Coming of Age in Europe? Polish Political Views on Power Relations Within the EU and NATO

The CEE actors traditionally tend to perceive international relations from the realist-informed perspective in categories of power, national interest and geopolitics. It is due to historical processes, such as partitions, occupations and wars, that many countries in the region and Poland in particular have experienced. The long-awaited integration with Western structures (NATO and the EU), even if from a very asymmetrical position – was for many an ultimate answer and a solution to these problems. Scholars employed the hypothesis that voluntary submission that characterized the process of EU enlargement was accepted in the CEE because it promised at the end of the road to the EU full membership and full subjectivity in world and European politics. However, 20 years after the EU enlargement and 25 years after joining NATO – the perception of the Polish position within these two organizations significantly differs. On the one hand, NATO with its intergovernmental structure and clear American hegemony is less seen as dominating than the EU with its federalized structure and mitigated by institutional setting crude power. To this end, theoretically, the paper relies on dominance perceptions as a mean to untangle the power structures within institutions and allow better to untangle the power structures within institutions and better understand the perceived own agency (Czerska-Shaw et al 2023). Based on empirical data from Polish Sejm, media analysis and interviews with stakeholders we will compare and contrast the way Polish position is perceived by domestic political actors in both institutions.