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Podcast: New Books in Political Science
Episode: Stanley Bill and Ben Stanley, "Good Change: The Rise and Fall of Poland's Illiberal Revolution" (Stanford UP, 2025)
Description: In Poland between 2015 and 2023, Jarosław Kaczyński and his Law and Justice Party (PiS) attempted a novel experiment. Could a governing party sustain a coalition committed religiously inspired social conservatism, old-school left-wing welfarism, and antipathy to Moscow and Brussels while also unravelling democratic institutions?
It was, write Stanley Bill and Ben Stanley in Good Change: The Rise and Fall of Poland’s Illiberal Revolution (Stanford University Press, 2025), an experiment in "how much illiberalism the electorate would bear".
With Kaczyński and PiS now in opposition but threatening a return in 2027, Donald Tusk's liberal administration is road...