Races at the Bottom: Local Impacts of Official Discrimination on Elections

• In Event: 50 Years of LGBTQ Scholarship at APSA Mini-Conference: Political Homophobia and Resistance

Abstract

Between 2019 and 2021, over a hundred Polish subnational governments–regional, district, and municipal–established so-called “LGBT Free Zones.” The zones, while largely symbolic, constituted official government policies that openly discriminated against LGBTQ+ individuals, fostering a general climate of hostility. At the same time, these zones garnered significant international backlash, including sanctions from the EU targeted at the implementing governments. These policies were largely pushed by the then-ruling party, Law and Justice (PiS), and its allies as part of a broader electoral and political strategy. This paper analyzes the impact of these policies on PiS’ local election outcomes to examine the efficacy of this partisan strategy. We will analyze the results of the upcoming spring 2024 municipal elections, which will include 2,477 Polish local governments. These elections, the first since the zones’ implementation, present a unique opportunity to explore critical questions in democratic studies: the interplay between minority rights and electoral competition; the role of local governments in either challenging or reinforcing democratic backsliding; and the effectiveness of international interventions in protecting minority rights from local-level threats.

Authors

• Conor O'Dwyer, University of Florida

• Andrew S Rosenberg, University of Florida

• Matthew Stenberg, University of California, Berkeley