DEMRES

About the project

Threats to the stability of democracy in Europe manifest themselves through various discursive strategies employed by political actors. These strategies underpin institutional and political changes, aim to justify anti-democratic actions, and shape citizens’ electoral behaviour.

The main objective of DEMRES is to identify and analyse the key narratives of democratic backsliding and democratic resilience used by anti-democratic and pro-democratic political actors, as well as to assess the responsiveness of key target groups to these narratives and their mobilising potential in elections. The project aims to create a unique knowledge base on how populist challenges reshape contemporary democracies.

By combining advanced analysis of political texts with qualitative and quantitative research, the project examines how political language can contribute either to democratic erosion or to democratic resilience.

Research questions

Which narratives and rhetorical strategies are used to legitimise democratic backsliding, and which are used to defend democracy?
How do these narratives vary between political actors and across changing political contexts?
Which social and political groups are most responsive to particular backsliding and resilience narratives?
Under what conditions can these narratives shape political attitudes, electoral choices and political mobilisation?

Research design

DEMRES employs a multi-stage, sequential mixed-methods research design integrating qualitative and quantitative approaches across four phases:

1. Advanced analysis of political texts. Identification and comparative analysis of narratives, frames and rhetorical strategies associated with democratic backsliding and democratic resilience.

2. In-depth interviews with political experts. Contextualisation and interpretation of the discursive strategies identified in the textual analysis.

3. Survey with experiments. Assessment of citizens’ responsiveness to selected narratives and their potential effects on political attitudes and electoral mobilisation.

4. Focus group interviews. Exploration of how citizens interpret political narratives and understand democratic backsliding and resilience.

Funding

The project is funded by the National Science Centre, research grant 2024/55/B/HS5/03141 (OPUS 28) and carried out at the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

Team

Agnieszka KwiatkowskaPrincipal Investigator
Sociologist, political scientist, professor at the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences
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Collaborators

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Publications

Conferences

Kwiatkowska, A. (2026, September 23-25). From protest to participation: Processual and Relational Political Mobilization of Young Women in Poland. ISA RC47 Mid-Term Conference: How to study social activism? Theory and methods, Gdańsk, Poland.
Kwiatkowska, A., & Walecka, K. (2026, September 8-11). Polarized Democracy: Diverging Attitudes Towards Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe. ECPR General Conference, Kraków, Poland.
Kwiatkowska, A., & Plisiecki, H. (2026, September 8-11). Ideological Cohesion and Party Survival in Central European Parliaments, 1990–2025. ECPR General Conference, Kraków, Poland.
Kwiatkowska, A., & Walecka, K. (2026, August 25-28). Polarized democracy: Diverging attitudes towards democracy in Central and Eastern Europe. European Sociological Association Conference, Warsaw, Poland.
Kwiatkowska, A. (2026, March 26-27). Leveraging discursive and electoral strategy against authoritarianism: The battle for democracy in Poland's 2023 elections. Turning the tide: Opposing challenges to democracy across contexts Workshop, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany.
Kwiatkowska, A. (2025, September 25-26). Participation in the panel Benefits and Challenges of New Computational Methods in Party Research. Computational Text Analysis in Party Research Workshop, Bamberg Graduate School of Social Sciences (BAGSS), Bamberg, Germany.
Kwiatkowska, A., & Walecka, K. (2025, September 16-19). Spolaryzowana demokracja w Polsce – przemiany postaw wobec demokracji w perspektywie porównawczej. XIX Ogólnopolski Zjazd Socjologiczny, Białystok, Poland.
Kwiatkowska, A. (2025, July 6-11). Resisting the Conservative Swing – Gender Mobilisation and Halting Democratic Backsliding in Poland. 5th ISA Forum of Sociology, Rabat, Morocco.
Kwiatkowska, A. (2025, July 6-11). Redistribute and Divide: The Narratives of Poland’s Right-Wing Populism. 5th ISA Forum of Sociology, Rabat, Morocco.

Contact

Contact: agn.kwiatkowska@gmail.com.