Political Reputation As an Analytical Category in Political Communication A Comparative Analysis of the Political Reputations of the Civic Platform–Polish People’s Party and the United Right in Poland

Abstract

The article analyses the political reputations of the two coalitions that ruled Poland from 2007 to 2023. Political communication is most often explored from the perspective of political marketing, less so from the point of view of political public relations, especially in its long-term-goal-oriented strategic dimension. This partially explains why analyses of political reputation are rare; yet reputation is worth considering in the study of political communication, not only that of individual political actors but also of institutions – political parties and governments. The analyses presented in this article examine communication skills. They aim to determine the political reputations of the two coalitions and identify the factors that could have influenced them. Particular emphasis is placed on communication issues, especially the potential maintenance of political reputation. The analyses were carried out on data publicly available as part of CBOS reports and existing research on party political communication, the aim being to determine and compare the political reputations of the Civic Platform–Polish People’s Party, CP-PPP (Polish: Platfor-ma Obywatelska – Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe) and United Right (UR) (Polish: Zjednoczona Praw-ica) governments. The results reveal that the populist government of the United Right maintained a positive reputation for much longer than CP-PPP, despite facing many image-related threats during its tenure. The CP-PPP government could have been more effective in maintaining its political reputation, even though it started from a higher initial level.