Victimhood as a Legitimation Strategy of Populism in Power: The Case of Poland

• Published date: 01 September 2025
• Author: Agnieszka K. Cianciara
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/cep4.70017
• Section: Research Article

Contemporary European Politics

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Victimhood as a Legitimation Strategy of Populism in

Power: The Case of Poland

Agnieszka K. Cianciara

Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland

Correspondence: Agnieszka K. Cianciara (agcian@isppan.waw.pl)

Received: 11 March 2024 | Revised: 26 June 2025 | Accepted: 30 June 2025

Keywords: European Union | legitimacy | Poland | populism | power | victimhood

ABSTRACT

What legitimation strategy do populists use once they seize power? This article combines insights from literatures on populism

in power, populist legitimation strategies, populist foreign policy and populist usages of memory politics to shed light on

victimhood as a powerful legitimation strategy of populism in power. The main objective of this study is to understand the role

of victims versus perpetrators dynamics as a legitimating strategy of populists in power, while looking at the single case study of

Poland under the right‐wing populist government led by the Law and Justice party (2015–2023). The empirical analysis traces

how populists in power engage in a double game of self‐legitimation as both victims and heroes, as well as in a two‐level game

of de‐legitimation of domestic and international actors as perpetrators. It highlights how victimhood‐based narratives allow the

underdog illusion to be sustained when populists gain power, while copy‐pasting the victim‐perpetrator relationship from the

traumatic past into the present. Finally, the analysis shows how the de‐legitimating narrative imposes a principal‐agent

relationship between foreign and domestic perpetrators.

1 | Introduction

The populist legitimation strategies are deeply embedded in the

discursive construction of a permanent struggle between the

(good) people and the (evil) elites. The standard self‐

presentation strategy of populists in opposition is to claim vic-

tim or underdog status (Wajner 2022). But what happens when

populists accede to power and become themselves the ruling

elite? In particular, what kind of legitimation strategy do they

resort to once they seek to divert public attention from power

abuse and failure to deliver on their –typically unrealistic –

promises, thus allegedly reaching the limits of the “populist

enchantment”(Brubaker 2017). What may seem puzzling at

first sight, is that populists in power strive to sustain their self‐

presentation as underdogs, despite full government control. But

how is that possible? Especially, as one would expect that there

exist clear credibility constraints as to claiming underdog status

after seizing full power. Yet, numerous cases, including the case

of Poland, show us that populists may successfully sustain their

underdog self‐presentation when in power, and, as a result,

renew their mandate for a second term in government.

So what does it take to effectively claim underdog status when

in possession of all power resources available in a liberal

democracy? This article combines insights from literature on

populism in power, populist legitimation strategies, populist

foreign policy and populist usages of memory politics to shed

light on victimhood as a legitimation strategy of populism in

power. Following Wajner (2022,2025) it is argued here that

populist discursive constructions of “people”and “elites”are in

fact empty signifiers that can be articulated in a number of

ways. It further argues that the opposition between the victims

and the perpetrators provides for a powerful legitimating nar-

rative for populists in government. The principal goal of this

article is thus to understand the role of victims versus perpe-

trators dynamic as a legitimating strategy of populists in power.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution‐NonCommercial‐NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work

is properly cited, the use is non‐commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

© 2025 The Author(s). Contemporary European Politics published by University Association for Contemporary European Studies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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https://doi.org/10.1002/cep4.70017