The Source of the Flood: Trans-Boundary Resentments and Populist Far Right Politics

In the aftermath of an enormous fish kill in the Oder, a major waterway that forms a large portion of the boundary between Germany and Poland, German efforts to investigate and ameliorate the issue were met with resistance by Polish officials (Moody and Olszanka 2022). While the Germans appeared to treat the case as relatively standard environmental governance, their attempt to address the issue with Poland’s government rapidly became contentious. This hyper-nationalist Polish response was driven, in large degree, by the ruling party in Poland at the time: the populist, far-right, Euroskeptic Law and Justice party (Gądek 2022). Why would an issue with relatively straightforward technical solutions create so much conflict? I propose that power differentials across boundaries create perceptions of unfairness, which in turn lead to resentment that advantages populist, far-right parties. The likelihood of future events, such as in the Oder in 2024 (Lazarová 2024) magnify potential effects.