Abstract
The shrinking of civil society—a problematic trend in a growing number of countries—often involves enacting legal measures to curtail the activity of civil society organizations and vilifying and/or harassing such organizations. Poland has been at the forefront of this trend since 2015. This article examines the mechanisms promoting elite replacement in Polish civil society, with a specific focus on the ways in which civil society actors have responded to these changes and the effectiveness of the state’s efforts to establish new hierarchies of power. The article discusses the complex relation between research on civil society and elite theory, and examines the anti-elitist discourses concerning Polish civil society and the strategies employed by the state to gain more control over the third sector. Next, the analytical section focuses on the ways in which civil society actors respond to state-sponsored elite change and examines three types of relations between the state and NGOs in contemporary Poland: (1) resistance, (2) assimilation, and (3) opportunistic synergy. In closing, the article shows ways in which analyses of the transformation of civil society in Poland and other countries can be enriched by drawing on elite theory.
In recent years, scholars and activists have warned against the shrinking of civil society in a growing number of countries all over the world. This trend includes the drafting or passing of laws curtailing the functioning of independent nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and civil society organizations (CSOs) at the national level, and the vilification and/or harassment of organizations that are seen as disloyal to the ruling parties, “elitist” and not representing “the people.” 1 Poland has been at the forefront of this trend since 2015, when the right-wing populist party Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (PiS—Law and Justice) and its coalition partners took power. 2 In 2017, the government introduced a bill changing the institutional and organizational framework of state support for Polish civil society, promising that it would help to eliminate the old post-communist elites and the liberal, foreign-inspired actors allegedly controlling the country’s third sector. 3 Following the reform, financial assistance for NGOs grew significantly, but so did the pressure on organizations seen as “elitist,” which became a code word for actors seen as disloyal to or too independent from the state.
The changes in the sphere of civil society are part of a broader trend toward de-democratization in Poland, along with an assault on independent institutions, fueling political polarization and undermining the position of independent bodies such as the Constitutional Tribunal and Supreme Court. 4 By 2020, in the annual index of democracy compiled by Freedom House, Poland was no longer ranked as a “consolidated democracy” but as a “semi-consolidated democracy,” and in 2021 it was dubbed the world’s “most autocratizing country” by researchers compiling the index of the quality of democratic regimes called Varieties of Democracy (Alizada et al 2021), which covers more than two hundred countries. The move toward “illiberal democracy” is accompanied by the process of elite replacement, which includes political and business elites, and also media, academia, and civil society. 5 Fundamental changes in the field of state–civil society relations in the country have been carried out under the claim that the existing legislation and funding schemes had privileged a narrow elite of Polish NGOs, which the representatives of ruling coalition have defined as liberal and left-oriented organizations from large cities. The stated goals of the PiS party have been to strengthen Polish civil society and prevent its “elitization,” 6 as well as build and strengthen institutions that would facilitate the process of formatting true elites in the future.
This article examines the mechanisms promoting elite replacement in Polish civil society, which have been implemented between 2015 and 2021, with specific focus on the ways in which civil society actors responded to these changes and the effectiveness of the state’s efforts to establish new hierarchies of power and influence in the third sector. It ties together the literature on civil society with scholarship on populism and elite theory, arguing that while civil society elites may be relatively weak vis-à-vis political elites in terms of financial and organizational resources, they represent significant cultural, symbolic, and knowledge capital, thus playing an important role in supporting and legitimizing political power or opposing it. Civil society plays an important role in the process of elite contestation and change by promoting specific values and norms, and by producing expert knowledge on key societal issues.
The article starts by presenting data and methods, and follows with a discussion of the complex relation between research on civil society and elite theory. The next section examines the anti-elitist discourses concerning Polish civil society, which served as the basis for the reforms, and the strategies employed by the state to gain more control over the third sector. The main analytical section focuses on the ways in which civil society actors respond to state-sponsored elite change and examines three types of relations between the state and NGOs in contemporary Poland: (1) resistance, (2) assimilation, and (3) opportunistic synergy. We close with a discussion of the ways in which our analyses of the transformation of civil society in Poland and other countries can be enriched by drawing on elite theory.
Data and Method
This study draws on the data gathered within the research program “Civil Society Elites: Comparing Elite Composition, Reproduction, Integration and Contestation in European Civil Societies,” which brought together elite studies and civil society studies aiming to develop the first systematic and cross-country comparative analysis of civil society elites. The program included Poland, Italy, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the European Union (EU) level, and it employed a mixed-methods design, which included both quantitative methods, such as survey data, statistical data, social network analyses, and social media analyses, and qualitative methods, such as document analysis, expert interviews, biographical interviews, and observations. This article focuses on empirical work carried out in Poland, drawing predominantly on a qualitative study of the challenges that influential and resourceful organizations face.
The article is based on a content analysis of texts, including a database containing more than hundred texts published in both mainstream media (e.g., Gazeta Wyborcza, Rzeczpospolita) and online (including specialized online portals such as Ngo.pl and governmental sites), official documents concerning the process of preparing and debating the 2017 Act on the National Freedom Institute—Centre for the Development of Civil Society (henceforth: the Act) in the parliament, and materials and reports published by NGOs between 2015 and 2021. This data set has been supplemented by fifteen interviews conducted between 2019 and 2022 with civil society actors, representing both the liberal/left and conservative/patriotic orientation. Interviewees included representatives of the organizations which were identified as the most resourceful and influential according to a number of factors such as access to resources, influence, and voice vis-à-vis the state and internal recognition within civil society, based on the results of a survey conducted in 2021. Of the 175 NGOs in Poland whose representatives participated in the survey (the response rate was 18%), we identified the top thirty-one organizations, those which scored 3 or more on a 0 to 6 scale. Organizations were given 1 point for: (1) having fifty or more employees; (2) holding a position in at least one of the thirty existing posts in the boards of umbrella organizations in specific policy areas, (3) being a member in one of the three existing umbrella organizations representing the whole civil society sector; (4) receiving at least 3 million PLN from 1 percent tax deduction and/or European Funds yearly; (5) being included in at least one of the twenty-four existing policy-specific public committees; or (6) being represented in at least one of the two existing public committees for relations between the state and civil society. 7 The elite organizations identified in the survey include for example: Fundacja Batorego (Batory Foundation), Forum Rozwoju Demokracji Lokalnej (Forum for the Development of Local Democracy), Forum Instytut Rozwoju Regionalnego (Institute for Regional Development), Fundacja Stocznia (Shipyard Foundation), Instytut Kultury Prawnej Ordo Iuris (Ordo Iuris Institute for Legal Culture), and WFF Polska. Additional interviews were conducted with organizations which scored 2 or 1 but were identified as visible and influential either due to their wide social recognition (e.g., Ogólnopolski Strajk Kobiet—the All-Poland Women’s Strike) or due to their institutional role (such as a new umbrella organization for civil society Związek Stowarzyszeń Konfederacja Inicjatyw Pozarządowych Rzeczypospolitej—Confederation of NGO Initiatives of the Republic of Poland).
Data also include notes from observations at several public meetings, conferences, and debates focusing on Polish civil society and gathering representatives of the state and various civil society actors. These events included a 2016 conference organized by the Chancellery of the Prime Minister and Plenipotentiary for Civil Society entitled “Wsparcie społeczeństwa obywatelskiego w Polsce: nowe otwarcie” (Supporting civil society in Poland: new opening) in Warsaw; a conference organized by the National Freedom Institute entitled “Społeczeństwo obywatelskie: kierunek wspólnota” (Civil society: toward community) which took place in Warsaw in November 2020; and the 2021 Conference entitled “Collegium Intermarium: the place of truth in the age of cancel culture” commencing the opening of a new private university located in Warsaw, which was organizationally supported by the Polish state and financially backed by several state-owned companies. In addition, I included available quantitative data, for example, reports published by Poland’s Supreme Audit Office (NIK) and opinion polls.
Drawing on this material, I employed a process-tracing method to examine the ways in which new laws and institutional practices affected the distribution of power and voice within the third sector. The level of influence and voice is measured by examining the functioning of the specific initiatives and bodies, which were set up before 2015 to facilitate cooperation between state representatives and civil society actors, and by analyzing whose opinion was (not) included in preparing and consulting the bill on the National Freedom Institute. Access to recourses is determined by analyzing which organizations have gained access to funding and which have lost financial support, focusing specifically on cases when the rules of the game have changed along with the increase or decrease in funding. Finally, I analyzed the shifting patterns of cooperation between state representatives and civil society actors to determine how the ruling coalition promotes a specific set of values and norms, as well as new types of knowledge and expertise in society. To this end, I focused on cooperation between the state and NGOs concerning educational programs and institutions of higher learning.
Linking Elite Theory and Civil Society Studies
Elites are usually defined as relatively small, interconnected, and stable groups wielding considerable power and able to affect political, economic, and cultural outcomes on a national and/or transnational level.
8
Members of an elite are people who hold top positions in key institutions, organizations, networks, and businesses; who have access to resources; and who either participate in or directly influence key decision-making processes.
9
Most existing scholarship focuses, as Best and Higley note, on
the familiar “power elite” triumvirate of top business, government executive, and military leaders
10
along with persons and groups holding strategic positions in political parties and parliaments, major interest organizations and professional associations, important media enterprises and trade unions, and religious and other hierarchically structured institutions powerful enough to affect political decisions.
11
While Best and Higley mention major interest organizations and associations as part of the elite, most scholars interested in elite groups pay little attention to representatives of civil society. There is clearly a lacuna of studies on civil society elite, which the present analysis seeks to address.
Scholars have seldom examined civil societies using the tools of elite theory, and civil society actors have been largely ignored in the studies of elite groups, partly because these two scholarly traditions are rooted in very different conceptualizations of power and its distribution in society. Following Tocqueville (2002), civil society scholars conceived of power as dispersed among various groups and believed that in a democracy the people are the real directing power, and the majority governs in the name of the people. Citizens not only elect their representatives at the voting booth, but they can also influence political system between elections by engaging in various associations and taking matters into their own hands. Tocqueville and his followers defined civil society as an intermediate sphere between the individual and the state, and cooperation between the two was envisioned as more or less harmonious, based on trust and reciprocity. This theoretical tradition was continued by Robert Putnam, who claimed that civic involvement and participation at the local level translate into a better quality of government. According to Putnam (1976), the quality of a democracy depends on the level of social capital, which comprises both social networks and the norms embedded in these networks, especially reciprocity and trustworthiness. It is a sum of generalized trust that people have toward each other and toward political institutions, which translates into cooperation, and makes democracy work. In contrast, elite theorists such as Gaetano Mosca (1939) or Vilfredo Pareto (1991) saw power as concentrated in the hands of the few, who often manipulate the people or use coercion to pursue their goals. Scholars interested in studying elites focused mostly on groups wielding considerable power and controlling key resources: political and economic elites, including the government, big business, and the military. 12 Activists and civil society leaders were perceived as relatively weak, much less resourceful, and much less influential than political and economic elites, thus as those who depended on elites rather than form an elite on their own. This tendency is strengthened by the fact that most scholarship on elites focuses exclusively on financial and political power.
The neglect of elite theory in civil society studies also reflects the somewhat strained relations between elite rule and democracy. Whereas thriving civil society was often seen as a necessary condition of a functioning democracy, some scholars suggested that the existence of powerful elites is either incompatible with democracy or—in case of a unified elite—can be a threat to democratic rule, especially when complex organizations become oligarchies. 13 In contrast to such a perspective, contemporary scholars argue that elites should be regarded as a precondition for democracy, stressing the need for elite pluralism and relative autonomy of different groups in democratic regimes. 14 Studies on the democratization process in former socialist countries confirm the view that the process of political change tends to be initiated and/or coordinated, at least partly, by elite groups. 15
Elite replacement has been identified as a key element of rapid political and social change in formerly authoritarian contexts. In the context of post-socialist societies, some scholars have argued that the dominant mechanism of elite change was elite reproduction reflecting the political elite’s ability to convert political capital into economic capital. 16 Jadwiga Staniszkis (1991) contended that the communist political elite would retain its privileged position through the process of privatization as the new bourgeoisie would be recruited from the top ranks of the party. A similar view was shared by scholars studying Polish civil society, who claimed that many members of the new political and civil society elites were inherited from the previous regime.17,18 Other researchers stressed the prevalence of elite circulation, showing that “transition to post-communism resulted in a structural change at the top of the class hierarchy: new people are recruited for command positions on the basis of new principles.” 19
Studies of the historical development of political and business elites in the context of major historical changes taking place in Poland, especially the formation of new post-1989 elites, have shown that both processes—elite reproduction and circulation—took place in the country. 20 Rafał Matyja and Błażej Sajduk’s (2016) study of political elites in Poland, which included MPs, ministers, people elected and working at state institutions such as the Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights (Poland’s ombudsman), and the representatives of local elites, supports the elite circulation thesis. They demonstrated that members of Polish political elites have relatively short careers (nine years on average), that the vast majority started their political life after 1989 and that they have held their current position for five years on average. In a study on the recruitment to government positions, Jacek Raciborski (2007) observed that the post-1989 elites often lacked experience in administration, the economy, or politics, as they were often recruited from (oppositional) civil society or academia. While there is no research focusing specifically on civil society elites, and generally civil society in the post-socialist context was often seen as relatively weak and underdeveloped in comparison with most Western countries, scholars have shown that it has played an important role in initiating the transformation and building a new post-1989 regime. 21
The view that civil society does not produce its own elites and that the third sector lacks considerable voice, influence, and resources contrasts with both the historical experiences of powerful social movement organizations (including the Solidarity movement in Poland, the civil rights movement in the United States, or the women’s movement with its global reach) and contemporary analyses pointing to the political influence of civil society actors and the social relevance of the third sector leaders. In democratic regimes, civil society leaders are part of a complex web of power, which is distributed among various elites, including politicians, businesspeople, representatives of academia and the arts, as well as non-elite groups, for example, activists engaged in social movements. In the words of Philippe Schmitter, in democratic regimes
not all representatives are elected and act in the name of political parties. Many, probably most of them, are selected by various publics and act through civil society, that is, a myriad of interest associations, social movements and advocacy groups—which only very rarely hold competitive elections to choose their leaders.
22
There is also a growing recognition that international civil society organizations have become influential political actors in their own right. 23 This trend is partly related to the fact that economic and political elites are increasingly aware that they need NGOs as partners in solving complex challenges, such as climate change, inequality, and human rights. 24
Civil society organizations often possess significant knowledge, thus can offer their assistance and expertise on the national and transnational level, but they also claim to represent the voice of the people, which translates into symbolic capital valuable in the field of politics. Cooperation with political actors may endanger the image of an organization as an independent actor, but it may also translate into wider recognition of NGOs, the enhancement of their status, and even greater access to policy-making processes. Only a limited number of professionalized and resourceful NGOs can play such a role vis-à-vis political and economic leaders, including resourceful and widely recognized think-tanks, internationally connected foundations, and large associations. 25 The privileged position of such organizations not only reflects (and in effect strengthens) significant inequalities regarding power, resources, and voice in the third sector, but also shows that the boundaries between civil society and the field of politics are porous. The blurred boundaries between different fields may lead not only to increased cooperation between the representatives of the two fields but also to conflict and competition. In the case of Poland, this conflict was already visible in the 1990s, when the political elites channeled social activism into NGOs and withheld support for spontaneous grassroots activism by workers, mainly due to the fear of mass protests and uncontrollable mobilization. 26 The relative instability of the political elite, along with the weak competencies of post-1989 politicians, may strengthen the tendency to perceive civil society leaders as potential opponents by political actors, who are tempted to invest in the formation of counter-elites, which are loyal to the ruling elite. At the same time, the tradition of Polish civil society’s role in opposing the ruling party under state socialism may serve as an important symbolic resource, helping activists resist political attacks.
Strategies for Elite Replacement in Poland: State vs. Civil Society
PiS constructed its political discourse along the lines of the basic juxtaposition that most populist parties embrace: the one between the elites seen as corrupt, self-serving, and indifferent to the needs of the people and the people portrayed as oppressed, deprived of their voice, and locally rooted. 27 According to PiS party chairman Jarosław Kaczyński and other leaders of the ruling coalition, the existing liberal and left-oriented elites built their position in an illegitimate manner with the support of (former) communists and Western actors; thus, they never really defended Polish interests. The third sector is allegedly an ample example of this phenomenon. 28
At stake is not only the question of authority of the existing civil society, but also the definition of democracy and the legitimacy of the post-1989 transformation. As has been shown by Piotr Kulas (2018), PiS’s anti-elitist position included claims that the existing liberal and leftist elites are alienated from ordinary people and lack empathy, thus cannot and will not represent the people. In contrast, the PiS party politicians presented themselves as being of the people and acting for the people, claiming that only they can channel the volonté générale (general will of the public) of Poles into political practice.
29
As do many right-wing populist politicians, PiS presented its political agenda in terms of a mission to give voice to ordinary citizens allegedly silenced by the liberals, the left, and the EU with the support of the mainstream media, judiciary, and intellectuals. Within such a framework, harassing existing liberal and left-leaning NGOs while simultaneously increasing financial and organizational support for Catholic, patriotic, and socially conservative civil society organizations was presented as a crucial part of rejuvenating democracy in Poland. As observed by Marte Mangset and her colleagues,
critiques of elites define populism, which conceives of power relations as group of conspiring elite exploiting the good people. However, populism is also inherently elitist, calling for a stronger [charismatic] leader to take power and channel the will of the people.
30
This results in a paradox of populist elitism: to seize power and rule, populist parties need to not only exclude and marginalize the existing elites but also form their own elite comprised of politicians, intellectuals, and entrepreneurs, as well as civil society leaders.
The process of elite change in civil society was implemented through three key mechanisms, which are as follows: (1) the discontinuation of existing forms of communication and collaboration between the state and civil society actors of the left and liberal persuasion, (2) redirecting funds and resources toward actors who share the government’s nationalistic and socially conservative orientation, and (3) privileging chosen NGOs as knowledge producers, collaborators, and norm entrepreneurs. The state employed “a complex dual approach of pressure and promotion” to marginalize and vilify organizations perceived as alien to the party and its values, and to support financially those that are seen as loyal. 31
The state’s propensity to support civil society organizations that are eager to cooperate with the ruling parties and to sideline those who are seen as disruptive is not uncommon, but it is significantly more pronounced in autocratic contexts, as an independent and ideologically diverse civil society is seen as a threat to centralized power. Right-wing populists rationalized the reform of the state–civil society relations in Poland claiming that the people can regain political influence only when the position of powerful and influential NGOs is challenged. The goal was to marginalize the liberal and left-oriented part of society, which they saw as “submissively peripheral, ‘aping’ western trends in betrayal of authentic Polish interests and values.”
32
The terms “left/liberal” and “conservative/patriotic,” which only partly reflected the existing ideological heterogeneity of the third sector, have been used in the ruling party narrative as markers of a profound moral divide between the enemies of the people and the legitimate representatives or, in fact, the saviors of the people.
33
According to PiS, the only true elite is one which fully identifies with the ideological orientation that is at the core nationalist, social conservative, and illiberal (or anti-liberal).
34
This trend is not limited to Poland. Connie Roggeband and Andrea Krizsan reported that in all three countries that they analyzed, Croatia, Hungary, and Poland,
Governments attempt to reorganize civic space through a dual process of selective in- and exclusion of civil society organizations. Civil society organizations identified as not in line with government ideology and critical of it face obstruction and restraints, whereas simultaneously the space and state support for organizations identified as progovernment is expanded.
35
Thus, the current trend should be conceptualized as shifting civil society or a selective closure of civil society as Roggeband and Krizsán termed it, rather than the shrinking of civil society space.
Resistance
To marginalize liberal-leaning civil society organizations and to accelerate the emergence of the “true”—patriotic, nationalist, socially conservative—civil society elite, Polish government has significantly changed the structure of financial support for NGOs and the institutional framework of state–civil society relations. Since 2015, civil society actors deemed ideologically alien to the “Polish tradition”—left- or liberal-oriented and/or feminist—have been harassed via removal of existing state support and government-sponsored smear campaigns. 36 State-controlled media and right-wing politicians targeted especially women’s rights, LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) rights, and migrant aid organizations, publicly accusing them of spreading foreign “gender ideology,” “sexualizing children,” and opening up Poland’s borders to the danger of “mass migration.” 37 The ruling coalition also significantly changed the criteria in grant competitions and the rules for cooperation with organizations providing various social services, which usually heavily depend on state funds. According to Stanley Bill, who examined the results of grant competitions in recent years “. . . there is [. . .] a disproportionate presence of beneficiaries that are ideologically, politically, or personally linked to the ruling party and its allies.” 38
In response to the attacks from the public media and the lack of funding, most liberal-leaning organizations had to adjust their agendas, fundraising strategies, and cooperation patterns, switching from cooperation with the state to resistance toward state institutions and the ruling coalition. Whereas before 2015 many organizations were engaged in social consultations and ad hoc collaboration with different ministries and institutions, after PiS’s coalition came to power they were neither invited to nor willing to engage in close cooperation. As one interviewee working for an organization focusing on minority rights put it, “The government sees us as enemies, and you don’t cooperate or negotiate with an enemy, do you?” (Online interview, December 2020).
The process of debating and implementing the 2017 bill marked the moment when civil society organizations began to openly resist the state and its efforts to control independent entities. The biggest Polish umbrella organizations for NGOs—OFOP and SPLOT—and widely recognized foundations such as Batory Foundation or Amnesty International were not consulted at all prior to publicizing the legislative drafts, and their leaders publicly objected to the lack of consultations and voiced harsh critique of the bill. They pointed out that the new institutions would be fully controlled by the state, that the reform would allow for the tightening of state control over financial resources for NGOs, and that it would privilege civil society actors that cooperate closely with the ruling party. 39 These critiques and formal suggestions submitted by civil society actors were dismissed. The Klon/Jawor Association, an influential think-tank gathering data on Polish civil society and supporting new organizations with know-how, argued in a similar vein: “the project is created without any input from society, again the critiques of many non-governmental organizations were dismissed, and the bill proposes to establish an institution situated outside of civil society’s control.” 40
Within the new institutional framework, some consultative bodies, such as the Public Benefit Council, which used to facilitate cooperation between civil society and the state, continued to exist and there are more members representing NGOs than prior to 2015. However, the Council lost its significance as a space for presenting and negotiating diverging positions, and two influential organizations, whose representatives used to sit in the council (Stocznia and SPLOT), are no longer involved, because as one interviewee pointed out the existing institutions are nothing but an empty shell. When asked about experiences with the new council, the representative of a large liberal-leaning civil society organization responded, “This is just window dressing, the council has no influence on anything of importance now” (Warsaw, December 2020).
While state bodies became increasingly hostile toward independent NGOs, civil society actors strengthened their relations with local governments and EU institutions. In June 2019, the representatives of several municipalities and influential organizations, such as Stocznia and OFOP, signed the “Declaration of partnership between local government and social organizations.” Jakub Wygnański, the leader of Stocznia, stressed that this cooperation would be an important step toward integrating civil society and the political sphere:
Thirty years ago, the powerful civic energy led to the emergence of a whole group of people who later went to politics, business, local government, and non-governmental organizations, and today we need new energy, because we are facing different, perhaps more difficult challenges. Civil society is not a set of institutions, but an ability, a potential to act.
41
The declaration is one of several initiatives aimed at strengthening cooperation between local governments and civil society organizations, which helped to secure funding and access to decision-making processes in the case of NGOs attacked and marginalized by the ruling coalition. The cooperation with transnational institutions and governments also proved fruitful. In 2017, when the PiS party battled to take control of the Norway Grants, a 37-million euro grant scheme for new EU Member States offered by Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein in support of democratic processes, civil society, innovation, and sustainability, Polish civil society successfully resisted this plan. The operators of the program, which were selected in an open competition—the Stefan Batory Foundation and the Polish Children and Youth Foundation—launched a campaign to oppose this takeover, and the governments offering the grant declined to comply with PiS’s requests.
In response to the selective closure of civil society space,
42
many organizations embraced their position vis-à-vis the state as watchdogs and became more politicized. While prior to 2015 the hegemonic vision of civil society was that of an apolitical actor, distanced from party-politics, after PiS came to power the representatives of NGOs began to openly criticize the ruling parties and to mobilize grassroots opposition against specific policy proposals, such as the blanket ban on abortion proposed in 2016 and reforms of the judiciary.
43
While not all liberal-leaning organizations lost financial support or were attacked by public media, many share the view that civil society needs to consolidate in the face of growing internal threats. The process of politicization and consolidation was facilitated by resourceful and well-known organizations, which initiated a number of projects to strengthen collaboration within the third sector and with local municipalities, and to amplify the voice of civil society actors in society. One such project was the plan to nominate an independent candidate, the attorney Zuzanna Rudzińska-Bluszcz, to become the Commissioner for Human Rights in 2020. More than 1,200 organizations signed a declaration of support, including large and small entities from big cities and small towns. In the words of an interviewee representing a large and resourceful NGO,
Our aim is to do everything in our power to strengthen civil society, to enable civil society to become truly independent of state power, autonomous, capable of mobilizing its own resources and to define its own goals independently. That is why we engaged in promoting the candidacy of Zuzanna Rudzińska-Bluszcz. To show that civil society exists, that we can make political demands concerning who holds the position of Commissioner. (Warsaw, October 2021)
The parliament rejected the candidate, but the campaign for her nomination helped to consolidate the third sector and amplified the voice of organizations that have been attacked or marginalized by the ruling party.
Many organizations also started to revise their fundraising schemes to become more independent from grants distributed by the state. These efforts included both developing new funding strategies, for example, through fundraising campaigns in social media, and a more general reorientation regarding the funding schemes dominant in Poland:
Seeing how the state now supports only those organizations that are loyal and submissive, which don’t criticize the situation in Poland, it is clear that we should never have become so dependent on public funds. This creates an incentive for the politicians to influence civil society: if you take money from me, I will be able to influence your activities (Warsaw, December 2020).
Initially, liberal-leaning NGOs, especially those that were heavily dependent on state funds, reported significant financial difficulties, but according to the interviewees, in the long run many organizations managed to secure funds from other sources, including foreign public funds, local authorities, and individual donors. The data gathered by the Klon/Jawor Association suggest that this trend concerns only the largest and most resourceful organizations: NGOs that had an annual budget of 1 million PLN or more between 2014 and 2020 represented a steady 6 percent of all entities. 44 Financial difficulties affected mostly small and less resourceful organizations: under the same period. the percentage of organizations with an annual budget of 10,000 PLN or less rose from 34 percent in 2014 to 45 percent in 2020.
Following Bourdieu, elite theorists contend that capital is “an object of social contention—what counts as a resource and its transferability is defined socially.” 45 Civil society organizations are usually seen as more authentic, altruistic, and trustworthy than state officials or businesspeople. Due to the high level of social trust, representatives of civil society can act as contenders for power and influence, as independent or oppositional actors with enough resources to challenge autocratic rulers. 46 NGOs, especially those that focus their activities on fighting for the public good, possess what Jon Dean (2020) terms “the good glow”—a form of symbolic power that may rub off on politicians who publicly engage in cooperation with activists or financiers who donate to good causes. 47 The case of Poland shows that symbolic and social capital may also be an important factor strengthening civil society’s resilience in increasingly hostile political contexts. Actors who wield considerable symbolic and social capital, for example, who are trusted as “do-gooders” fighting for the common good rather than pursuing individual gains, who are well connected to other elite groups, and who possess knowledge and expertise, are able to secure financial and organizational resources and bypass the state, which makes them more resistant to pressure from the autocratizing regime.
Assimilation
While the representatives of liberal-leaning organizations see the increasing dependence of civil society actors on the state as co-optation, the leaders of conservative organizations tend to perceive it as a way to restore balance, which before 2015 was allegedly skewed in favor of progressive CSOs. As one representative of a conservative think-tank put it in an interview,
Many liberal and left-leaning organizations that are very critical of the current ruling party are complaining; I hear opinions that they are not getting grants and that are somehow excluded from grant competitions, which of course affects their financial situation. But I’ll be a symmetrist here. Exactly the same situation took place under previous governments. (Warsaw, June 2021)
The underlying assumption here is that Polish civil society has always been divided along ideological and political lines, and the changes introduced by PiS did not affect the rules of the game, but favor the part of the third sector that was marginalized by the previous governments. In their view, the composition of Polish civil society remained more or less the same, but the ruling coalition has changed the balance of power: organizations that previously had an elite position and a disproportionate voice are being replaced by those who were marginalized by the liberal power holders. Moreover, the interviewees representing more conservative organizations claimed that the elite replacement in civil society is fully justified and needed because the views of the liberal- and left-leaning actors reflected not so much the opinions of Polish people or the activists themselves, but the views of their Western donors:
(Many organizations) live off various grants, often grants from foreign institutions, and this often makes their view on certain issues different from ours. [. . .] It seems to me that there is a fundamental division between those circles that represent a more liberal point of view and those that are more oriented towards the protection of traditional values and classical human rights, such as our organization. [. . .] But it seems to me that a key role in how certain civil society organizations function is related to their model of functioning and financing. [. . .] they often copy certain patterns from Western countries. (Warsaw, June 2021)
Within such a perspective, redirecting state resources toward organizations that have not been supported by Western donors after 1989 is not only fair but also allows values and norms to be nurtured that are “authentic” and reflect Polish traditions. Such claims reflect a tendency to justify the marginalization of certain groups and organizations, by presenting divisions between different organizations as rooted in their positions concerning the country’s sovereignty and (in)dependence from the West. 48
Among the organizations that gained a privileged position within the new system of distributing the state’s financial support, some are typical government-organized non-governmental organizations (GONGOs)—newly established entities under the leadership of people who belonged to or are closely connected to the ruling party. To direct financial capital to such organizations, the results of many grant competitions announced by ministries and state agencies were unexpectedly revised. 49 One example of this trend was an open tender for the promotion and protection of consumer rights announced in 2018. The grant amounting to 2 million PLN was given to a consortium of two organizations, neither of which had much experience in consumer rights protection. Both were established right before the introduction of the new funding scheme, and one was funded by a former employee of the National Institute for Freedom. 50
The state also started to co-opt existing socially conservative and patriotic movements and organizations. Right-wing populist parties invest in their image as representatives of the common people; thus, they seek close cooperation with grassroots movements and organizations perceived as apolitical and enjoying mass appeal. At the beginning of 2015, the Ministry of Education announced a competition for NGOs to coordinate social consultations regarding reform of the education system. After the elections, the tender was canceled for unclear reasons and rerun a year later, and the grant was finally awarded to Stowarzyszenie Rzecznik Praw Rodziców (Parents’ Rights Association), a conservative organization that had no prior experience in conducting such projects. The association was established in 2009 in reaction to the then-liberal government’s plan to lower the compulsory school age. The leaders initially presented the association as a politically neutral, single-cause initiative, and over time they have built significant symbolic capital on parenthood-related issues. The successful campaign against raising the schooling age was supported by several celebrities and covered by all major media outlets, and the petition was signed by over a million citizens. After this success, the foundation joined forces with right-wing parties in campaigns against sex education in schools and the ratification of the Istanbul Convention. 51 After the PiS coalition came to power, the Parents’ Rights Association gained a privileged position vis-à-vis the state, but trading its social support for grants seriously undermined its position as a representative of Polish parents. The results of the tender were widely criticized in the media, which also made public the information that most of the grant money had been spent on salaries for the leaders of the organization, which challenged the public image of the association as a grassroots movement of parents concerned with the well-being of their children. The 2020 campaign calling for the end of online teaching during the pandemic gained a little over seventeen thousand signatures and proved unsuccessful which suggests that the organization is no longer seen as an authentic independent voice of Polish parents.
Since 2015, the PiS party has begun implementing reforms aimed as subjugating civil society to the ruling party. Civil society actors, however, can quickly lose their social and symbolic capital if they engage in close cooperation with the state and become perceived as inauthentic and self-serving. While the social and symbolic capital possessed by civil society actors may be converted into economic and organizational resources, such conversion brings serious risks and may endanger the public image and existence of an NGO in the long run.
Opportunistic Synergy
Apart from GONGOs established by politicians and movements co-opted by the state, there are also organizations that cooperate with the ruling coalition in pursuit of their own agenda. This is the case of conservative NGOs, especially think-tanks, which became key partners of the ruling party in an effort to replace existing elites and to establish a cultural hegemony of nationalistic and fundamentalist views. In most contexts, think-tanks represent the close connection between the field of politics and civil society. Such organizations “perform boundary work converting capital from other fields” and hold a relatively privileged position “both in terms of wealth (on average bigger budgets), political influence (their very raison d’être), knowledge (educational level of the staff), and social networks.” 52 As Katarzyna Jezierska has observed, people working in think-tanks often shun self-identification with elites, but they are usually well connected with politicians and have access to considerable resources. Ordo Iuris (OI), a conservative foundation established in 2013, widely known for its engagement in the protection of “traditional values” and Christian ethics, is one such prominent think-tank, well connected with the ruling coalition and influencing both policy-making and public debate in Poland. 53 OI publishes reports on various issues, including academic freedom and reforms of the higher education system, and takes an active part in public debates by issuing legal opinions and press releases, organizing conferences, and giving interviews. Its employees write law proposals, engage in strategic litigation, and are very active in the media. 54
Since 2015, the foundation has emerged as one of the key civil society partners of the ruling coalition using its position as an NGO to legitimize the state’s attacks on civil society actors and minority groups. OI has publicly claimed that progressive NGOs represent foreign interests, and its representatives sent official letters to a number of women and LGBTQ organizations demanding access to all documentation related to publicly funded projects, which suggested the possibility of misappropriation of public funds. 55 The field of science and education has become another important sphere of intervention. In 2017, the institute initiated a campaign against Polish gender studies scholars demanding that the rectors of public universities provide a list of employees engaged in gender and queer studies, whom ultraconservatives accuse of promoting pedophilia and “sexualizing children.” 56 When the Ministry of Science and Education proposed an amendment to the law regulating higher education, OI became a vocal supporter of the proposal. 57 Presented as a solution which would protect freedom of speech and research at universities, the bill would have opened the doors of academic institutions to speakers with no academic standing and prohibited any opposition on the part of students and teachers alike. 58
OI is not only a close collaborator of the ruling coalition in their efforts to replace the liberal elites within civil society, but also an important partner in educating a new elite. To this end, the organization established the Collegium Intermarium (CI), a private university, which was advertised as “the Free University of Europe” and which offers degrees in Law, Human Rights, and Management of Non-Governmental Organizations. 59 During the opening conference in October 2021,OI representative Karolina Pawłowska made it clear that the goal was to educate the new elites of the country: “we don’t want our university to became yet another educational institution offering mass education” (author’s notes). This statement was echoed by the next speaker, Piotr Mazurek, the Deputy Minister of Culture and National Heritage and Vice-President of the Public Benefit Committee, who stressed that in contrast to public schools, where students hardly ever see their lecturers, the new university will allow young people to benefit from individual contact with educators who are “well-known and enjoy high prestige.” The list of people who attended the opening conference (in person or online) was indeed impressive, but not necessarily because of their academic credentials. The list included: Piotr Gliński, the Minister of Culture and National Heritage and the Chairman of the Public Benefit Committee; Balázs Orbán, a Deputy Minister at the Hungarian Prime Minister’s Office; and Marion Maréchal, a niece of Marine Le Pen and the founder of ISSEP, which is a private educational institution promoted as an “alliance between business knowledge and public affairs,” which promises to train a “new generation of decision makers.” 60 Both institutions—CI and ISSEP—have ambitions to become a breeding ground for the next generation of European conservative thinkers and leaders, offering students not only high-quality education but also a chance to meet key politicians and representatives of state bodies. In the case of the CI, the ruling party supports the project both organizationally and financially. The opening conference in Warsaw was organized under the honorary patronage of five ministries and financed by state-owned companies.
Close examination of OI strategies and activities shows how the cooperation between conservative civil society organizations and the ruling coalition in Poland has evolved over time, following the logic of opportunistic synergy—“a dynamic that includes political alliances, ideological affinities, and organizational ties that enable wide-scale elite change in governmental bodies, academia, cultural institutions, and civil society.” 61 Over the last decade, the right-wing populist parties in Poland have become more invested in campaigns against “gender ideology,” promoted by NGOs and the Catholic church. Employing an ultraconservative discourse enables politicians to mobilize supporters in defense of endangered children and to vilify the opposition as promoters of moral degeneration. Simultaneously, organizations such as OI have gained not only financial support and a considerable voice, but have also become institutionalized within state structures. A representative of the organization sits in the Council of the National Institute for Freedom and its co-founder and first President, Aleksander Stępkowski, has been appointed to the Polish Supreme Court. In 2020, an OI co-director was delegated by the Polish state as a member of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), a Brussels-based institution that advises the European Parliament, the Council, and the Commission and which describes itself as a voice of civil society.
Close cooperation between the populist right-wing parties and socially conservative civil society facilitates the process of elite reproduction, which is partly modeled after the transition of the early 1990s when oppositional leaders entered political institutions using their social and symbolic capital to gain political power. 62 The ruling coalition promotes a new ideological and normative basis for the illiberal regime, and this goal is shared by the illiberal segment of civil society. 63 Consequently, elite civil society actors play a key role in the process of dismantling democracy: the representatives of influential and resourceful NGOs help to legitimize the ruling party’s claim for popular support, become the new cadres of state institutions and intermediate bodies, and act as educators, norm entrepreneurs, and promoters of specific values and norms in the society.
Conclusion
Employing elite theory in analyses of civil society allows us to better understand how access to voice and resources is distributed in civil society, how organizations and individuals gain or lose power and influence, how civil society actors become (dis)integrated with other elite groups, and what the role of the state is in challenging the existing elite or supporting the emergence of a new one. It enables us to see civil society for what it really is: a complex web of individual actors, organizations, and networks that shares some goals, values, and strategies, but is also internally divided and ideologically heterogeneous, competing for voice and resources. In Poland’s case, such a perspective helps to interpret the changes introduced by the right-wing populists not as an example of a shrinking civil society space, but rather as part of a wide-scale project of elite change, which includes efforts to promote both elite circulation and elite reproduction.
In real existing democracies, elites are part of a complex web of power relations, and their existence or the process of elite replacement is not necessarily dangerous to the democratic order, mostly because of elite pluralism and the fact that power is distributed rather than concentrated in the hands of the few. Under the rule of increasingly autocratic regimes, as in the case of Poland, the relation between elites and democracy changes. As predicted by elite theorists, all political regimes need some intermediary elites between the rulers and the society, and NGOs can play an important role in this respect. In contrast to elite theory, however, which assumes that several different elites may co-exist, right-wing populists have a tendency to oppose elite pluralism, and see influential civil society actors as contenders to power. 64 Thus, right-wing populist politicians in Poland fiercely oppose actors and organizations that they see as disloyal, while simultaneously they invest in building an elite that is both loyal to the new regime and promotes the values and norms necessary to build a new type of social contract, a new type of society. Loyal civil society actors not only serve as the new cadres of state institutions and bodies, but also become the state’s key partners in the process of the formation of new elites. The ultimate goal is to create a new civil society—an illiberal one—capable of finishing off the process of democratization initiated in 1989.
To what extent are these efforts successful? This study shows that state-sponsored efforts to promote elite circulation in civil society are only moderately successful. So far, the resourceful liberal-leaning organizations have been able to resist the attacks by securing new sources of funding, strengthening cooperation with other organizations, local authorities, and international institutions. Civil society actors use their knowledge, expertise, and networks and convert them to valuable economic and organizational resources. Their political influence is significantly diminished, but their symbolic capital as the authentic voice of the people is not, in contrast to organizations that engaged in close cooperation with the state, gaining financially but losing their independence and wide social support. Of the thirty-one most resourceful and influential organizations identified in our survey conducted in 2020, only one was established in the last decade: this was the OI Institute, which was set up in 2013. None of the GONGOs which emerged after 2015 was included in this group, even though these organizations received generous grants and have access to political power. Simultanously, NGOs remained among the most trusted actors in Polish public sphere. While the level of trust in politicians and the Catholic church has significantly declined between 2014 and 2020, the trust in NGOs is stable: in 2020, 56 percent of Poles declared that they trust civil society actors (only 24 percent trust the government and 34 percent trust the Church). 65
The Polish case demonstrates that elite change can be successfully initiated by an increasingly authoritarian state in the case of individuals, for example, politicians, members of state institutions, or state-controlled media. In relation to civil society, this process is much more difficult and complex, partly because of the relational nature of the types of capital that civil society actors possess. Trust, legitimacy, and authenticity emerge over time and are associated partly with the field of civil society in general and partly with specific organizations and individual leaders. Well-known and trusted organizations are able to convert one type of capital, for example, a positive public image, knowledge, and expertise, into a different type of capital, for example, economic, but they can also easily lose social support and trust if people start to perceive them as greedy and self-serving. Hence, organizations co-opted by the state and closely cooperating with an autocratizing regime gain access to political power and economic resources, but often lose their symbolic and social capital as representatives of the people. This study suggests that we need to study mechanisms that strengthen civil society resilience in the context of democratic backsliding in more detail, and that elite theory may be helpful in accomplishing this task.
Footnotes
Funding
Elżbieta Korolczuk’s research for this article was supported by a grant from the program “Civil Society Elites? Comparing elite composition, reproduction, integration and contestation in European civil societies.” The program is sponsored by the Riksbanken Jubileumsfond (grant number M17 0188:1).
