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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Czech Social Democratic Party (Česká strana sociálně demokraticka, ČSSD)
The Czech Social Democratic Party was established during the 1990s and quickly became the strongest left wing party. In the first years after the Velvet revolution, ČSSD was faced with strong competition on the left wing by KSČM. Unlike political parties in other CEE countries, ČSSD had a social and political advantage thanks to the long history of the party, being the oldest political party in the Czech Republic. This was very helpful for the party when standing up against the Communist party in the early post-revolutionary period. Although the elections in 1990 and 1992 could refer to the revolution, the anti-communist backlash brought about weak and unsatisfactory election results. ČSSD got just a few votes over the 5% limit. Subsequent changes in the leadership brought gains, however. The new party leader Miloš Zeman made the party act more confrontationally towards the centre-right government
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.