Politeja (Dec 2019)
Mythology of the Law and Justice Party’s Migration Discourse
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to contribute to the deconstruction of the migration discourse of the Law and Justice Party (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, PiS), looking for mythical structures in it and trying to decode them using discourse analysis. When it comes to migration politics, Poland is one of the most curious andambiguous contemporary cases. Previously predominantly a sending country, asits economy grows Poland is becoming a receiving country, faced with millions of incoming labour migrants. The Polish government lets them in, despite being anti-migrant in its rhetoric, especially when it comes to relocation of refugees within the European Union (EU). Some surveys reveal that countrywide anti-migrant sentiment is a rather new development: Polish attitudes towards immigrants have worsened since mid-2015, that is since the so-called European migration crisis was utilized by Law and Justice in their campaign at the 2015 Polish parliamentary election in order to gain fear-induced support. Therefore, Law and Justice’s migration discourse is fundamental to the study of contemporary Polish migration politics. I have analysed the news, interviews and othe rpublications from the official website of the Law and Justice party (pis.org.pl) over a period between June 2015 and July 2018. Based upon E. Cassirer’s, M. Eliade’s and H. Tudor’s understanding of political myth, I have identified a number of repetitive mythical structures and characteristics of political myths in the Law and Justice’s discourse on migration that can help to better understand Law and Justice’s political and ideological stances.
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