At first, ‘PiSonomics’ seems to align with Laurelle’s illiberalism’s economic criteria—a backlash to neoliberalism. Closer inspection, however, reveals electoral pragmatism, where PiS’ government expenditures targeted its voter-base, including the elderly (eg., Pension+) and the family unit as part of the traditional hierarchy.

This is supported by seemingly neoliberal contexts under PiS’ rule, including low government spending and crawling privatisation in education and healthcare sectors, a strong support for the EU single market,³⁰ and heightened facilitation of foreign direct investment.³¹ Given that the Polish education and healthcare sectors—who represent an electoral base for PiS’ opposition—have been victim of targeted PiS propaganda,³² casts doubt on the proposition that ‘PiSonomics’ follows coherence rather than a purely pragmatic, electorally-based, and populist-rooted agenda. Supporting this is econometric research suggesting PiS’ economics has degraded long-term fiscal sustainability, indicating a prioritisation of short-term orientation for electoral benefit.³³

Therefore, while Laurelle caveats illiberalism’s ‘ideological fluidity’, her assertion that the concept has ‘some degree of coherence’ logically presupposes some unyieldingness to principles of rejecting liberalism, precluding pure political pragmatism. If so, PiS is yet to prove this, at least economically, shedding doubt on illiberalism’s alleged coherence. Instead, a more applicable take to the concept is perhaps Takis Pappas’ interpretation of populist-rooted ‘democratic illiberalism’, which bases economic policy on patronage—a clientelism where public funds strategically strengthen the government’s electoral base, reward allies, and disadvantage the opposition.³⁴

Cultural (il)liberalism

According to Laurelle, illiberalism’s rejection of cultural liberalism—the repudiation of multiculturalism and identity-based rights—in CEE ‘explicitly associates neoliberalism and cultural liberalism, seeing them as twins born of the post-communist transition’.³⁵ Culturally, this is precisely what PiS has advanced, particularly in memory politics.

Educationally, while history’s purpose under a liberal model is to foster ‘universal civic values’ and teach the subject as an academic discipline, PiS has advanced a traditional nationalist model intended to strengthen national identity.³⁶ As such, in 2017, PiS reformed the Polish history curricula to emphasise ‘patriotic and emotional aspects, which will influence building national consciousness and historical identity’, and that ‘arousing love for our motherland will be possible through learning about the history of our nation, its achievements, its mother tongue…’.³⁷ This was met with political takeovers of other knowledge institutions, particularly museums, such as the Second World War Museum in Gdansk, which was eventually packed with PiS loyalists who reformed the establishment to emphasise Polish victimhood and heroism—despite fierce backlash in protests and legal battles.³⁸ Similarly, PiS attempted to transform the narrative around the ‘Cursed Soldiers’—post-WWII resistance fighters against Soviet-imposed Polish communism—into idealised national heroes, either denying or marginalising their known anti-Semitism due to their responsibility in murdering Jews under the myth of ‘Judeo-Communism’.³⁹

On multiculturalism, PiS has targeted Muslim refugees and so-called ‘LGBTQ+ ideology’. During the 2015 European refugee crisis, PiS refused any EU migrant quotas, arguing their supposed ‘threat to Poland’s traditional values, national identity and national security’.⁴⁰ In its 2019 and 2020 election campaigns, it framed ‘LGBTQ+ ideology’ as a ‘national enemy’ who would undermine ‘Polish values, culture, religion, and even the biological continuation of the nation’.⁴¹ This has aligned with PiS’ aforementioned economic policies which placed the traditional family unit at centre stage. Moreover, it de-privatised the state-religion separation when the Polish Catholic Church aligned itself explicitly with PiS.⁴² As such, PiS’ cultural actions do indeed suggest a principled coherent approach towards traditional hierarchies, aligning with a systematic rejection of cultural liberalism, following Laurelle’s interpretation of illiberalism.

Geopolitical and civilisational (il)liberalism

In terms of foreign policy, Poland under PiS has remained strictly Atlanticist, strengthening ties with the US and NATO—⁴³ two epitomes of the post-WWII liberal international order. At first glance, it seems a clear denial of the expected rejection of geopolitical liberalism under Laruelle’s ‘illiberalism’.

Closer inspection, however, reveals a PiS-led foreign policy which leveraged US ties for fiercer Russian deterrence, coherent with its memory politics, while breaking its ‘traditional [pre-2015] pro-EU orientation’.⁴⁴ Seen through this lens, we see arguably a rejection of a civilisational liberalism personified by non-economic European integration—rather than by the US—fuelled domestic cultural illiberalism, translating into a repudiation of West European (EU)-imposed ‘civilisational’ liberalism. To compensate for this, in addition to underlining the context-dependence of geopolitical and civilisational illiberalism, Laruelle underlines how for CEE, it is Western Europe that serves as the rhetorical punching back against liberal civilisation/colonialism,⁴⁵ supporting the aforementioned deduction.

Still, it’s accordance with a rejection of geopolitical liberalism—which focuses on the legal-economic US-led international order—is far from clear in Poland’s case. Instead, an interpretation of illiberalism based on populist politics of representation, proposed by David Cadier, seems more suitable at explaining PiS’ geopolitical liberalism and civilisational illiberalism, which emphasises a neorealist Self (ie., the Polish nation) vs Other.⁴⁶

Conclusion

In determining the usefulness of the term ‘illiberalism’ (in its noun ‘-ism’-version) as a concept with some level of ideological coherence in political analysis, this paper has used the commonly agreed-on illiberalism of PiS’ Poland as a case study to test the efficacy of the relatively broad definition of the concept proposed by Marlène Laruelle. In doing so, the paper identifies the gaps in her definition and employs other scholarly interpretations to compensate, such as that of  David Cadier’s politics of representation and Takis Pappas’ ‘democratic illiberalism’.

Where meaningful gaps were found is in Laruelle’s proposition that illiberalism requires a  rejection of economic and geopolitical liberalism, both of which were not sufficiently manifested under PiS’ rule. In regard to the economic aspect, the paper identifies plausible gaps in illiberalism’s coherence, understood as a principled, non-pragmatic backlash to liberalism’s facets, in this case its neoliberal aspect—something not found under PiS. This investigation has further highlighted the importance of regional context, specially regarding geopolitical (il)liberalism, for which the dependence of US-allied vs US-rivalled countries is most relevant—which generally correlates with the antagonism/acceptance towards the liberal international order, wherefore Poland accepts. Where non-pragmatic stances on illiberalism are found is particularly regarding cultural (il)liberalism, for which PiS has been explicit in and has sacrificed political capital—indicating principled positioning—when it temporarily strained its US relations in favour of maintaining anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and passing its so-called ‘Holocaust law’, for example.⁴⁷ Even so, further research should attempt to differentiate such aspects from a populism application to illiberal analysis.

In all, this paper has investigated possible gaps to understanding ‘illiberalism’ as a coherent ideology—at least in respect to Laruelle’s interpretation thereof—and has more broadly highlighted not only the difficulty in advancing concept as an ‘-ism’ but also its blurry overlay with related terms such as populism.