Kitsch Politics. What stands behind the success of right-wing populism in Poland?

这项研究旨在从一个很大程度上未被探索的社会文化角度解释最近全球民粹主义情绪和运动的激增。目前民粹主义的加剧在很大程度上是出乎意料的，尽管许多人试图诊断这一现象的根源，但“经济剥夺”和“文化反弹”理论都没有提供令人满意的解释和适当的解决方案。我对波兰的关注，是由其狭隘的右翼政府的惊人人气引发的，这为我提供了一个观察和分析“正在形成”的社会进程的机会。论文的关键问题是“波兰的政治民粹主义和文化民粹主义之间的关系是什么？”政治民粹主义被理解为一种政治类型，它将社会划分为两个同质对立的群体，即“纯粹的人”和“腐败的精英”，并声称前一群体的意志应该决定政治。支撑和/或促进民粹主义世界观的文化话语和实践尚未得到充分研究。因此，我的研究将填补目前以经济因素理论和/或反自由主义反弹假说为主的研究空白。我将努力用媚俗的概念来解释民粹主义的某些方面，这一概念被理解为文化和政治实践。各种媚俗的概念和理论，其流行和文化再生产将进行审查。实证部分将包括对政府话语和庸俗现象所在的大众文化相关领域的定量和定性分析。这是当前文化政策制定者、教育改革支持者和学者感兴趣和相关的话题。

The study aims to explain the recent global surge of populist sentiments and movements from a largely unexplored socio-cultural angle. The present intensification of populism has been largely unexpected and despite numerous attempts at diagnosing the sources of this phenomenon, neither the "economic deprivation" nor the "cultural backlash" theories provide satisfactory explanations and adequate solutions.My focus on Poland, triggered by the striking popularity of its illiberal right-wing government, provides an opportunity to observe and analyse the social processes 'in the making'. The key question of the thesis is 'what is the relationship between political and cultural populism in Poland?' Political populism is understood as a type of politics that construes the society as divided into two homogenous and antagonistic groups, the 'pure people' and the 'corrupt elite', and claims the former group's will should determine politics. Cultural discourses and practices that underpin and/or promote the populist vision of the world are understudied. Thus my study will fill the gap in the present state of research, dominated by theories concerning economic factors an/or anti-liberal backlash hypotheses. I will endeavour to explain some aspects of populism by using the notion of kitsch, understood as both cultural and political practice. Various conceptions of kitsch and the theories of its popularity and cultural reproduction will be reviewed. The empirical part will include quantitative and qualitative analyses of both the governmental discourses and the relevant areas of popular culture, where the phenomenon of kitsch is located. This topic is of current interest and relevance to cultural policy makers, education reform proponents, and academics.