Between formal adoption and recontextualisation: the substantive hollowing of the circular economy concept in Polish parliamentary and media discourse

Abstract

This article examines why Poland's formal adoption of EU Circular Economy framework failed to produce substantive policy change. Combining documentary analysis of legislative instruments with frame analysis of 65 parliamentary and media statements (December 2015 – June 2025), the authors identify three mechanisms – cognitive narrowing, motivational subordination, and hierarchical destabilisation – associated with substantive hollowing, i.e. formal adoption with progressive erosion of transformative content. Findings from the analysed corpus suggest that compliance rhetoric systematically displaced systemic framing across all reception phases with implications for how ideational Europeanisation is studied beyond formal compliance.