The authors share their reflections, awakened by the reading of the book by the Polish sociologist M. Gdula, “New authoritarianism”, published in Warsaw in 2018. Attention is drawn to the fact that the phenomenon of new authoritarianism, which attracted the attention of Polish scholars, is not a purely Polish phenomenon. On the contrary, its features are found in different countries and regions, which are largely explained by the reaction of society and political elites to the painful processes of globalization, modernization and democratization, which are characteristic of the last third of the 20th - early 21st centuries. This type of authoritarianism is called new because, unlike traditional dictatorships, it appeals to democratic practices, to competitive electoral process and to democratic imagination. The people, as the sovereign of power, give the government the mandate to unlimited domination over the norms of the Constitution. Justice as an expression of the people’s will stands above the law. The quintessence of this authoritarian project lies in solidarity narrowed to its own national community and its dominance over the weaker, minorities and outsiders. The party “Right and Justice” (PiS), led by J. Kaczynski, came to power in 2015, which marked the country’s movement in this direction as “a policy of a good turn”, focusing on the social support of the population and the policy of cultural change. Support for PiS by the majority of the population is explained both by partial satisfaction with its socio-economic policy and by its sense of belonging to the “political drama” staged by the party leader.