Populism and Polish politics
Oddi
101
On Tuesday the 28th of May Mikolaj Cześnik will give his talk 'Politics for stupid people? Political knowledge, socioeconomic status and populist attitudes in Poland‘, at the University of Iceland, room O-101, 12:00-13:00.
The meeting is organized by the Icelandic Political Science Association and the Institute for Public Administration and Politics and the University of Iceland.
Mikolaj Cześnik will base his talk on his paper about populism and Polish politics. This paper uses data from the 2015 Polish parliamentary election, in which the main lineof competition ran between populists and non-populists, to test two theories about populist voting. The first of these theories sees voting for populist parties as an act undertaken predominantly by the ill-informed and those of low social status. An alternative theory holds that populism is one means by which cognitively sophisticated ‘dissatisfied democrats’ may be mobilised against the establishment of the day. While we find that lower levels of political knowledge are, as expected, associated with higher levels of populism, it is nevertheless ‘informed populists’ who are more likely to vote for populist parties, while uninformed populists, in common with uninformed citizens more generally, are more likely to abstain. These findings have important implications for the literature on political knowledge and populism, suggesting as they do that the stereotype of populism as ‘politics for stupid people’ is incorrect.
About the author:
Mikołaj Cześnik is an Associate Professor at the SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Warsaw, where he directs the Institute of Social Sciences. He is a member of the Polish National Election Study. He chairs the International Political Science Association Research Committee 16 (Socio-Political Pluralism). He is also a member of the Board of the Stefan Batory Foundation. He has participated in several international comparative projects, including CIVICACTIVE, COST, CSES, INTUNE, MARPOR, PIREDEU. He is primarily interested in how people behave in the world of politics. His research interests include democracy and democratisation, elections, political and voting behaviour (especially voter turnout), political parties, socio-political cleavages.
See Facebook event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1288489297985304/
The talk will be in English. The meeting is open to everyone and free of charge.
Icelandic Political Science Association and the Institute for Public Administration and Politics and the University of Iceland.
Mikołaj Cześnik is an Associate Professor at the SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Warsaw, where he directs the Institute of Social Sciences.
