Polish Political Science Review. Polski Przegląd Politologiczny 10 (1)/2022 Michał Jacuński University of Wrocław BOOK REVIEW: AGNIESZKA STĘPIŃSKA, ARTUR LIPIŃSKI, DOROTA PIONTEK, AGNIESZKA HESS, “POPULIST POLITICAL COMMUNICATION IN POLAND: POLITICAL ACTORS — MEDIA — CITIZENS” LOGOS VERLAG BERLIN, 2020, 243 PAGES DOI: 10.2478/ppsr-2022-0007 ORCID no. 0000-0002-6492-4945 e-mail: michal.jacunski@uwr.edu.pl “Populist Political Communication in Poland: Political Actors — Media — Citizens” is a four-author monograph. The authors are Agnieszka Stepinska, Artur Lipiński, Dorota Piontek (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań) and Agnieszka Hess (Jagiellonian University). Their scientific specialization covers two research disciplines: political and administration sciences as well as media and social communication. It is a perfect combination, because political communication combines several epistemological and methodological perspectives, giving the authors an opportunity to demonstrate a high quality interdisciplinary approach. The structure of the monograph consists of an introduction, three substantive chapters and a conclusion. The volume has been supplemented with a list of figures, tables, abbreviations and an extensive bibliography. As a result, we are dealing with—from the editorial point of view—a carefully prepared work, with a very clear structure and an easily comprehensible presentation form of the research outcomes. Research on populism and populist political communication has been carried out mainly in Western Europe, due to the long tradition of the political activity of populist parties. The English-language scientific literature has covered, to a lesser extent, Central and Eastern Europe countries, including Poland. Populism as a subject of research in Polish literature, however, has been present since early 1990s, which the authors are well aware of. Therefore they extensively recall previous studies on populist political communication (pp. 37–38), what leads them to a conclusion about scarcity of “systematic empirical approach”. Thus, the authors locate their work in a significant research gap, related to the deficit of studies based on empirical results. An additional novelty and an essential objective of the book is to draw attention to the relationship between media content and populism, as well as to analyze the impact of populist communication on citizens. Two factors are important for the creation of the book. The reviewed book is related to the research project titled "Populist political communication: political messages, media coverage and audience feedback", financed by the Polish National Science Centre. Additionally, the book draws on the interdisciplinary research network called COST Action “Populist Political Communication in Europe: Comprehending the Challenge of Mediat114 Polish Political Science Review. Polski Przegląd Politologiczny 10 (1)/2022 ed Political Populism for Democratic Politics” that lasted between 2013–2018. The structure of the book thus reflects the general research design adopted in these projects. The announced layout of the book is based on the classic triad of participants in the communication process, proven in many research projects in the field of political communication: political actors (part I, pp. 51–106), the media (part II, pp. 107–175) and citizens (part III, pp. 177–208). Let us look at each part that reflects this division. The authors pose a total of seven main research questions (RQ 1–RQ 7, pp. 18–21), which focus on explaining inter alia: whether Polish populist parties use unique communication strategies and tactics. Are there specific issues raised by Polish right-wing parties? How does populist political communication style resonate with Polish media? What are Polish journalists attitudes toward populist actors? What are the social factors conducive to Poles' susceptibility to populist messages? Despite the fact that the research questions are relevant, up-to-date and correspond to the structure of the work, one cannot find research hypotheses in this introductory part of the book. This is quite surprising, because we may find numerous hypotheses in some chapters. The key used to the selection of populist political actors seems not only interesting, but likely controversial. The authors cite extensively previous research works that seem to better consolidate their belief that when one considers populist political actors in Poland, they are identified solely to the right of the center of the political spectrum. This is because in 2001 first populist parties entered the political arena: the League of Polish Families (Liga Polskich Rodzin) and the Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland (Samoobrona RP). This year is also associated with the establishment of the Law and Justice (PiS) party, which the authors place among the actors representing anti-elitism populism. The Congress of the New Right (KNP) party and the Kukiz '15 movement were also classified as populists after their foundation in 2014. The authors have repeatedly and unequivocally defined populist political actors in Poland as right-wing. The above is reflected in the selection of research material in the book. The authors justify in five points (pp. 62–64) that party programs are appropriate material for the deconstruction of populist communication. Consequently, party manifestos of the following parties were included into analysis: Kukiz '15, KORWiN and PiS. This view might had been accepted provided that, when initiating the analysis, the authors would have undertaken an analysis of all election programs or manifestos of relevant political parties participating in the 2015 election competition. Unfortunately, this did not happen, so the reader must a priori agree with the authors' assumption that it was only possible for three political actors to have been included in the analysis. One may regret this decision, because analyzing a larger group of parties could bring the reader’s attention to a different view of populism in Poland, e.g. in a left-wing form or detached from the classical left-right one-dimensional spectrum. Distinguishing left-wing and right-wing populism was indicated, for example, by Aleksandra Moroska (Moroska, 2009). Left-wing populists emphasize economic issues and social equality resulting in a much exaggerated egalitarianism. The left-wing populism and its apotheosis of equality are pointed out by the well-known intellectual Chantal Mouffe in her book “For a left populism” (Mouffe, 2020). Examples of such claims could be easily found in far left-wing Partia Razem manifesto or in the Zjednoczona Lewica leftist coalition. Therefore, by selecting “three basic categories constitutive for populist communication” (p. 63) such as “the people”, “the elite” and the “others” and pointing to only three right-wing political actors, the authors made a significant self-limitation of the conducted analysis. The sui 115 Polish Political Science Review. Polski Przegląd Politologiczny 10 (1)/2022 generis cognitive narrative frame that populism in Poland is the exclusive domain of rightwing political spectrum was upheld. The above mentioned limitations do not diminish the overall value of the conducted analysis, and its conclusions are based on a few major findings. One of them is the confirmation that the source of anti-elitism in the PiS party, currently dominant and ruling Poland, is anti-communism. Its superior political goal is to consequently reverse the social and political order introduced in 1989 by the so-called “elite of the Third Polish Republic”. Moreover, it has been investigated that in the confrontation with “the people”, it is not a uniform elite that reveals itself, but according to PiS electoral program, there exist a number of structurally different elites functioning in different networks of connections. The analysis of political actors is supplemented by a part of the work devoted to, unsurprisingly, only right-wing, populist communication strategies on social media (pp. 91– 106). In this part of the work, three politicians representing the aforementioned populist parties were selected for the analysis of their Facebook pages. The result of the individual political actors analysis confirm the presence of a populist style of communication. What made this style different from manifestoes is its more blunt and colloquial language, direct anti-elitism and contempt towards “the others”. A strengthening situational factor is identified. Populist-style communications was triggered by the issue of accepting immigrants by Poland, which was revealed in the 2015 election campaign. It distinctly fueled xenophobic, EU-skeptical and anti-German sentiment among respective political leaders. In terms of the analysis of media populism in part II of the book, the authors make an important distinction between the use of populism through the media, populism used by the media and the appearance of populism among citizen journalists. Contrary to the analysis of political actors, a wider spectrum of media outlets was used under the study. The analysis included media samples of main Polish daily newspapers (broadsheet and tabloid), weekly magazines (biased liberal and right-wing broadsheets) and TV newscasts (public and commercial). Altogether nine media outlets were investigated in the period of 2015–2017. The authors explained in details a multi-stage content analysis procedure to determine whether there are specific patterns of reporting on populism across particular media outlets and different types of the media. The results do not indicate a high level of media coverage of populism. Usually the elites were criticized, but not alongside the reference to “the people.” It was rightly explained that the media portrayed parties and politicians as elites, which was overlaid with the personification of the elite. The authors used a very popular typology of populism by Jagers and Walgrave (2007) to examine the presence of different types of populism. Research findings show that in each media type observed there exist at least one indicator of the populist style. Anti-elitist populism was present in various proportions in all-types of printed media, whereas empty populism was noticed in tabloid press and politically centered press. Researchers revealed that there exist similar patterns across the printed media representing opposite political leanings (Gazeta Wyborcza and Nasz Dziennik, respectively). They both portrayed “the people” predominantly as voters “having a common understanding of the world, common values, feelings, opinions” (p. 138). An important part of the media study is also the examination of journalists’ attitudes towards populist actors and populist messages. The authors used two methods to achieve that objective. First, they conducted extensive quantitative content analysis of statements made by someone other than journalists and investigated journalists' attitudes towards 116 Polish Political Science Review. Polski Przegląd Politologiczny 10 (1)/2022 them. Secondly, they conducted in-depth interviews with selected media representatives. The latter one was disappointing due to the lack of information on the number of interviewees. One may discover that out of all interviewees, three opinions were cited (p. 156). The media analysis ends with a comparison of situational factors related to explaining the news content in the election period (2015) and non-election period (2016–2017). In this part of the book the same sample and method was used as described in previous chapters 4 and 5. This requires from a reader special attention to the nuances of data presentation, because of new research questions and hypotheses brought in this subchapter. Nevertheless, the conclusions are interesting. The findings show “a higher score of populism in the news items covering the elections” (p. 174), but the authors are cautious and refrain from claiming that “the election campaign determines the use of populist style of communication” (p. 175). The part of the work devoted to the media is illustrated with numerous charts and tables. There are also proposed populist style indicators. Still one may find a weakness in this carefully conducted analysis. Namely, the authors of the study do not consistently apply a single framework of analysis throughout the book. This is evident in chapters 4–6, dedicated to the media analysis. In these chapters new research questions emerge frequently (RQ1 — RQ4, p. 109, RQ 1 — RQ4, p. 161) and research hypotheses are formulated several times (H1 — H3, pp. 112–113, H1 — H3, p. 142). Such an arrangement of work brings unnecessary chaos, because one can lose understanding on what remains the most important research question. A reader may lost track of not only how many research hypotheses are proposed, but also what problems they address. This is though not the case elsewhere in the book, because in other parts of the monograph there were no questions or hypotheses formulated (part I) or the authors had implemented the COST project’s complex RQs and hypothesis (p. 204–205). This gives the impression of unfolding story within a story and exposes a slightly inconsistent approach. The last part of the book is devoted to citizens. The authors introduce determinants of populism and related social factors. Most of the data concerning individual and social populist disposition in Polish society in the analysis comes from secondary sources and from the review of public opinion surveys in Poland. It is an efficient compilation of data and observations, but the authors are still aware that there is “no one universal set of sociodemographic determinants of Polish populism” (p. 195). Having read two parts of this book, a reader expects in the last chapter another large portion of selected empirical data. What one receives at the beginning is instead another theoretical part, related to the conceptualization stage of the comparative social experiment. A reader is somehow unexpectedly forced to abandon the main issue and refocus once more on the works of the COST Action project. As a result, one awaits the description of the Polish case for a quite long time. More new research questions and hypotheses emerge. It is very difficult now to count and remember how many of them have been already put in the monograph. Little is known about the direct role of the authors in designing of the experiment and its execution. However, its results remain the core content of chapter 8. The number of respondents from Poland is relatively high (1,368). Findings from the survey are based on a solid sample, but in the conclusion of the book (pp. 211–212) little space is devoted to newly acquired information about Polish citizens. One may imagine that responses to research questions focused on citizens are more likely the result of authors’ expertise on Polish realities and sociological and political contexts rather than the result of dedicated 117 Polish Political Science Review. Polski Przegląd Politologiczny 10 (1)/2022 own research. It is not surprising then that the reader receives a relatively universal explanation of the phenomenon of susceptibility to populism in Poland: “the reasons behind the electoral success of populist political actors are rooted in long-term social, economic, and political issues, resulting in a low level of trust in public institutions (...) as well as current issues such as an increased fear of ‘the others’ in 2015” (p. 212). The overall assessment of the book is fairly positive, despite some reservations and doubts expressed in the review. The publication significantly complements the empirical research on populism in Poland covering all participants of political communication. It is also a valuable starting point for further longitudinal observations. It would be welcomed to expand the political spectrum beyond the right-wing parties and encourage deepening the empirical research beyond the established media. References Jagers J. and Walgrave S. (2007). “Populism as political communication style: An empirical study of political parties’ discourse in Belgium”. European Journal of Political Research. 46: 319-345. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6765.2006.00690.x Moroska A. (2009). Partie prawicowego populizmu - próba zdefiniowania zjawiska. In: Mickiewicz P. and Wyligała H. (eds.). Dokąd zmierza Europa? Nacjonalizm, separatyzm migracje — nowe wyzwania Unii Europejskiej. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Dolnośląskiej Szkoły Wyższej, pp. 129–147. Mouffe Ch. (2018). For a Left Populism. London: Verso. 118