Populist constitutional politics and civil society fundamentalism

The chapter focuses on conservative, populist movements or ‘backlash movements’ in the context of constitutional politics, largely in the European context, with as a core case-study Poland. Backlash movements, mostly of a conservative nature, often aim at reducing public space and societal pluralism. Contemporary Poland portrays ongoing and enduring ‘culture wars’ between political, legal and civil society forces, with distinctive relations to the Polish Constitution. Poland constitutes a case of enduring conflict over democracy and its constitutional expressions. The Polish case is surely rather sui generis in a number of ways (a post-communist society, a strong role of the Catholic church, the historical experience of disappearance of statehood), but the claim is that, in specific respects, by studying conservative movements and forces in Poland, we can obtain insights that have wider global relevance (and in some ways resemble developments and phenomena in other societies such as Chile, Argentina, Brasil, or the US). Such matters include the irreducible role of conservative and populist forces in democratic politics (in post-conflict and transitional societies as well as in more established democracies), the interrelation between domestic conservative forces and the Global Right, and the intrinsically conflictive nature of constitutional politics in democratic societies.