The subject of this article are the ways of understanding democracy in Poland during a crisis of democracy. Six studies were conducted in 2016-2019 on nationwide samples of adult Poles with the use of CAWI and CAPI methodology. Using exploratory factor analysis, we found that the term democracy may have different colloquial meanings. The first one is understanding democracy as “privileges and rights” (since the second half of 2016, enriched with cultivating national values), which we interpret as a populist meaning. An accurate way of understanding democracy was revealed to have existed in the first half of 2016, after which it dissolved into a populist understanding of democracy. Identifying democracy with a Catholic state was the most stable in time. This direction of changes turned out to be sustainable in the light of the results of research conducted on representative samples in 2017 and 2019 with the use of CAPI methodology.
Additionally, it turned out that an accurate understanding of democracy increased support for democracy, while understanding democracy as a Catholic state decreased support for democracy. The populist understanding turned out to be unrelated to support for democracy. This changeability in the ways of understanding democracy is explained by events that took place in Poland since 2015 which deepened the crisis of democracy.