1st Edition

The Populist Radical Right in Poland The Patriots

By Rafal Pankowski Copyright 2010
272 Pages
by Routledge

272 Pages
by Routledge

272 Pages
by Routledge

In this important and accessible study, Rafal Pankowski makes sense of the rapid growth of organized radical nationalism on the political level in Poland by showing its origins, its internal dynamics and the historical, political, social and cultural context that has made it possible. From political obscurity to the heart of mainstream politics, the recent rise of the extreme right in the... Read more

1. Pre-communist legacies  2. Communist-period legacy  The national question and the communist regime  3. After communism  4.The league of polish families and its integral nationalism  5.Self-defence: radical populism  6. The anti-liberalism of law and justice 7. Nationalist populism in power: the 2005-7 experiment and beyond  8. Conclusion

Biography

Rafal Pankowski has served as deputy editor of ‘Nigdy Wiecej’ (Never Again) magazine since 1996. He has published widely on racism, nationalism, xenophobia and other issues including the books Neo-Fascism in Western Europe (1998) and Racism and Popular Culture (2006). He currently works as a lecturer at Collegium Civitas and head of the Warsaw-based East Europe Monitoring Centre.

'This book's credibility comes not simply from the author's success in unearthing previously hidden material, but in its serious analysis of the historical, economic and cultural factors behind the emergence of Law and Justice, which is examined in the context of its links to other far-right parties and movements in Poland' - Richard Howitt, New Statesman, April 2010

'The book by Pankowski is undoubtedly an important voice in the debate on the ideological identity and the sources of success of the national populist parties in contemporary European democracies.' - e-Extreme (Electronic Newsletter of the ECPR-SG on Extremism and Democracy), Volume 11, No. 4, December 2010