Divided by the Rainbow: Culture War and Diffusion of Paleoconservative Values in Contemporary Poland

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is very well written and timely contribution. The paper delivers good description and analysis of the dominant political and religious discourses in contemporary Poland, and attempts to identify their roots. The authors use convincing examples to illustrate their observations.

Below, I also include some broader questions – these are, however, issues for consideration, they are not my suggestions of changes to be made.

Minor corrections:

The statement on the rainbow in the abstract is misleading. The rainbow itself is not a symbol of Poland’s “drift away from the liberal values of the European mainstream”. What the rainbow symbolizes is developed in the introduction section in a more clear way, but in the current form in the abstract it is confusing.

The manuscript requires some attention to language. The flow of the argumentation could be improved in places by correcting the grammar. E.g. the sentence: “However, the particular geopolitical circumstances and the existing political heritage did promote a limited discursive hegemony for ideals associated with a struggle for independence and with Catholicism.” -is unclear.  Was there some discursive hegemony promoted, was the hegemony limited (what is a “limited hegemony”)?

In the sentence “The Commonwealth was known for general  religious tolerance - part of the ‘republican tradition’ - and inhabited by Catholics, Orthodox, Uniates, Lutherans, Jews, and even Muslims”, the word “even” implies that Muslims should be considered as a “special” category. While it makes sense in the context of the “othering” of Muslims so prevalent in contemporary discourses, this is not explicitly articulated. So I would suggest either explaining the special status of Muslims, or deleting the word “even”.

The argumentation in the lines 393-404 is unclear, parts of this section are repeated.

The example of redistributionist politics – the 500+ policy would be clearer for the readers if it was specified that the amount cited by the authors is given to parents for each child monthly

The quote from Ruksza (2015) “the most important works of the last years in Poland in terms of the social reception, a litmus test for the changing public mood and the nationalist shift of the parts of society” appears twice in the text, perhaps unnecessarily.

Line 844: a date of the event is given, but the year is missing (the 28th to 29th of July) – it is the year of writing of the manuscript, but this is not stated.

Some broader questions to consider

The work of Brian Prter-Szucs (2011) [“Faith and Fatherland”, Oxford University Press] could be referenced in the discussion on the role of Polish intelligentsia (the author presents more divers picture of the group than that constructed in this manuscript) and the emergence of the Pole-Catholic identity . Also the work by Krotofil and Motak (2018) [ can be referenced in the discussion on the response of the Catholic Church in Poland to the refugee crisis

In the first paragraph the authors summarise how Poland is constructed in Western discourses. As this paper is aspiring to provide a critical perspective on these discourses, it would perhaps be helpful to apply this critical stance right from the beginning and problematize the articulations of Poland as “a country headed by illiberal, traditionalist, populist and Euro-sceptic political elites” so prevalent in the “old EU”. What sort of political struggles are here at stake? Are these views articulated from an opposite end of the spectrum (i. e. by those who represent countries totally invested in liberal values)? Should the notion of ‘European values” that Poland is drifting away from be problematized? Who defines them? Some Polish conservatives would argue that it is them who defend the “European values”

In the introduction the authors suggest that the close relationship between the Catholic Church in Poland and the current government stems from 1) a long tradition of the involvement of the Polish  Catholic clergy in the struggle for political and cultural sovereignty during times of foreign  oppression and 2) shared experiences “individuals from both the Church and the Law and Justice in the same intellectual milieus”. While these are important factors, limiting the discussion to these two obscures the important layer of power struggle for different forms of capital (on both individual and institutional levels).  Are the social actors just “susceptible” to different forms of conservatism, or are they also actively and strategically engaging with it to realize their political agendas? This is developed to some extend in the section discussing the Black Madonna with the Rainbow Hallo.

Author Response

We highly appreciate the suggestions provided by the reviewer. We have taken into account all of them. We have reviewed the paper extensively in terms of language with the help of a colleague with editing experience. We took special care of the highlighted paragraphs. We have also attended to the introduction both in terms of a more critical approach to the notion of European discourses on Poland, and the relationship between the government and the Catholic Church. The authors suggested by the reviewer were included in the text in a relevant manner.

Reviewer 2 Report

The article is composed of two loosely coupled parts. The first, concerning the historical analysis of Polish conservatism, and the second, relating directly to the dispute over respect for religious signs in the public sphere. It seems that these threads belong to different sub-disciplines of political science and are so loosely related that they should be the subject of two separate articles. It would probably be beneficial to the quality of the article.

Regarding the second thread, I have no comments, except that the three case studies cited are actually only three versions of the same case. They all refer to the "crossing" of religious signs with the symbols of the LGBT movement. The presented analysis in fact leads to the conclusion that "unnecessary provocations" significantly contributed to the victory of PIS in the subsequent elections. I am not sure if this was the author's intention.

Regarding the first thread, there is a question about the correctness of the use of the term "paleoconservatism" in relation to the Polish political scene. The term was coined within the American political tradition in the context of very specific political events (the Vietnam War, New Deal, paleolibertarianism). None of these phenomena has any equivalent in Polish politics in recent decades.

It is not clear which Polish political parties have been identified as paleoconservative. The name PIS is Polish politics is used both to describe Jarosław Kaczyński's political party and the government coalition. Apart from the PIS party, this coalition also includes Zbigniew Ziobro's party and Jarosław Gowin's party. The latter is probably Christian-liberal in nature. The consequence of recognizing the entire government coalition as palaeoconservative is the fact that the author did not have a place on the scale where he could place the Confederation, a party to the right of the PIS coalition.

The characteristics of the Polish tradition ignore the fact that:

- Poland has not only a long tradition of a multinational and multi-religious community but also of democracy, with the first in modern Europe democratic constitution, 

- In the description of the recent history the war of 1920 was omitted, "The eighteenth decisive battle of the world: Warsaw" (Edgar Vincent D'Abernon),

- Regarding the emergence of authoritarian tendencies in the Polish politics of the 1920s and 1930s, the external context, namely the appearance of two totalitarian states in the vicinity of Poland: Germany and the Soviet Union, was completely ignored. Authoritarianism at that time appeared both as a step on the road to totalitarianism, and as a safeguard of the state political system against transformation into a totalitarian system. It seems that in the case of Poland or Portugal it is the latter case.

- Thinking about the organic unity of the nation is rather alien to the Polish political tradition. It can only be found in the circles of the radical right (National Democracy). The nation is mainly seen as a community of culture.

- In Polish political discourse, the word independence is usually used more often than sovereignty. The latter actually occurs now only in the competence dispute with the EU. Polish republican tradition assumes that individual freedom can only be granted in an independent state. This importance attached to independence is closely related to Polish history: i.e. to the lack of an independent state during the partitions, German and Soviet occupation or communism.

- The opposition reviving after the years of Stalinism was not only of a right-wing character, and its propagator was not only the Young Poland's Movement. For example, the Workers' Defense Committee, which gathered oppositionists from Catholic, liberal and communist dissidents circles, was omitted. In the 1980s, people such as Jan Józef Lipski, Jacek Kuroń or Adam Michnik often used the parish space, which guaranteed them freedom of expression.

- In the dispute with the European Commission regarding migration, the main issue was not the number of migrants which should be received by Poland, but the transfer of competences from the national level to the EU level in the field of migration policy. At the same time, the Polish government was very open to migration from the East, mainly Ukraine. The reason was the awareness of the demographic crisis and the demand for employees.

- The bibliography is extensive enough but still could include books such as Ivan Krastev "After Europe", Michael J. Sandel "The Tyranny of Merit" or Michał GIerycz "European Dispute over the Concept of Man. A Study in Political Anthropology". Among other things, the view was expressed there that the meritocratic, eradicated political elite ("people from nowhere") who ruled for the last few decades on the West has difficulty in perceiving one's own role in arousing the discontent that led to the takeover of power in some countries by "populists" rooted in the community (regarded as "people from here").

Minor remarks:

The concept of a myth is not defined.

The phrase "Polish Catholic Church" has been used several times. It means a denomination other than the Roman Catholic Church. The correct name is the Catholic Church in Poland.

When mentioning right-wing intellectuals, for example, Andrzej Nowak and Wojciech Roszkowski were omitted.

The statement that "Poland should neither be considered a theocracy nor even ruled by the Episcopate" is true, but it is not clear what it refers to. Does anyone support this opinion?

Author Response

We appreciate the suggestions provided by the reviewer. We considered all of them carefully and significantly reviewed the manuscript. Here are our responses to each suggestion:

1. Splitting the article into two - while we see the potential benefits of creating two separate articles out of this longer one, we believe that the benefits of keeping them together are higher. The first part of the article constitutes the necessary background for the latter - while the first discusses the intellectual foundation of a specific model of conservatism, the second shows how that model is translated and diffused in the languages of the street and politics. We have discussed this article with a number of colleagues who do not have an in-depth knowledge of the Polish situation, and they found the combination of both parts insightful and helpful. Thus, we have decided to keep them together.
2. The primary intention of the three cases is to show the gradual diffusion of the paleoconservative model in the larger society. They are examples of the same problem/phenomenon, but their differentiation into three separate cases allows us to show this diffusion - from the increasing opposition in the first case through the use of state coercion in the second, to the engagement of the highest public figures in the last of them. We tried to clarify that in the introduction to the second part of the article.
3. The term paleoconservatism comes indeed from an American tradition, and there are significant differences between that and the described model. We emphasized this in the revised text - we find the similarities in the approaches significant enough to justify the use of a similar term in the Polish context. In our opinion, this new conceptualization of conservatism is necessary since older notions and definitions do not correspond enough to the analyzed ideological phenomenon (see e.g. the described typology of Konrad Wandowicz, which requires an update after 20 years since its publication).
4. We do not view the described model of conservatism as a party phenomenon, which is why we did not explicitly associate it with any particular party. Rather, we view the current political scene as an arena of contestation to represent the electorate subscribing to the paleoconservative model - the internal tensions in the ruling coalition come exactly from the challenge of Solidarna Polska to overtake this representation from the larger Prawo i Sprawiedliwość. At the same time, both are threatened from the right by Confederation. None of those, however, is unique in their representation of paleoconservatism. We also emphasized this in the revised text.
5. We carefully reviewed the characteristics of the Polish tradition and took into account all of the suggestions which we viewed as contributing to the argument. However, due to space constraints, we left some things that could provide a fuller picture but were not strictly necessary for the argumentation.
6. We have defined myth in the revised version.
7. We have revised the terms denoting the Catholic Church in Poland to avoid connections to Kościół Polskokatolicki.
8. We have revised the statement on theocracy.
9. We are familiar with the work of Andrzej Nowak and Wojciech Roszkowski, and have included references to them in the revised version.

Reviewer 3 Report

The aim of the paper to propose a more nuanced perspective on the political performance of Poland under the Law and Justice government is a needed attempt to offer an alternative frame of interpretation of current socio-cultural and socio-political conflicts and their ideological foundations in Poland. 

However, substantial revisions should be made.

The major points are:

• The lack of references especially in the first ten pages. Sometimes, only one author is quoted over a page or more (p. 4/5). Several academic discourses related to the phenomenon under investigation are just not considered; in particular the analysis of Anti-Gender-movements, of right-wing nationalism as well as religion and morality politics. Moreover, PiS politics in the realm of moral conflicts are not only criticized by “the West” but also by Polish and Central-East European scholars (Rawłuszko, Graff, Korolczuk, Grzebalska, Kovats…). Especially Eszter Kovats has a critical view on East-West assymetries in regard to gender-related politics.
• The merit and the novelty of the concept of paleoconservatism should be more clearly elaborated. The well-known historical foundations of Polish national Catholic thought, including the legacies of messiananistic thinking and the narrative of “Antemurale Christianitas” against/towards the West is also captured by the well researched tradition of National Catholicism; a term with particular history in the Polish context but applicable also to other examples such as Spain or Croatia. What is the merit of the term “paleoconservatism” here?
• From a reader-perspective it seems that “case of the rainbow” is used and necessary to proof the emergence and spread of paleoconservative thought also prior to the victory of PiS in 2015. First, it remains unclear why the “rainbow-example” is chosen as case to make that argument; just thinking about earlier conflicts around Equality Marches in Warsaw since mid-2000, homophobia spreaded through Radio Maryja or the abortion controversy since end of the 1990ies. Second, it seems rather the case that old intellectual traditions deriving from National Catholicism meets a (comparatively) new and “Western” moral-political conflict. The conceptualization of paleocoservatism, instead, includes moral-political elements with Catholic heteronormativity as a genuine ingredients.
• If the “rainbow” is a case in point able to show something new or striking, it should be introduced as such prior to original quotes of “paleoconservative thinkers” which shall illustrate the problematic as nationally specific. It is common place that the rainbow symbolizes peace but in particular the gay-rights movement. The article should clarify the inherent symbolic problematic of the double meaning and the potential conflicts it may evoke in a predominantly Catholic context (e.g. freedom of art vs. the potential to violate religious feelings).

Minor points:

• The meaning of § lines 482-498 is not clear. Who has which perspective on migration and why is this relevant here?
• Kaszynski captures the synthesis of Shields 2019? (472-480)
• Some inconsistencies: “Culture War” at the beginning (also here no reference to Hunter 1990, who coined that term), “culture clash” at the end; paleoconservatives during the article, “right-wing intellectuals” at the end
• What is “mainstream right-wing”? RR-literature distinguishes between the mainstream and the radical right.

In sum, there is some potential of the article but in the current stage it raises too many questions and thus, should be substantially revised.

Author Response

We appreciate the suggestions provided by the reviewer. We considered all of them carefully and significantly revised the manuscript. Here are our responses to each suggestion:

1. We added a number of references in line with the reviewer's wishes.
2. The National Catholicism, or, e.g. Paternal Catholic Modernism, could both capture a number of developments in Poland, which could make it comparable to the developments in other European countries. However, they focus too much on Catholicism as the driving force behind the developments, which we do not see as the case in the Polish situation. We are trying to capture a certain tradition, that grew both within the church and within the intellectual elites, but which is not church-based, and sometimes not even interested in Catholicism in other terms than cultural heritage. In the revised version we highlight the novelty of the term better.
3. The case of the rainbow is not necessarily unique, but the fact that rainbow was under discussion throughout the whole 2010s exemplifies well the gradual diffusion of the paleoconservative model. As we tried to show, paleoconservatism has long-standing roots in Polish society, which is why one could find earlier examples than that. However, increasingly from 2010, it evolved from a relatively fringe position to a dominant force in Polish politics. That is the reason for the choice of cases and their timeline. In our revision, we have tried to problematize why the symbol of the rainbow might be controversial due to its symbolism.
4. We attended to the unclear paragraphs noted in minor points and tried to clarify them in the revision.
5. Kaczyński is quoted from Shields, not capturing Shields analysis.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Congratulations! The paper is really improved.

Author Response

Thank you for your positive response.

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper has clearly improved as references and clarifications have been added. However, my major concerns about the appropriateness and merit of the central term paleoconservatism do remain. There is so much literature from religion-politics, anti-gender-, homonationalism, populist-radical right-research (here romantic nationalism), which the study could touch but not really reflect. As suggesting at the end of the review, an intellectual history about how the "paleoconcervatism" transfers and translates from the US-context into the Polish discourse would be fascinating. But his is an empirical study touching the mentioned fields. The following comments to quotes from the text underline that major concern.

 

The references for this sentence are misleading: At least those „commentators” mentioned here do not support the “hardline conservative” discourse. The are criticizing it! => Line 37ff.: This discourse, of hardline conservative Poland, found support among many 36 commentators from Central and Eastern Europe, too (see e.g. Godzisz and Rawłuszko 37 2018, Graff 2010, Grzebalska and Pető 2018, Korolczuk 2017, Kováts 2016, 2018).

Line 218 ff: According to Törnquist-Plewa (p. 258), no other intellectual outlook presented by Polish 219 elites could match their mythologized political images. The history of uprootedness, par-220 titions, and loss of independence influenced, and still influences Polish intellectual life. 221 Even today, the national identity concentrates on the past, on the culture and traditions 222 inherited from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.=> The reference is from 1992. What is “the national identity”? and who can confirm that statement from today´s perspective? Who are you referring to as bearing that (essentialist) national identity?

My major claim was that the authors miss to discuss the concept of Nationalist Catholicism (polak to katolik) in order to clarify the merits of their central concept of “paleoconservatism.” I could not find such clarification but the creation of new concepts such as of “nationalized Catholicism”. Polish national identity and political culture, built upon the ideas of independence 282 and ‘nationalized Catholicism,’ remained significant throughout the rest of the 20th cen-283 tury, especially during the Second World War and the anti-communist resistance.

Line 421: Also the added story of resistance of so called “paleo-conservative” Catholics to Pope Francis during the asylum political crisis 2016 does rather confirm the prevalence of a nationalist interpretation of Catholicism than highlight a new quality of “paleo-conservatism”

Line 614ff: The meaning remains unclear, “fighting over the right to represent the national paleoconservatism…”, which social capital? Which own agendas? => (These disputes 613 show the impact that the electoral success of Law and Justice had on the increasing, rain-614 bow-related tensions. These disputes reveal that this is neither a single party phenome-615 non, nor a church-based one.) Different actors are involved here, fighting over the right to 616 represent the national paleoconservatism and claim the social capital associated with such 617 paleoconservatism, while strategically pursuing their own agendas.  

I am still not convinced that the term paleoconservatism helps to better understand the phenomenon analyzed here. It seems rather raising more questions. Moreover, given the stated particular nature of Polish paleoconservatism it is difficult to apply the concept as comparative category.

The article would profit from what the authors suggest at the end: An analysis of the intellectual 1038 exchange between the Polish and American right may point toward certain similarities 1039 and transfers between the two countries.

Author Response

We appreciate the reviewer’s feedback. After reading it, we noticed that perhaps the aim could be stated more clearly. We made the changes accordingly in the text. The article is not “only” an empirical study, but likewise a proposition of a novel and relevant conceptual tool, which can capture the particular socio-political developments in Poland – the concept of ‘national paleoconservatism’.

There are at least two reasons behind our use of that concept, which may hopefully give a satisfactory answer to your remark:

1)   Since Konrad Wandowicz’s (2000) typology of Polish conservatisms, presented in the article, is no longer embracing all forms of conservative currents in Poland, a conceptual addition feels relevant. The national conservative perspectives in present day Poland are not only: (a) ‘mainstream conservatism’ of the Centre-right, nor (b) libertarian conservatism (of e.g. Janusz Korwin-Mikke), nor (c) ‘integral conservatism’ of the anti-democratic monarchists and reactionaries (e.g. prof Adam Wielomski and prof Jacek Bartyzel). 
The intellectuals presented in the article, who often support or participate in the politics of Law and Justice, are “beyond” these three categories. The concept of national paleoconservatism may, in our opinion, better capture the ideological and philosophical ideas of such figures as Ryszard Legutko, Piotr Jaroszynski, and perhaps even of Jarosław Kaczyński. The ideational “essence” of paleoconservatism seems appropriate: *protection of national identity; *protection of civilizational (Western) identity, *the emphasis on religion (so stronger than in ‘mainstream conservatism(s)’, *the legitimacy given to state interventionism in socio-economic areas (so different from ‘libertarian conservatism).

2)   It is true that there is a lot of literature (religion-politics, anti-gender, homonationalism, populist-radical right-research’) which could be used in studies of our empirical cases. We aim, however, to study these cases in the light of an ideological framework, which we label, define, and discuss in the first part of the article. Commentators of Polish politics use many different concepts (populism, authoritarianism, radicalism etc.). We argue that this ideological framework need a more coherent conceptual perspective (it is a form of national conservatism but different from many other national conservatisms). Thus we propose the concept of ‘national paleoconservatism’, which we define and present arguments for.  

As to the comment to line 37 – the sentence might have been unclear. What we meant is that the authors mentioned support the portrayal of Poland as “hardline conservative”, but the sentenced might have been construed in a misleading way.

Line 218: Perhaps there was a small misunderstanding regarding our use of Barbara Törnquist-Plewa’s monograph from 1992, about the crucial role of Romanticism and political myths in the formation of national identity.

We have clarified that part. The main point of Törnquist-Plewa, with which we agree, is that „The political culture and the formation of the collective national consciousness were particularly influenced (we changed from ‘dominated’) by the Polish romanticism and neo-romanticism, and the resulting national-liberation movements”. According to Törnquist-Plewa, no other intellectual outlook (not Positivism, nor Marxism, nor liberalism) left such a profound mark on national identity discourses as mythologized images and ideals of the romantically inclined patriots (politicians, intellectuals, parts of the clergy).

We do not argue for an essentialist understanding of national identity among the entire Polish society (as romanticized, mythologized, and preoccupied with the past); rather, following Törnquist-Plewa, we argue that the national identity discourses, are embedded in a political culture permeated largely by a romantic and freedom-oriented heritage. These discourses are often inspired by/referred to the past; in the words of prof Andrzej Walicki: „Poland is a country where everything has a historical dimension” (not for all people, but for many intellectuals and politicians).    

“Nationalist Catholicism” is a concept much narrower than the notion of “nationalized Catholicism,” in the same way as Irish Catholicism is nationalized, but not necessarily Nationalist. The “nationalized” Catholicism provides a space for coalitions that do not only consider those with strictly nationalist beliefs, which makes it much more ingrained in the larger society. Talking about nationalist Catholicism misses the whole point we are trying to make in the article. That is our reason for the use of this term instead. We added a note about that.

Line 421 – definitely, but nationalized approach to Catholicism is one of the characteristic features of paleoconservatism as we define it, so there is no conflict there.

Regarding the remarks after line 614 (“fighting over the right to represent the national paleoconservatism…”), we have shortened and clarified the text. The main idea is that expressions of paleoconservatism should not be associated only with a single political party, nor seen as some “typical” church-based phenomenon. Beside the leading political actors, and beside the parts of the clergy, there exist a large number of organizations, journals, radio stations, and intellectual associations, who also operate on paleoconservative ideas. Their ideological messages are “beyond” the typology of conservatism made by Konrad Wandowicz’s (2000) [ (a) ‘mainstream conservatism’, (b) liberal/libertarian conservatism, (c) ‘integral conservatism’ ]. It is a set of ideas and values emphasizing *protection of national identity; *protection of civilizational (Western) identity, *the emphasis on religion (stronger than in ‘mainstream conservatism’, and providing more or less support to *state interventionism in socio-economic areas. Thus, in present day Poland, paleoconservatism is articulated (and later socially diffused) by: 1) various leading politicians on the right, 2) by parts of the clergy, 3) by media (Gazeta Polska; Sieci, Nasz Dziennik), and right-wing intellectual milieus (e.g. Arcana, Ośrodek Mysli Politycznej). They “all” share similar ideological and philosophical ideals, but also have particular roles and agendas, e.g. some are directly politically involved while other constitute more general opinion makers.   

The intellectual exchange between American and Polish intellectual is indeed interesting, but it requires a separate inquiry and cannot be done within this article without derailing its main argumentation line. We plan a separate article on that in the future.