Instrumental Approach to the Constitution of 2 April 1997 – the “Fight for the Constitution” as Political Camouflage in Axiological Disputes in Poland (2015–2021)

From the perspective of an external observer, the Polish dispute over the 1997 Constitution concerns the question of compliance with the applicable constitutional norms and more generally, the rule of law. However, looking at this dispute through the prism of axiology, it is possible to put forward the thesis that both sides of the political conflict (the government and its opposition) instrumentalised the ‘fight for the constitution’, treating it as one of the tools for achieving political goals. Those taking part in it pursued opposing political values, while the constitution itself, the rule of law and the hierarchy of legal acts were treated instrumentally. The aim of the article is to explain the sources of conflicting attitudes towards the 1997 Basic Law. The applied theoretical basis of the article and the reference point for the analysis of the conflict is the circular model of political values.

Political parties that operate in the public space are classified, inter alia, according to the criterion of their ideological convergence (Mair, 2010; Gallagher, Laver, Mair, 2011). If we look at the convergence through the prism of the values declared by the parties, then the adaptation of Shalom H. Schwartz’s circular model makes it possible to explain many correlations. Ideological convergence must then be considered a derivative of the rules of compliance and conflict that Schwartz described. These become the starting point, the basis for selecting further axioms and, consequently, a guideline (imperative) in constructing political agendas. The article aims to show that the mentioned rules define party agendas, and the circular model can be used for analytical purposes. The manifestos of the pirate parties selected from 11 countries were used as an example. The method applied in the article is the meta-value matrix. Adapting the Schwartz model, it should be seen as a qualitative content analysis method.

Axiological, Constitutional and Electoral Determinants of the Climate Policy Debate in Poland in 2023

The article presents the dispute over climate policy in Poland. The analysis covers the election documents of the committees from 2023 parliamentary election and the constitutional norms related to climate policy. The analysis was conducted on three levels: axiological, legal and electoral. Hypothesis H1 was tested: Constitutional norms influence the climate policy in Poland and H2: Election committees in the field of climate policy formulate goals that are desired by their own voters. As a result of the study conducted, hypothesis H1 was confirmed (most committees proposed solutions in line with the provisions of the Constitution). Hypothesis H2 was partially confirmed, as the climate protection solutions proposed by PiS were not in line with the values supported by the voters of this committee.

The aim of this study was to develop a Political Elite Perception (PEP) Questionnaire with an exploratory mixed research design and to determine university students’ perceptions of university of political elites. At the qualitative stage of the study, a qualitative questionnaire was applied among university students (n = 160). The analysis of the qualitative data revealed that university students’ perceptions of political elites were grouped in seven main categories (intellectual capacity, political values, democratic attitude, personal traits, talents, power/influence, and interaction with the public/public benefits), and the questionnaire items were determined based on these categories. At the quantitative stage of the research, statistical analyses were conducted on the questionnaire that was applied to 383 university students. The study findings demonstrated that, according to the university students, the personal traits of political elites included charisma, courage, and self-confidence, but they also emphasized that political elites were intellectually inadequate, impartial, uncriticizable, unempathetic and non-compromising, and described the political elites as non-democratic.