Contesting climate change: mapping the political debate in Poland

Abstract

We examine the effectiveness of norm diffusion by the European Union (EU) using the example of the climate debate in Poland. To explore the relationship between the salience of an issue and the internalisation of the externally initiated debate, we analyse both quantitatively and qualitatively votes and speeches in the Polish parliament. We find that the Members of Parliament regardless of their placement on the right–left dimension or their participation in government have paid growing but still little attention to climate change. Furthermore, when climate change is concerned the political debate is mostly characterised by negative assessments of the EU's initiatives.

Keywords:

• Poland
• political parties
• ruling parties
• European Union

Acknowledgements

We are grateful for the helpful suggestions of the two anonymous referees. We acknowledge James Ferrell's assistance in language editing the article as well as Sophie Dolinga and Nicole Schmidt's research support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Kamil Marcinkiewicz is postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Hamburg, Germany, and Deputy Professor of Empirical Research Methods at the Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg. His work on parties and elections has been published in Electoral Studies, Methods, Data, Analyses, and Policy Advice and Political Consulting.

Jale Tosun is Professor of Political Science at the Institute of Political Science at Heidelberg University, Germany. She has recently published her research in European Journal of Political Research, Global Environmental Change, Journal of Common Market Studies and Journal of European Public Policy.

Notes

1. http://www.euractiv.com/climate-environment/poland-defies-europe-2050-low-ca-news-511380 (last accessed 16 November 2014).

2. For a discussion of the political power of small states in EU policy-making, see Panke (2011).

3. http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/2012/march/poland-blocks-eu-s-low-caron-roadmap/73833.aspx (last accessed 16 November 2014).

4. http://www.icis.com/Articles/2012/06/27/9573275/eus-low-carbon-strategy-will-undermine-polish-chems-industry-pcc.html (last accessed 16 November 2014).

5. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303822204577468521154349852 (last accessed 16 November 2014).

6. http://www.platts.com/latest-news/coal/london/poland-to-remain-dependent-on-coal-for-years-26259860 (last accessed 16 November 2014).

7. The data set was prepared by Kamil Marcinkiewicz and Michael Jankowski.

Additional information

Funding

This study is an outcome of COST Action IS1309 “Innovations in Climate Governance: Sources, Patterns and Effects” (INOGOV) and the research project “Agenda Setting in European Energy Policy: Actors, Preferences and Strategies” funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation [grant number 10.13.2.141].