Lip-service liberalism? Declared and revealed preferences for liberal democracy in Poland

Between 2015 and 2023, Poland experienced significant democratic backsliding as a result of actions taken by the radical-right Law and Justice (PiS) government. Yet despite Poles’ high levels of declared support for liberal democracy, there was limited opposition to repeated violations of liberal democratic norms and institutions, with pro-democratic protests proving ineffectual and movements for the defence of democracy failing to coalesce. Early signs suggest that there may be high toleration for attempts by the new coalition government to restore the rule of law which themselves may be in contravention of liberal-democratic principles. If consolidation requires elites and publics alike to view democracy as "the only game in town", this mass ambivalence puts into question the extent to which citizens of young democracies respect the rules of the game. Drawing on recent research into partisanship, polarisation and acceptance of democratic norm violations (Carey et al. 2020; Graham and Svolik 2020) and "democratic hypocrisy" (Simonovits, Mccoy, and Littvay 2022) in the US, and using a novel battery of questions from a three-wave panel survey conducted before, during and after the October 2023 Polish parliamentary elections, this paper will address the question of whether the muted response to backsliding in Poland is the product of a particularly acute bout of partisanship and affective polarisation, or of a more general and potentially chronic tolerance for undemocratic practices among Poles that runs contrary to declared preferences for liberal democracy.