Working with data
The webpage focuses on political parties and their perception of nationalism and national identity. Firstly, the webpage contains a profile of each party in a national context based on basic facts, well known officials, and their electoral gains in national and European elections. Secondly, it gives an analytical insight into parties’ perceptions of national identity and nationalism. The parties are categorised according to mentions of related to national identity issues in election manifestos. These issues cover minorities, national myths, European integration, national sovereignty, integration of immigrants and related categories.
Selected case studies show parties’ "real politics" and strategies using national identity to politicise certain policies, such as using national mythologies in election campaigns. Case studies focus on up to three specific national identity issues for each country. They cover opposite positions of different parties to show different strategies and policies used to attract voters. For this purpose, visual (e.g. billboards) and text (e.g. given speeches) material was analyzed.
Acknowlegment
The Visegrad parties' profiles from 2006 - 2010 are based on a scholarly study published at Masaryk University: Černoch Filip, Husák Jan, Schütz Ondrej, Vít Michal (2011): Political parties and nationalism in Visegrad countries. Brno: Masarykova univerzita, Mezinárodní politologický ústav, Monography servies 46, 2011; and on the scholarly paper Husák Jan, Schütz Ondrej, Vít Michal (2012): National identity of the Political parties in Visegrad region and their European dimension, Journal on European Integration and Federalism, Science Po, Nice.
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Freedom and Solidarity (Sloboda a Spravodlist, SaS)
Political party Freedom and Solidarity is relatively new in the Slovak party system. Party was founded by economist Richard Sulík and some other entrepreneurs and economists generally from Bratislava. Sulík served as an advisor under two ministers of finances from both right wing government of Mikuláš Dzurinda and center left government of Róbert Fico. Sulík was main designer of the pension system reform and therefore in some way active in politics before founding SaS. New party was established in 2009 soon enough to take part in the European Elections of the same year. SaS gained almost five percent of the votes. Despite it was not enough to enter the European Parliament many including Sulík considered these results to be fairly good. Before the general elections of 2010 SaS persistently criticized Fico’s government and refused to enter any potential coalition with the Direction – SD. In the elections SaS managed to enter parliament and even to become the third largest party with more that twelve percent of the popular vote. SaS also entered newly formed government led by Iveta Radičová from SDKÚ – DS.
Direction - Social democracy (Smer - Sociálna demokracia, Smer - SD)
Direction – Third Way was formed in 1999 by popular figure of then coalition Party of the Democratic Left Robert Fico. Fico left the party and also parliamentary majority declaratorily because of the continuing corruption and unfulfilled government program and promises. Fico an his party which defined itself as beyond right – left dichotomy quickly became very popular among the voters partly due to its protest appeal and its refusal of both Mečiar and heterogeneous anti – Mečiar coalition. In elections of 2002 Direction –Third Way took over the whole electorate of the SDĽ and despite it gained less votes than polls had predicted it established itself as a relevant political force. Between the years 2002 and 2006 Direction – Third Way moved from the centre to the left of the political map. Reason for this move was simple – recently formed government was composed of centre right parties which had no intention to cooperate with Direction and in the same time besides Communist party of Slovakia there was no relevant party representing the left in the National Council. In 2004 Direction merged with most of the remaining left wing parties in Slovakia and changed its name to Direction – Social Democracy.
Most – Híd (Bridge, Most – Híd)
The official name of the party Most – Híd consists of the Slovak and Hungarian words for bridge. It was formed in 2009 by Béla Bugár and other politicians defecting from the Party of the Hungarian Coalition. Bugár served as a chairman of the SMK – MKP for almost ten years from 1998 to 2007. In 2007 he lost intra-party elections to Pál Csáky who represented the more radical platform of the party. After several conflicts with the party’s new leadership, Bugár left SMK – MKP and together with his followers and some intellectuals of Slovak nationality founded Most – Híd. In contrast to SMK – MKP, this new party was supposed to be a platform of cooperation for all citizens of the Slovak Republic regardless of their nationality. From its beginnings, the party was accused by some politicians of the right wing opposition to be the fifth column of the Direction – Social Democracy party. However when it became more probable that Most – Híd will succeed SMK as main representative of the Hungarian minority other right wing political parties changed their rhetoric.