Karolina Zbytniewska —journalist, political commentator, and researcher on populism. Since 2022, she has been lecturing at the Faculty of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Warsaw. She is also affiliated with the Institute for Democracy at the Central European University (CEU) as a research fellow. Her doctoral dissertation, titled “Populist Provocateurs and the Erosion of Political Culture: A New Force in Populist Movements,”was submitted in December 2024; and the defense of the dissertation is scheduled for late 2025 or early 2026.
For over 14 years, she has served as editor-in-chief of the website EURACTIV Poland, a news outlet specializing in EU affairs. She is the president of the Global Political Network Foundation and a board member of the European think-and-do-tank Europe MédiaLab. She is a graduate of the University of Warsaw and the University of Central Lancashire (United Kingdom). She has received prestigious research fellowships, including the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship and the Re:constitution Fellowship. She has spoken as a panelist at numerous international expert and academic conferences, including at Chatham House, Ditchley Park, the Salzburg Global Forum, the Hambach Democracy Dialogue, the Budapest Forum, and a conference on populism in Prague.
Research Interests
Populism; political communication; the brutalization of political language; media and democracy; disinformation; the public sphere in the age of digital platforms; European integration and the evolution of populism in Central and Eastern Europe.