The War in Ukraine and Its Impact on Parliamentary Agenda-Setting by Far-Right Parties in Selected Central and Eastern European Countries

The paper deals with the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a factor influencing the parliamentary agenda in Central and Eastern European countries (Poland, Slovakia, etc.). We focus on legislative initiatives formulated by right-wing parties from the outside of the political mainstream that seek to direct political systems towards illiberal democracies. Submission of legislative initiatives by non-mainstream parties can be seen in the context of their strategies to build their political identity and credibility based on the need to provide a response to the sense of threat resulting from the tense international situation. It can be argued that far-right parties are particularly predisposed to such activity at the parliamentary level because they strongly emphasize the need to ensure the safety of citizens and public order, as well as the protection of national borders. Our main hypothesis is that crisis situations, such as spillover effects of armed conflicts taking place in neighboring or geographically close countries, cause the legislative Overton window to be broadened as the sense of urgency enables more radical solutions to political, economic and social problems to be proposed. A good example here is the draft amendment to the Polish Constitution of 1997, which was presented after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine by the Law and Justice party in order to expand the scope of constitutionally permitted expropriation actions in order to punish private companies accused of supporting a state initiating an armed conflict, and to help the victims of such conflict. It was the first constitutional amendment proposed by a major Polish political party that expressly sought to curtail the constitutional protection of individual rights. We seek to analyze whether the pattern of anti-crisis legislative activity of far-right parties depends on the place such political formations occupy in the political system (the main governing party, a smaller coalition partner supporting the government, an opposition party), how the proposed solutions in this regard correspond with the rule of law and standards of individual rights and freedoms, and whether they can be regarded as a form of constitutional populism. We combine qualitative and quantitative methods, including big data analysis supported by algorithmic analysis of the language of proposed initiatives.