's 2023 elections, Marta Kotwas and Jan Kubik catalog the ways in which the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) has undermined election fairness, detailing the ways in which PiS has stru...

It’s been 2 weeks since the parliamentary elections in Poland. Many commentators are pleased with the results. But were they fully democratic? What happens to electoral fairness in backsliding democracies? Jan Kubik and I gave our assessment in a piece for the GWU Illiberalism blog: t.co/qUiRimnsPJ

It’s so strange not to be welcomed with car accident videos and Big Brother UK ads in my feed.

Hello everyone!

Thank you, @sarahjyoung.bsky.social for the access code.