Biopolitical conservatism in Europe and beyond: the cases of identity-making projects in Poland and Russia

Abstract

In this article, I compare Polish and Russian national identity projects as they are being developed by the Kremlin and the ruling PiS (Law and Justice) party after 2012 and 2015, correspondingly. I raise a question about nodal points of Poland’s and Russia’s collective identities and their institutional references as ‘illiberal democracies’ to the European normative order. I argue, that despite the existing differences between the two national projects, they are similar in opposing themselves to the EU liberal paradigm and emphasizing the traditional and religious values as the key principles in family planning, gender and sexual issues, migrants and workforce policy. In other words, I understand both national projects as illiberal biopolitical conservatisms, which imply concepts of separation and defence from the ‘liberal West’ in their discursive core.