MASARYKOVA UNIVERZITA FACULTY OF SOCIAL STUDIES Securitization of Energy in Poland under the PiS Government Bachelor's Thesis LORNA RADTKE Supervisor: Mgr. et Mgr. Veronika Zapletalová, Ph.D. Department of International Relations and European Studies International Relations and European Politics Brno 2020 MUNI FSS Bibliographie Record Author: Lorna Radtke Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University Department of International Relations and Euro• pean Studies Title of Thesis: Securitization of Energy in Poland under the PiS Government Degree Programme: International Relations and European Politics Supervisor: Mgr. et Mgr. Veronika Zapletalová, Ph.D. Academic Year: 2020 Number of Pages: 55 Keywords: Poland; Energy Security; Law and Justice; Central Europe; Securitization Theory; Discourse Analy• sis; Law and Justice 1 Abstract The Law and Justice party, abbreviated as PiS, has been the lea• ding party of the Polish national government since late 2015. The PiS party views the current state of energy security as being under threat. This research paper will examine speech acts by PiS politicians and identify who/what are perceived as threats towards Poland's energy security. This paper will firstly identify the securitizing actors. Then, this research will employ discourse analysis through the lens of the securitization theory to identify what are the perceived threats towards energy secu• rity and establish common narratives of PiS actors. 2 Statutory Declaration I hereby declare that I have written the submitted Bachelor's Thesis con• cerning the topic of Securitization of Energy in Poland under the PiS Government independently. All the sources used for the purpose of fi• nishing this thesis have been adequately referenced and are listed in the Bibliography. In Brno 23 August 2020 Lorna Radtke 1 Acknowledgements I would first like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Mgr. et Mgr. Veronika Zaple• talová, Ph.D., for mentoring me through the process of writing this thesis. In addition, I am immensely thankful for my parents and closest friends for giving me endless amounts of encouragement during my studies. Table of Contents List of Tables 7 List of Terms and Acronyms 8 1 Introduction 9 1.1 The Law and Justice Party 10 1.2 Research Questions and Objectives 11 1.3 Structure 12 2 Research Approach 13 2.1 Operationalization 13 2.2 Case Selection 14 2.3 Data Collection 15 2.4 Limitations of this research 16 3 Literature Review 19 4 Theoretical Framework 21 4.1 Security and Energy in IR studies 21 4.2 The Copenhagen School and The Securitization Theory 22 4.3 Relevant Concepts to this research 25 5 Securitizing Actors in the Law and Justice Party 28 5.1 Q1: Who are the securitizing actors? 28 5.2 Q2: What are the perceived threats? 31 6 Conclusion 38 Bibliography 40 5 Cited Articles 46 6 List of Figures and Tables Figure 1: The Securitization Process 24 Table 1: Instances of Speech Acts by PiS Politicians 30 Table 2: Perceived Threats from Articles 32 7 List of Terms and Acronyms PiS - Law and Justice Party of Poland Sejm - Lower House of Parliament in Poland 8 1 Introduction When speaking of the EU's energy policy and initiatives, Poland usually stands out as one of the biggest opponents and criticizes of many of those initiatives. EU initiatives, such as the expansion of renewable energies and a coherent cli• mate policy, have been perceived as a threat by recent governments in Poland [Szulecki, 2017: 25). Other EU gas expansion projects, notably the Nord Stream 2, has been heavily criticized by Poland and the project has been de• scribed as a threat towards Central European security (Deign, 2018] While previous governments have treated the state of energy security as un• der threat, the Law and Justice Parly of Poland, abbreviated as PiS [Polski: Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc) have taken extraordinary measures to ensure their energy security. Extraordinary measures regarding energy security in the EU are not commonplace. (Szulecki, 2020: 6) However, one instance was meas• ured in 2016 by the PiS party. This measure in November 2016 resulted in top Polish energy companies needing to follow the instructions of the ministry "particularly related to new energy infrastructure investments, even if that meant making decisions that undermined their economic situation" (Szulecki, 2020: 6). Their goal of achieving energy security is led by political aims that surround their energy sector. However, it is sometimes unclear the threats, goals and position that this government takes. Decarbonization has been spoken of posi• tively in some instances, meanwhile the PiS-led government continues sup• porting their struggling coal sector. 9 1.1 The Law and Justice Party The Law and Justice Parly (PiS) has been the leading party in the Polish gov• ernment since 2015 and recently re-elected again in 2019 for another term1. The party was founded in 2001 by Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczyhski. Jaroslaw Ka- czyhski serves as the Chairman of the party. PiS is often labeled as a conserva• tive right-wing populist party, one of the many which have increasingly gained popularity since the Great Recession. For the past two decades they have been one of the most popular political parties in Poland (Gandesha, 2018: 49). Within the European Parliament, they belong to the European Conservatives and Reformist Party which holds 62 seats. Within the Sejm, the lower house of the Polish parliament, they hold 198 seats and 44 seats within the Senate. The shift from the Civic Platform, a liberal-conservative and pro-European party, that led a majority government from 2007 to 2011 to PiS could be ex• plained as the consequence of the "exhaustion of a certain model of politics and not just from political errors"(Rychard, 2018: 39). The focus of PiS centers on family values and the protection of Catholicism in Poland. They are often criticized in media of their anti-LGBT agenda (BBC News, 2020). Within the EU, PiS is labeled Eurosceptic and appealed to the population after the 2015 migrant crisis in an effort for "fear-induced support" (Yermakova, 2019: 177). They have gained popularity especially in opposition to coalitions such as The Civic Coalition (Civic Platform, Modern, and The Greens) and The Left. PiS has been criticized for making many changes to the legal system. One in• stance includes the passing of a law which was "designed to paralyse the con• stitutional tribunal - the country's highest judicial body, which rules on the le• gality of government actions - by requiring the court to consider its backlog in chronological order, thereby obstructing any judgment of the present 1 However, unsuccessfully maintaining a majority in the senate. (DeutscheWelle, 2019] 10 government's decisions" (Davies, 2016). These actions have called into ques• tion which extraordinary measures this political parry is willing to take in or• der to fulfill their political agendas, even when it comes down to the disman• tling of Poland's checks and balances judicial system. 1.2 Research Questions and Objectives This research will investigate two central research questions. First, which PiS actors are using securitizing speech? This question will reveal which actors are present within media making securitizing speech acts. Second, what are the perceived threats towards Poland's energy security? The second question will analyze discourse and reveal patterns among utterances of threats to• wards the referent object (energy security). From identifying the perceptions of threats, narratives that are being employed by PiS actors within discourse regarding energy security can be uncovered. The topic of how speech acts are used to securitize energy security in Poland is worth researching for a few reasons. Firstly, the case of the PiS parry in Po• land is one that is not researched enough. While research regarding Poland's perception of their energy security has been conducted, there is a gap regard• ing how certain political parties view and securitize energy security. Secondly, there is lack of academic literature surrounding the PiS parry within the Eng• lish language. Much of the scholarly literature regarding the PiS party is in the Polish language and is unavailable outside of the national Polish discussion. Thirdly, given the PiS parry has such a large role within Polish national and re• gional politics, this research is a relevant and justifiable theme within the field of International Relations and European Politics. Studying this topic further in depth would bring more academic discussion into a topic which is mostly dominated by media coverage. 11 1.3 Structure The structure of this paper will follow six sections. The first section will intro• duce the topic, research questions and objectives to be acheived within this paper. This paper will then move on to the second section, the research appro• ach. This section will explain the plan and steps of data collection, definition of variables, case selection and the limitations of the research. The third section will review relevant literature on the topic of the securitization of the energy security in Poland. Within this section the reasons why more research on this topic is needed will be shown. The fourth section will introduce the evolution of energy in security studies in international relations studies. Then the secu• ritization theory, the main perscpetive used in this research, will be explained, as well as the other academic disputes of this theory. Relevant concepts used in this research will be explained at the end of this section. The analysis and results of the research questions will be the focus of the fifth section. The two questions will be split into different sections and dicussed separately. This re• search will end with the conclusion, which will reflect and summarize the in• formation discovered within this research. 12 2 Research Approach 2.1 Operationalization The first methodological question to answer is what exactly discourse is.