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Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:It's it's quite crucial to use this terminology over here as well because, obviously, it's Eurosceptic because it pertains to The UK's membership in in the European Union, but it obviously is connected to wider dynamics of populism, this bifurcating dynamic between the real people and the elite that is used by a lot of political entrepreneurs, such as the the ever present leader of the UK reform party who had been also around and quite instrumental at the during the elite campaign. And in that sense, these pressures, these pro sovereignty discourses, free market discourses that also were attached to to the critics of the European Union back in the day were very much built around an anti elitist discourse and ergo a quintessentially ulist one. What we're obviously what we're not saying is that somehow this is only can be only attributed to to David Cameron.
Voiceover 2:This is Research for the Real World, conversations about education and social science research and its impact on policy, practice, and our everyday lives.
Mark Quinn:This is Research for the Real World.
Mark Quinn:Hello. I'm Mark Quinn, deputy program director for the early career teacher programs in the Center for Educational Leadership at the IOE. We are in a time of deep social and political division, so there's a lot going on in the world at the moment, and you can be forgiven for struggling to keep up.
Mark Quinn:However, there is help at hand with the IOE research dedicated to navigating our way through these unchartered territories. Today, I'm joined by two researchers exploring one of the most important questions facing Europe. How much are political outcomes shaped by the structures around us, and how much depends on the choices and actions of political actors? Doctor Roach Donin Vansovic is an associate professor of sociology, politics, and public policy at the UCL Social Research Institute. His work has explored Polish migration to The UK, Brexit, populist Euroscepticism, and the transnational support for Ukraine since 2022.
Mark Quinn:A UCL social sciences BSc graduate, Max Joseph Migdin, is a PhD researcher and Oxford Shelley Hulsey scholar at the the University of Oxford's Nuffield College. He employs game theory, statistical and computational methods, field experiments, and causal analysis as research tools. Together with Gabriel Pelikh, they are the authors of a paper taking the experience of Brexit and asking the question, could something similar happen in Poland? So today, we're going to look back at Brexit ten years on and ask what we've learned about agency and political responsibility. We'll explore whether poll exit is possible and what this tells us about populism and the future of the European project more broadly.
Mark Quinn:So welcome to the podcast, Roach and Max. So, obviously, we're gonna go we're gonna talk about Brexit, and we're going to talk about poll exit or a potential Polish exit from the European Union. But before we get started, I'd like to hear a little bit more about your own research journeys and what brought you to these questions around Europe, around politics, and populism. So maybe Max, you'd like to go first.
Max Josef Migden:Yeah. Sure. Thanks for having me. It's a very exciting opportunity. So initially, I first met Rock when he was I was actually a student during the undergraduate, and he taught me political sociology.
Max Josef Migden:And at the time, I was kind of specializing within that field. So I wrote my final undergraduate thesis on swing voting in local elections. I asked him if he had any work going, and then this was one of the topics that seemed really interesting jumped out. And we've been writing it well pretty much ever since being published in in May of this year. Since then, my research interests have kind of deviated as they as they kind of do.
Max Josef Migden:I've started specializing more in sociology. And right now, I'm I'm pursuing a PhD in honor killing dynamics with a specific focus in India. So a bit of a hop, skip, and a jump from from Brexit and Palexter, but it's usually where these things go. Yeah.
Mark Quinn:And and you, Rock?
Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:For me, it's the other way around in in in a way because I was trained to be a sociologist of European integration having graduated from the LSE European Institute, I wrote my PhD about cultural institutions that communicate what Europe means. And upon graduation with my PhD, that was 2015, and Brexit was the hot topic. And I got engaged with the LSC program on Brexit. I was running the LSC Brexit Vote Blog, for those of you who may remember it, and I was doing a postdoctoral study on youth perceptions of Brexit, ALSC as well, and then this is the culmination of my interest in those topics. I have since moved into slightly different research areas, particularly pertaining to transnational civil society movements, and most specifically, transnational support for Ukraine since the beginning of the full scale invasion and the actorship of businesses and entrepreneurs in both helping the defensive efforts of Ukraine, but also thinking about recovery and reconstruction, and the leading role of forced migrants in those ecosystems of transnational support for Ukraine.
Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:But Brexit is is very much still on my mind as a kind of formative political moment of of being surprised as as everyone was back back in 2016 that the vote could actually go this way. And I think it still informs some of our mutual curiosities in the sense that sometimes things are not what they appear to be, and political dynamics can go in completely opposite direction to what we might think.
Mark Quinn:Okay. So it's not what it appeared to be, or at least our understanding of Brexit at the time may not be what it appeared to be, or our understanding of it isn't as accurate perhaps as we remember it. So we are ten years on from that moment of the actual referendum. So, Max, maybe you can pick up the question. When we do look back at that, was there something that we fundamentally misunderstood about how the Brexit vote went the way it did?
Max Josef Migden:I think so. I I think there is a tendency nowadays kind of after the fact to look back at Brexit as this kind of historical inevitability that people point to the years prior ever since our accession into, you know, first European Union communities and then the EU. This is kind of long legacy of us being kind of the awkward partner, the splendidly isolated nation, and saw the the eventual Brexit vote in 2016 is this is this culmination of these factors. But it's easy to say that, obviously, in hindsight. And I think it points to what our arg or our paper primarily argues against, that there was this critical juncture of Cameron actually calling that referendum in the first place.
Max Josef Migden:This decision, this political decision that actually spurred it, he could have very easily not made that decision. So the Brexit vote pinned on this moment, this critical moment of agency. And I think we do tend to forget this, that Cameron was trying to quell the kind of rising forces within his own party. You kept threatening to siphon off conservative votes, his own failures of renegotiation, also the promises of his of his electoral campaign, which he didn't really expect to win. I think if if he was honest, then a lot of people within the conservative cabinet.
Mark Quinn:Right. Just because he made he made the promise while being ahead of a coalition government and perhaps he wasn't expecting a majority of the next election.
Max Josef Migden:Exactly. Exactly. But I think I think it I think it's helpful to kind of refer to our kind of framework we use in the in paper we published in May that kinda consists of of three major factors that contribute towards an EU exit. So I know we can talk about this further, and we can break it down in further detail because it's Nope. That was a good time.
Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:That was I good think I'll try and I'll try and
Max Josef Migden:do it justice. So the the major three factors are the first being structural distance. So the kind of intentional distancing of a member state post accession from wider EU structure. So this can manifest in two separate dimensions, one being interstate distance. So IE kind of opt outs from EU legislation, the Polish case kind of against the EU law can also manifest in the intrastate distance.
Max Josef Migden:So this kind of top down proliferation of Eurosceptic narratives by populist actors, almost like dividing the country culturally from within against wider kind of Europeanism, Europeanness, or a sense of Europeanness. Second, we have inherited structure. So the kind of legal structure, geopolitical positioning, economic health, public and governmental sentiment towards EU membership of a particular state at the time of accession. So when we entered the EU, we had these certain structures, positionings, economic makeup that we then the EU then inherited with our membership. And the third and what we argue the most important is agency.
Max Josef Migden:So the actions of politicians occupying positions of significant influence within the formal political structure. All three, we argue, must be present at the same time within a member state for an exit to seem viable. An agency being that critical factor that kind of imbues those those two other characteristics with the kind of sufficient
Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:force Crescendo. I'm sorry.
Max Josef Migden:Crescendo. Exactly. Thank you, Rob, to to push through an eventual exit.
Mark Quinn:Okay. So if you could fill in some of that. So thank thank you, though, Max, for explaining the framework and doing it without a diagram as well, which and did it very well. So thank you. So we've got so what you referred to as the structural distancing and different levels of structural differencing between states and within the state in your primary example within The UK state, which refers to intra structural distancing.
Mark Quinn:And you talk about that distancing or that inherited structure, if you like, the state of the nation at the point at which it became a member of the European Union. So what's that? 'seventy three for The UK, 2004 for Poland. And they've got very different obviously, they've got very different histories. They come with different types of constitution.
Mark Quinn:Every state does. So I know that'll play a part later when we talk about this. The actual nature of the constitution of these countries means that their relationship with the EU is going to be more or less straightforward, right? So I'm just interested and agency is your big thing, right? So agency, can you just say why you think of the three points in your diagram or of your frank framework, why particularly you've decided that agency is the necessary ingredient?
Max Josef Migden:Of course. I I think it's best and most solicitive to take an example of when a member state has the other two characteristics. So has structural distance, has inherited structure, and doesn't look like it's going to leave. So I think Denmark is a really good example. They joined the EEC at the same time as The UK.
Max Josef Migden:So in terms of inherited structure, you know, they have a constitution dating back over a hundred and fifty years. They don't have a constitutional court. It's like kind of we don't have a codified constitution. EU membership doesn't influence any constitutional amendments. Triggering a referendum on EU membership is relatively easy, where, like, a qualified majority of their parliament is required.
Max Josef Migden:It's the only prerequisite. Structural distance has also been eked out, so they've skewed opt opt outs from the Edinburgh agreement. They've had aggressive demands at EU budget rebates with threats of veto, all underlined by this kind of protectionism surrounding Denmark's autonomy, which may kind of ring true about our concerns over sovereignty as well pre Brexit. Also, Euroscepticism among among the public has remained a salient political issue. You know, 27% of the Danish public when polled during the run up to the Brexit referendum said that they were to follow the EU out of the follow The UK out of the EU.
Max Josef Migden:And then Eurobarometer surveys kind of done after that consistently demonstrate Euroscepticism sometimes as high as 39%. That's kind of pro pro leave within Denmark. So it kind of follows that you'd see Denmark and The UK have taken similar albeit different trajectories throughout their membership. However, agency is where the two differ. So, you know, as of 2023, the Danish People's Party and the New Right Party, so they hold 10 of the 179 seats in Danish parliament, support an EU exit.
Max Josef Migden:So both of the two main Danish parties support continued EU membership with, like, the agency of Danish political actors seems firmly set on a Denmark within the EU. So where you have a country with this inherited structure that seems like it's pitting itself against the EU structure, it has these distancing efforts throughout its membership just like we do. However, the difference is is that the agency just isn't there. The political will is not there. And I think that's an illustrative example.
Max Josef Migden:When we looked at Brexit retroactively and looked at Poland prospectively, we saw that these factors can differ quite wildly, but it's where agency, the required agency to leave the EU is present where we see the most threat.
Mark Quinn:And, Hakan, you want to come in there?
Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:Yes. I think so. So this comparison that Max outlined is also included in the paper. Obviously, the crux of our argument is a comparison between Poland and The UK, and this is specifically because they have such different inherited structures. And this also goes against a fallacy that was widely communicated through media is that somehow the difficult inheritance with which The United Kingdom joined the EEC and then the European Union was determined, the outcome that we had in 2016.
Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:What we're saying, that Poland joined with a completely different set of geopolitical, economic, historical prerequisites, having a very specific occidental trajectory after 1989, wanting to join Euro Atlantic structures such as NATO and the European Union. In a way, European integration for Poland since 1999 was the reinforcement of its newfound sovereignty even though it's had been It's
Mark Quinn:a it's a return of the Europe for Poland.
Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:It's a return to Europe. Poland had been nominally independent since 1945, but obviously on the deal of Soviet communism and and the authoritarian control from Moscow. But 1989 was definitely a resurgence of of nationalism in Poland and religious nationalism at that. But at the same time, it was quite interestingly joined together with the trajectory of joining the structures of supranational Europe. One we tend to forget that one of the biggest allies of of this movement and proponents of it was actually John Paul the second, known not really known for his for his liberalism and and raise of of EU as such.
Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:So that's what we're showing. We're showing the two countries that join with a completely different set of prerequisites, different inherited structures, what we call that, can actually engage in a very similar process. And that process can only be put into action through political agency. And that process is what Max has also described, meaning the structural distancing, both the intra state structural distancing and the interstate structural distancing. And, also, again, just just want to add one more thing, this this agency in the public debate, the agency of British political actors had also been taken for granted.
Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:This is something that also is seen as though it's completely completely obvious that someone like David Cameron would call a referendum. Obviously, he was a known gambler. He has two different two other referendums under his belt before 2016, which was he won. The 2011 won on AV voting and the 2014 won on Scottish independence. But, you know, we all know that this is not, you know, not too typical of of the British political system and British and British constitution to have such such publicity measures in in our democracy.
Mark Quinn:Right. So I wanna come back to I'm really interested in the in my mind, the closeness between what you described as the intrastructure sorry. I've got the phrase wrong, but the the internal distancing that takes place and the political agency that you described, because I'm really interested in the relationship between those two things. So if we understand that at the business of the sort of interstate distancing, that's easy. The history of our country's relationship to the EU, the sort of the Margaret Thatcher asking for our money back and opt outs from Schengen and all sorts of things like that, those sort of those institutional distances between The UK and EU.
Mark Quinn:And Max, you gave us some examples of how the Danes have done something similar. But the intra stuff is more nuanced in my head because it's to do a little bit to do with the kind of culture of Euroscepticism, or I think you described it as kind of a top down dripping down of antagonism towards EU institutions, if I've read that correctly. And I'm wondering just how that is separate from political agency. Because if if we choose your pivotal moment of David Cameron's calling of the Brexit referendum, Surely he did that under some duress, right? He didn't wake up one morning thinking I might take a gamble on EU membership.
Mark Quinn:There was a conversation already going on within his party, within the newspapers more broadly. So can you just help me distinguish between these two important factors which you do distinguish between, so the intrastructural distancing and the agency of the political actors?
Max Josef Migden:Sure. I think for me, a key distinction is that intrastate distance can be eked out by non institutional actors also. So where we had kind of, like, very at the time, kind of seemingly fringe characters that kind of attached themselves to the leave campaign and were able to proliferate these messages kind of throughout these sections of society and build even though top down, they were able to build grassroots support through that. So I kind of see interstate distancing as this generation of pressure on a cultural level. So this construction or reinforcement of a culture at odds with Europeanness.
Max Josef Migden:And then where I see agency, like that final decision of of Cameron, I think what academic called Zappatini calls a critical juncture, this moment in history where someone makes a choice that sets history on an on a path that cannot be taken back. I see that as agency. I think one of the key things that Rockwell has brought up as previously is the nature of of referenda in this country That with the principle of parliamentary sovereignty, a a a national referendum is a kind of de facto political device. It's not legally binding. The decision over the referendum was not legally binding on parliament.
Max Josef Migden:It was merely an advisory referendum. So they can be invoked as an element of agency itself. I don't know if you have anything to add, Rob, to that.
Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:I think something an interesting dimension of this is is what we also discussed in the paper is to what extent this is driven by Eurosceptic populism. And I think it's it's quite crucial to use this terminology over here as well. Because, obviously, it's Eurosceptic because it pertains to The UK's membership in in the European Union, but it obviously is connected to wider dynamics of populism, this bifurcating dynamic between the real people and the elite that is used by a lot of political entrepreneurs, such as the the ever present leader of the UK Reform Party, who had been also around and quite instrumental at the during the LEAF campaign. And in that sense, these pressures, these pro sovereignty discourses, free market discourses that also were attached to the critics of the European Union back in the day were very much built around an anti elitist discourse and ergo a quintessentially populist one. Obviously, what we're not saying is that somehow this is only can be only attributed to to David Cameron.
Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:There was a whole plethora of political entrepreneurs who who were, as as Max said, eking out the space for for such a political process to happen also on the left. Mean, the erstwhile leader of the of of the Labour Party was the was the famous seven out of 10 enthusiast of of the European Union. What we're saying is that this may be happening, and this this has been it had been happening in Poland very much between 2015 and 2023 when the Law and Justice party were in power, but the the final accord of of that process hadn't happened. It would be the initially, the trigger to to actually call the referendum or start a a legislative process to exit the European Union. And we see across Europe that similar processes are taking place, but the kind of final nails in the coffin isn't put in.
Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:And that is where the specific agency of political actors in that given moment plays actually a crucial role. Because most of them use this, and there's a lot of scholars such as Sarah Holmoe at the LSE and Simon Hicks at who work on the blame that national politicians attribute to European elites. This is a dynamic that happens across the political systems in Europe. But ultimately, they shy away from actually pulling the trigger and and getting too close to the edge of of a political process that might be irreversible. And a decade ago, that this is precisely what happened in The UK.
Mark Quinn:So so far, every other EU member has shied away from pulling that trigger. Is there any particular reason why you've chosen Poland, if you like, as the second country of focus within your paper with UK being the first? Is it because you see Poland as being closer to the edge or more likely to have a political actor who would pull that trigger? Why particularly Poland?
Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:Our analysis is also historical. Right? We in in the paper, we we do say that we've analyzed the political dynamics between 2015 and 2023 when peace, law, and justice were in power. At the same time, the the merits of the of this comparison is precisely because those are almost two polar opposites in terms of their trajectory of European integration. The The UK being the the sick man of Europe in the seventies, Poland being an eager new member in 02/2004 and kind of leading the the fray of of the 10 countries, and particularly the ten ten former communist countries joining joining the EU in 2004.
Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:We now forget Poland is the largest EU economy. So we we were perplexed by the fact that they have these two different inherited structures, kind of vastly different, almost on the polar opposites of the spectrum. Yet the political actors that had been in power between 2015 and 2023 or were in power were moving closer to to a political process known from The UK. As I said, it didn't happen, but there those were similar dynamics that were at play, and the structural distancing was taking place almost as it had been in in The UK. But what we wanted to say, what we want to show is that ultimately what this process in Poland lacked was the final kind of trigger of of agency.
Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:That being said, it may come. Right? Even though we now have a liberal centrist hiatus in terms of people at at the rails of power, this may come back with a vengeance. And the structural distancing that had been eked out, both the intrastate one and the interstate one, can be still utilized in the future by other political actors who who will have the audacity to to follow in David Kamen's footsteps. Mark Max, do you have anything to add?
Max Josef Migden:No. I was just saying is there's the is the kind of one non Polish author, coauthor, but I mean, Polish heritage, but not not not native speaking. I think one of the things that interested me about Poland as well is that that there there's this paradox of
Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:of quite
Max Josef Migden:a Europhilic populace that just kept consistently voting in Eurosceptic leaders. And I think it's one thing that does also reinforce our structures. Why is why does it look like Poland was on a real trajectory towards an exit from the EU when its populist doesn't seem to want that and yet still democratically keeps voting in these people that want it? And I think that's where agency is really, really important that the views of a populace can shift and move, but whilst the agentic trajectory of the political establishment seems set on an EU exit, it seems the most likely.
Mark Quinn:It's probably a good point at which to have something of a Polish political primer on this one. So I'm gonna attempt to just to fill in some of the details for the casual listener to this podcast. So you've talked already, Hakan, Max, about this twenty fifteen to twenty twenty three period when peace for the Law and Justice Party in Poland had the majority of the Polish parliament, Zeinab, which was overturned in 2023 with the parliamentary elections, and many people will know the name of Donald Tusk as he should say the centrist, conservative centrist, current prime minister. But it's not just that you don't just have a parliament, you've also got a powerful presidency in Poland. And actually throughout that period, you've got, let's say, far right, but certainly peace supporting presidents, like Duda and Nowdniewski.
Mark Quinn:So so you've got, as you were saying, Max, you've got a population which seems to be in favor of membership of the European Union, but at the same time voting for a political party or for a president who takes a fairly strongly Eurosceptic view of things. And you've set up this paradox, Max, and I'm just mystified myself. Why is it? Why is it that that the Polish people, Polish voters, even when they do vote for a centrist party in for parliament, they do it with give them the slimmest of slim majorities, and and yet they don't want to leave the European Union?
Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:I think the the slim majority that the centrist liberal government received in 2023 also reflects the very specific portioned representation political electoral system in Poland, which probably we shouldn't delve into too much right now. The nature of the Polish political system and a and a kind of reverse French system where the president has probably roughly, I would say, 10% of the power, the prime minister has 90% of the power, but can be spanner in the works of successive governments is also quite complicated. To simplify this a little bit, would like to return to the phrase and to the key terms that we use in the paper. It is precisely populism. Right?
Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:So this anti elitist sentiment in society can be very successfully deployed by different political forces. And even though people appreciate and understand the benefits of European integration for Poland on an economic level and a geopolitical level, they're still quite keen to believe and to to cast their vote to someone who who's blaming the objective shortcomings of of Polish democracy and and its and its economy and on people quite far away from the center stage of of political action in Poland, namely Brussels. And, again, this is not a phenomenon that is only that is unique to Poland, but what we're also charting in this paper is is a potential trajectory where this might lead to an unforeseen circumstances in the sense that, hypothetically, in a in a in a a future parliament, if if you're a skeptic, political forces who don't necessarily double down on this on this anti EU sentiment, but who hold it and people vote for them regardless of their sentiments for the EU could very easily trigger an exit from the European Union for Poland without even holding a referendum. So a simple majority in the Polish parliament and the signature from the president could ignite that process.
Mark Quinn:Okay. So there's there's particular reasons for that as well, aren't there? Because there's there's very fine balance.
Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:But, again, it's about agency. It's about the agency of political actors. What we're saying is that this process is obviously charted through multiple iterations of of different parliaments and political and political agendas, and it kinda chips away at this at the consensus that geopolitically, almost civilizationally for Poland being a member of the EU is crucial crucial for as we discussed before, for its return to the fold of European democracies, but also as a bulwark against revengeous Russia and particularly what is happening with what is vis a vis what is happening in Ukraine. But at the same time, almost by not focusing too much on these issues and following and voting through resentment against genuine socioeconomic malaise that is prevalent to any society, the Eurosceptic issue or the anti yield, pro exit issue might rear its head kind of completely out of the blue. Obviously, it had been much more of an agenda in the in the British political landscape, but it's almost as though David Cameron made it into a political on the political agenda much more than it had been previously.
Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:And the same thing could potentially happen in Poland despite its inherited structure, despite its Europhilic population, as Max discussed, and despite the fact that to all intents and purposes, European integration has been a boon for Polish economy and society not seen since the sixteenth century.
Max Josef Migden:I think as well, if I can just add quickly to what Rock explained, that this kind of paradox does highlight the difference between what is interstate distance and what is interstate distance. So a populace can be very pro the money coming in from the EU, economic reliance, the benefits they see at bringing in jobs and integrated diplomatic integration, But then they can also have an eked out intrastate distance where they feel that culturally that there is this misalignment between what the EU represents and what they see nationally. And that these forces these forces of interstate distance can be ignited very easily by a populist actor as happened in The UK and as, you know, happened infrequently in Poland as well.
Mark Quinn:Yes. And although we've been talking about the Law and Justice Party being the largest right wing party in Poland is not the only one, and I guess they could be pushed further to the right or further towards a Eurosceptic position by those parties just as happened in The UK by parties further to the right, and of course, there's a way of seeing that happen. I'm struck by a similarity. We haven't talked about constitution, the constitutionality or the role of courts in this, but I think it really matters particularly in the Polish case, right? So in The UK, of course, famously, we've got no codified constitution.
Mark Quinn:In Poland, I didn't know until I read your paper that the accession to EU wasn't ever entrenched into the Polish constitution, so therefore that's the point you're making, Rodolphe, why a simple majority in the same, in the Polish parliament could, let's say by accident almost, take Poland out of the European Union because it doesn't require level of, doesn't require a a higher vote or a decision by constitutional tribunal. Could you say something about the, it's a very big issue, but the sort of constitutional, the role of the courts in Poland over the last number of years? It's a big question, I know, but give us some context there.
Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:I think going back to the referendum in Poland, there was one in 2003, and that was also an an advisory mechanism, and ultimately the same was was voting on EU accession, but but the better referendum was mandated by the 1997 constitution. Back in 2003, it wasn't the issue. The issue wasn't the fact that how many people would actually vote for for EU accession because a safe three quarters of votes did go in in favor of of EU accession, but it was about turnout. There had to be 50% turnout, and that's why the referendum lasted over two days. So in that sense, there's a very strong democratic foundation for for Poland's joining accessions of the EU.
Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:But we are faced with the paradox that a very that a simple majority in the same and and the signature of the president could reverse all of that. And this is also juxtaposed by the protracted constitutional crisis that Poland's been experiencing since 2015 and the wranglings over the with judges appointed to the constitutional tribunal, which is a quasi Supreme Court of Poland that adjudicates from the constitutionality of of legislation. To cut a long story short, it has been decapitated by law and justice and unsuccessfully reformed by by the by the current government, the the liberal centrist government, and it is kind of null and void right now. Nominally exists,
Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:but
Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:it doesn't really adjudicate on anything. That being said, constitutionally, it would have very little it would have no say in that process unless the president had asked for for that for the constitutional tribunal to to adjudicate on on the potential exit from the EU. But it is important to realize that all of this is happening in the state of uncertainty and the kind of the the in in a in a way, some of the interstate distancing that happened in Poland was specifically done against the EU by by the law and justice government, also using the constitutional tribunal. I think back in 2021 in a it it ruled that some of the articles of the Lisbon Treaty pertaining to to sovereignty and the ever closer union of the peoples of Europe were incompatible with with Polish constitution, and and that was precisely what we discussed in the paper. That was a a measure of of intrastate distancing, of of creating this distance between Poland and the EU, even though it had very few ramifications either in international law nor or domestically.
Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:It was done in order to to gain a foothold in in some of the more Eurosceptic electorate, but actually created this this distance in the legal capacity. So, yeah, I think this is something that this process has been taking place took place very much so between 2015 and 2023. We are now at a point where the rulings of the constitutional tribunal are imprinted by the government, so they're they they have no no no legal power. But that that process could be reversed if a conservative right wing nationalist coalition were to to get into power in two thousand twenty twenty seven when when the next general election is is due to take place.
Mark Quinn:So I remember back in 2016 when we fell out of the European Union by not paying enough attention to the structures and the agency of our political actors, that there was a concern, wasn't there, that this would this might create some kind of domino effect that other EU states might follow a similar path? And Max, in particular, you talked about some examples of other states in Europe who have maybe a similar Eurosceptic tradition or at least, you know, discussion of discourse at least in those countries. If Poland did, if we cast ourselves into this nightmare scenario, if Poland did decide to exit from the European Union, how catastrophic do you think that would be, for the EU? And maybe think more particularly, are there other EU states which would be first in line for the exit door?
Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:I think we've moved away from that from a potential EU exit being an immediate threat to the cohesion and of of the European Union going forward. I think we've moved along quite a bit in terms of what the prerogatives of the EU are. It famously had its Hamiltonian quasi Hamiltonian moment with the EU recovery measurements put in place during COVID, and then it has adopted more of a geopolitical heft because of Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine, and it is essentially now funding the Ukrainian state and allowing it to defend itself from Russian imperialist aggression. So the EU is much stronger than it was a decade ago despite its current shortcomings. And we also know what the British public think about Brexit.
Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:Know, that ten years on, 57% of Brits think it was a bad decision. 27% of leave voters think it was a bad decision. Six out of 10 Brits think that Brexit was a failure, and 55% would entertain return into the EU. However, only 35% would return if it meant giving up on on all the rebates and on all the interstate distancing that happened over the years, and we know that Brussels wouldn't wouldn't hear any of it. And similar, you know, those dynamics are not isolated to The UK.
Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:I mean, people throughout Europe, Eurosceptic political entrepreneurs are aware of the shortcomings or of the, frankly, the disaster that Brexit has been so far. So as the the the political theorists from from Oxford University, Angela, says that populists in Europe no longer want to leave the European Union. They want to change it in their own image. And obviously, the ostwhile prime minister of Hungary was a huge proponent of that, Viktor Orban. He he clang onto European EU membership despite introducing what essentially amounted to competitive authoritarianism in Hungary until until this year.
Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:So so a similar dynamic can be seen right now in France. Jordan Jordan doesn't want to leave the European Union. I think even in the AFT, which is a much more extreme party than than El Semblin and National, there are very few people who genuinely want to leave the European Union just because that would be disastrous for for the German economy. And and and I think similar sentiments are prevalent among the Polish right and and the nationalist right apart from some some fringe parties. But this is now.
Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:This is where we are even though we we think of of the of the moment in which we find ourselves as rather turbulent coming from Central Eastern Europe, we know that worse times might still be ahead of us. And and potentially, geopolitically, when structurally, the the European construction is put to another test, such movements and and such exit arguments might might reappear on the political spectrum in different European countries. And, again, our argument would be that, ultimately, it will be down to the agency of of political actors to trigger such process.
Mark Quinn:So your your framework is predictive as well as retrospective?
Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:It is anticipatory, I suppose. Yes, sir.
Mark Quinn:Okay. Well, I can ask my last question, which is if I cast you forward, let's say, five years, how similar or different would you feel the map of the EU might look?
Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:I think that there is very little political game for even some of the most Eurosceptic and populist actors in the EU currently within the next five years to benefit from from an exit process from the European Union. I think it is beneficial as a political tactic to distance oneself, to create this interstate and interstate distancing for respective political scenes, and it's almost like crying wolf. But the agency, it won't be lacking. I don't think it'll be used because ultimately, the ripple effect of that country is much more integrated in in the in the European economy in the current in in the European in the monetary union and and the supply chains with within the EU to much greater extent than than Britain had ever been, particularly in terms of manufacturing, would be would be disastrous, and and there are very few politicians
Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:who are unaware of that.
Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:So I would not expect that this process to actually take place in the near future, but it will be dangled. It'll always be used as a political strategy. And then potentially, in one country or another, through a surprising vote, it could actually be put into place. And just one last thing, even as The UK, we have not moved so far away from from the EU as The UK geopolitically as we once had thought in the sense that even the the previous conservative administrations were very much aware of of the of the threat that is posed by Russia and the the role of European security going forward. And and The UK has been an advocate of Ukraine's European integration as well, which is kind of an irony.
Mark Quinn:Yeah. So we never we never really left.
Roch Dunin-Wasowicz:But a lot of people predicted back back in the days It's been
Mark Quinn:really fascinating. Thank you, Rokh. Thank you, Max. You've just heard from Doctor. Rock Donin von Sovich and Max Migdan.
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