Influence of American Political Culture on Polish Political Discourse. The Case of the 2019–2020 Presidential Primaries of the Confederation Liberty and Independence

Presidential primary elections are an important part of the American political landscape. This nominating process has been incorporated into multiple European political systems. At the turn of 2019/2020, the Confederation Liberty and Independence – a Polish coalition of right-wing parties and movements – organized a nationwide presidential primary. While it was not the first time presidential primaries took place in Poland, the discussed event was clearly the most impactful. The article investigates the speeches delivered at the final convention in Warsaw. In the American literature, they are referred to as concession speeches. As presidential primaries have not been a significant part of the Polish political system, the genre of concession speech has not been analyzed in detail. The study investigates the speeches through the lens of Rhetorical Genre Criticism to discuss the influence of American political culture on Polish politics. Both situational constraints and linguistic features were analyzed. Subsequently, the speeches were compared to the standard variant of third-party concession speeches. The results show that the speeches bear similarities to their American counterparts. However, the politicians of the Confederation created unique forms that, despite being grounded in American tradition, took inspiration from European and Polish political discourses.