But Don't Play With Me `Cause You're Playing With a Farmer – Electoral Consequences of Proposed Animal Welfare Reforms in Rural Poland

ABSTRACT It has long been recognized that reforming agricultural policies can be challenging. One of the key obstacles is the risk of dissatisfaction among rural voters and the potential loss of electoral support. In this paper, we demonstrate that such political costs may arise not only from policy reforms that are actually implemented, but also from reform proposals that are put forward but never enacted. We illustrate this with an example from Poland, where, in 2020, the government attempted to reform animal welfare regulations. The proposed law was highly unpopular among farmers, sparked numerous protests, and was ultimately not passed. We provide evidence that, despite the withdrawal of the reform, the governing party suffered a significant decline in support among the rural electorate in the first elections following the attempt, and that this decline was more pronounced in municipalities where livestock production was relatively more important. The interpretation that the party's poorer performance in rural areas may have been due to the animal welfare proposals is further supported by several robustness tests.