“If your opening position is: your views are beyond the pale, you are deplorable, there is no space for you in democracy — then how on earth do we expect anything other than revolutionary conservatism as a response?” — Maciej Kisilowski

For Americans concerned about the fragility of their democracy, Poland offers some reassuring news. Having experienced its own illiberal blip, democracy in Poland now seems amongst the healthiest in Eastern Europe. So what does a democracy only created in 1989 teach America as the old republic braces for its surreal semiquincentennial celebration?

The Vienna-based constitutional scholar Maciej Kisilowski is the author of Let’s Agree on Poland: A Case Study in Strategic Constitutional Design. In this bestselling 2025 book, Kisilowski argues that Poland is a map of where other Western democracies could go. If they choose to.

Poland elected its first illiberal conservative government in 2005. Hungary followed in 2010. Both explicitly served as models for Donald Trump — relatively tamed in his first term, unshackled in his second. Like the United States, Poland is a relatively rich country with per capita GDP growing an astonishing 650% in a single generation. So, Kisilowski argues, the conventional argument that Poland embraced illiberalism in response to economic hardship is mostly wrong. Instead, what triggered illiberalism in Poland was culture, particularly the compressed, accelerated challenge to traditional identity — national, male, religious — that EU accession triggered in Central Europe.

Kisilowski, who teaches at Central European University, might have entitled his book Let’s Agree to Disagree. Poland’s solution to this cultural crisis of identity is what Kisilowski calls “subsidiarity” — genuine decentralisation that allows both conservative communities to remain traditional and liberal cities to become progressive, all within a common democratic framework. He warns both the left and the right that if you tell people their views are somehow foreign, it’s entirely rational for them to want to smash their “foreign” democracy.

This is the Polish model of a viable 21st century democracy. Ironically, it’s a Madisonian warning about the dangers of faction. The “deplorable” gambit always backfires. Péter Magyar’s remarkable victory in Hungary — a staunch conservative ending Orbán’s 16-year mafia-style illiberal chapter — offers the Hungarian model of Kisilowski’s argument. So this July 4, worried Americans might read Let’s Agree on Poland. Or reread James Madison.

Five Takeaways

• Central Europe as Leading Indicator. Poland 2005, Hungary 2010, Trump 2016 and 2024 — explicitly modelled on Central Europe. What happened there is not regional. It is the leading indicator of what happens when open society’s challenge to identity is rapid rather than gradual.

• It’s Not the Economy. Poland grew 650% in per capita GDP. Hungary didn’t. Same politics. Opposite economies. The materialist explanation is wrong. The driver is identity: national, male, religious — compressed into a decade by EU accession.

• The Deplorable Problem. If your opening position is that conservative views are beyond the pale, it is entirely rational to break democracy. Not irrational. Rational. The solution: demonstrate there is a place for those communities within the democratic framework.

• Subsidiarity as Solution. Conservative communities can be conservative. Liberal cities can be liberal. Common democratic framework. The EU is the model. The alternative — winner-takes-all — always produces a revolutionary reaction from the losers.

• Peter Magyar: Proof of Concept. A staunch conservative and former Orbán government member won a constitutional majority against a 16-year mafia state. He won because he showed far-right voters there was a place for them in democratic Europe. Kisilowski made sure he got the book.

About the Guest

Maciej Kisilowski is Associate Professor of Law and Strategy at Central European University (CEU) in Vienna and co-editor of Let’s Agree on Poland (Oxford University Press, 2025).

References

Let’s Agree on Poland by Maciej Kisilowski and Anna Wojciuk (OUP, 2025): global.oup.com/academic/product/lets-agree-on-poland-9780198979562
James Madison, The Federalist Papers

About Keen On America

Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen.

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Chapters:

00:00:30 Vienna, CEU, and Central Europe as leading indicator
00:01:49 Poland 2005, Hungary 2010, Trump: the pattern
00:03:23 It’s not the economy: Poland 650%, Hungary didn’t — same politics
00:05:14 Identity, not nationalism
00:09:44 Can open society and identity coexist?
00:11:26 Let’s Agree on Poland
00:12:05 Subsidiarity as solution
00:42:08 Peter Magyar and Hungary
00:47:41 The Madisonian argument