What do Conservatives want from democracy? A Polish constitutional experiment from a right-wing perspective

• Florence School of Transnational Governance
• The STG Transnational Democracy Programme

The Florence School of Transnational Governance, Inkubator Umowy Społecznej (Social Contract Incubator), and Prof. Kalypso Nicolaidis will debate issues related to democracy, its functioning and institutions, and on the shape of the social contract in an era of polarisation. The starting point of the discussion will be the book "Let's Agree on Poland: A Case Study in Strategic Constitutional Design" and the project based on it: https://letsagreeonpoland.org/.

Conservatives are often portrayed as obstacles to democracy rather than its co-authors. "Let’s Agree on Poland: A Case Study of Constitutional Design" (Oxford University Press, 2025) is an ambitious experiment in constitutional imagination that takes the opposite view, asking what conservatives actually want from democracy. Described in the influential Polityka Weekly as the most important book about Polish politics after 1989, the book reflects the work of 130 progressive and conservative intellectuals in the Social Contract Incubator (IUS), who together designed a constitutional framework intended to speak across ideological divides.

The panel will highlight the right-wing voices within IUS. Conservative members will explain their motivations for joining the project and how their values are reflected in the final proposals. Of particular interest is part II of the book, in which experts and fiction writers collaborated to create dream regions under the proposed constitutional order. The co-author of the deeply conservative region will discuss how this fictional scenario illuminated conservative political aspirations in contemporary Poland — aspirations that may resonate across Europe.

An important aspect of the debate will also be examining the similarities and differences between the conservative position and the positions currently held by both liberals and representatives of the left. Only when considered as a whole can they provide a picture of the areas where a scenario for agreement is required, as well as the framework of the democratic system available and implemented by each option.