Bata

The rationale for this research stems from two sets of arguments: intuitive and academic. The intuitive arguments have developed as a result of news media reports reading; exploration of online sources; and reading of professional, marketing and public relations magazines in Poland. At one point, the Polish nation branding programme was pompously described as “the biggest nation branding programme of all times” (Saffron 2007). Having had some interest in governments’ transnational communication, I intuitively assume that nation branding in Poland requires more in- depth interrogation. Although, in the light of my initial mass media exploration, it would be convenient to argue that I have selected Poland as a context for my study because this state has been undergoing a ‘branding exercise’ (Reed 2002) or, as professional marketing periodicals suggest, Poland needs ‘branding’ (Kiszluk 2010). While my initial readings left many questions open, the above sources directly stimulated my ‘academic curiosity’ to explore nation branders as a social movement shaping contemporary notions of Polishness. Apart from intuitive motivations, there is a set of academic arguments which have reinforced my interest in nation branding.

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First, post-1989 Polish state identities have been redefined and democracy has been equated with a specific vision of neo-liberal market economy and considered as an intrinsic characteristic of the Polish state (Pachulaska 2005). The elementary evidence revealing the redefinition of the Polish state identities includes changes to political economy; redefinition of the role of state institutions; and decentralisation of the state bureaucracy (Horváth 1997). Moreover, the neo-liberalisation of the Polish state (Berend 2009) intensified the dynamics of ‘global’ and ‘local’ realms and accelerated dialectics of mediation of national identities. In fact, those changes are systemic demonstrations of renegotiation of the Polish state, whose elites conceived it as a ‘nation-state’, or as the state of the Polish nation; yet it is ‘incomplete’ or

‘unrealized’ in a variety of ways. In that respect, for the political elites the Polish state is considered as ‘the nationalizing state’ requiring nation-building (Brubaker 1996).

Second, the introduction of neo-liberalism in Poland has, partly, taken place as extension of other states’ ‘soft power’ political agendas (Ławniczak 2007). Some scholars argue that neo-liberalism has been introduced to Poland in two waves: via US- styled ‘shock therapy’ policies and through selective aspects of Europeanization (Shields 2008). From the outset, ‘shock therapy’ dominated the discourse on political economy in post-Soviet Poland, and, in consequence, the introduction of its policies has made an impact on social relations, construction of new markets and, by

encouraging competitiveness, created an incubating milieu for the development of promotional culture (Werninck 1991). Simultaneously, within the Polish state structures, the notion of ‘transitology’ has resulted in changes marked by the replacement of the nomenklatura struggling with the inception of a consolidating

technocratic class (Shields 2007, p. 172). This class of professionals has made a mark

on the acceleration of promotional culture by introduction of promotional policies developed by the Polish state (Kiełdanowicz-Ryniejska 2007).

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Third, re-ideologization of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is the next reason why it is worth exploring the nation branding in Poland. Following Szabos’ (1993) arguments concerning reframing of old ideologies in the post-Soviet bloc, I argue, that, to an extent, political economy changes in Poland have gained support thanks to ideologies of nationalism, religious ideologies and right-wing populism. Those, practised at different levels of social structures, had an impact on the formation of Polish political discourse after 1989 and constitute a fertile ground for emergence of other nationalisms. Bohle and Greskovits (2007, p. 453) point out that thanks to the strong sense of Polish ethnicity, the Polish state avoided ‘the task of nation-state building’. Nationalism, however, comes in diverse forms. While multiple Polish national identities narratives endure in ethnic form (Porter 2002; Zarycki 2004)13 _and

the development of liberal nationalism is well underway (Auer 2004), a modern version of economic nationalism as a ‘nationalising mechanism’ has been a weak dimension of changes in Poland (Pickle 2003). Questions about Polish national

identities were particularly vocal after 1989 and before the Polish state accession to the EU in May 2004. On both occasions, the proponents of the integration with EU

enunciated them as a ‘return to Europe’ (Wilkiewicz 2003). In fact, research demonstrates that historical interpretations of ‘national past’ have resulted in the re- emergence of a ‘Poland between the West and the East’ narrative. This notion of ‘between-ness’ was yet again articulated in the context of the Polish state’s accession to EU structures (Galbraith 2009) as a signifier of ‘old’ and ‘new’ member states.

Fourth, the post-1989 redefinition of the Polish state identities has led to the emergence of new institutional actors and intensification of communicative practices aimed at promoting the Polish state interests. Among them are the institutional actors empowered by the Polish state to project different versions of Polishness overseas.

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Following this logic, it can be argued that other neighbouring nations played their role in the formation of national identities in Poland. Ethnic minorities, particularly the Jewish community, contributed to this process (Michlic 2006) and took forms of, what Rae (2002) refers to as ‘pathological homogenisation’ and was a feature of nation-building processes among many European states.

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Traditionally, the state propaganda practice has been at the heart of advancing nationalisms (Hobsbawm 1990). The scholarly evidence suggests that genealogy of propaganda practice within the Polish state structures goes back to 1917 and coincides with the formation of its diplomatic service (Cull, Culbert and Welch 2004;

Szczepanik 2005). Later, according to Ellul (1973), the Polish state’s propaganda belonged to the ‘socialist republics’ of Europe. For example, Dudek (2002) discusses overseas propaganda system of the Polish state and its institutional organisation between the years 1945-1950. Since 1989, the new political economy provided different settings for Polish government communication and its institutional capacity has expanded beyond the realms of diplomatic networks (Szondi 2009b). This way, the Polish state has moved into a multi-stakeholder approach to managing this field.

While there is some descriptive evidence assuming that the Polish state engages in nation branding (Szczepankiewicz 2006; Florek 2006; Znoykiewicz 2008), those works lack sufficient empirical insights as to what are the social forces driving nation branding in Poland. The empirical research (Kubacki and Skinner 2006), on the other hand, uses marketing terminologies to explain the relationship between traditional national identity symbols and communicating ‘the brand Poland’. Although they discuss the relationship between national identity and nation branding, their work

apriori assumes the ‘nation brand’ as inherent to the Polish state and does not

explicitly reveal what nation branding practice involves. Similarly, Johnson (2010) sets to analyse some selected outputs of nation branding in Poland. While he analyses one of the governmental advertising campaigns, his starting point is an assumption that advertising is an outcome of ‘nation branding’. Given that the state bureaucracies (e.g. Taylor 1999; L’Etang 2004) have long used advertising in their propaganda efforts, I started wondering, is it just academics using different discourses to explain the same practice? Is nation branding both professional and academic fashion? None of the above texts question nation branding. They take nation branding for granted.

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