Since the political party Law and justice's access to power in 2015, laws have been implemented that restrict the freedom of institutions such as the media and the court. The Church has also increased involvement in decision-making, including in the abortion issue and LGBTQ issues. These events among many have led to ideas that Poland, like Ukraine, will return to autocracy, a process known as democratic backsliding.The thesis aims to investigate in what way Poland meets the requirements for democratic backsliding. This by answering the question: In what way does Poland's political situation meet the criterias for democratic backsliding? In order to answer the question, two theories have been used, Nancy Bermeo's categorizations of democratic backsliding and Ozan O. Varol's theory of stealth authoritarianism.

The method that will be used in the thesis is a qualitative case study method, where the period 2008-2014 is compared with the period 2015-2020. The study will be based on a selection of texts and reports.

The results show that Poland met one of the criterias for democratic backsliding during the period 2008-2014 and all criteria except one during the period 2015-2020. This leads to the conclusion that the occurrence of democratic backsliding has increased during the party "Law and Justice" reign.