Populist in form, nationalist in content? Law and Justice, nationalism and memory politics

Abstract

ABSTRACT The article aims to analyse the mobilisation of a collective memory for political purposes by the Law and Justice party in Poland. PiS is often presented as a populist party, which came to power thanks to an anti-elite rhetoric and social programme. The party portrayed itself as a representative of socially excluded groups as well as a defender of ‘normal’ people against corrupted elites. At the same time, PiS mobilised its supporters by referring to a certain construction of the national past. We analyse the tension between populist rhetoric accompanying social reforms aimed at social inclusion and the practice of mobilising exclusive historical memory and strengthening exclusionary Polish national identity. In the selected examples of education reform, museum policy and the cult of the Cursed Soldiers, we demonstrate the traditional and nationalist approach of the party to history, which is reduced to heroic struggles for national freedom. In the image of the past evoked by PiS, the sharp division between ‘we, the simple people’ and ‘elites’ weakens; instead, the dichotomy between ‘us’ and ‘them’ is constructed in the national terms ‘Poles’ vs. ‘Others’.