File(s) not publicly available
Why Is There No Christian Democracy in Poland — and Why Should We Care?
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-08, 05:52 authored by Tim Bale, Aleks SzczerbiakAleks SzczerbiakDespite the fact that almost all Poles are Roman Catholics and that religion has played an important part in contemporary Polish politics, no self-declared Christian Democratic party has been successful in post-1989 Poland. None of the currently successful Polish centre—right parties profile themselves as Christian Democratic, nor can they be labelled as such objectively. While, superficially, Poland looks like fertile ground for Christian Democracy, the factors that were crucial to the formation and success of Christian Democratic parties in post-war Western Europe were largely absent during the emergence of democratic, multiparty politics in post-1989 Poland. Of course, parties are never simply produced and sustained by `cleavages', they are more than institutional responses to some kind of social demand. The formation and success, or otherwise, of Christian Democratic parties owes much to the interplay between social realities and sponsors, on the one hand, and the institutional and ideological crafting of entrepreneurial politicians, on the other.
History
Publication status
- Published
Journal
Party PoliticsISSN
1354-0688Publisher
SAGE PublicationsExternal DOI
Issue
4Volume
14Page range
479-500Pages
22.0Department affiliated with
- Politics Publications
Full text available
- No
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2012-02-06Usage metrics
Categories
No categories selectedKeywords
Licence
Exports
RefWorks
BibTeX
Ref. manager
Endnote
DataCite
NLM
DC