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.
The Freedom Union – Democratic Union (Unie svobody – Demokratická unie, US-DEU)
The Freedom Union was founded as a result of the fragmentation of the Civic Democratic Party. The clincher for the dividing of ODS was the long time internal tension caused by dubious financial sources the party. The Klaus’s opponents were more liberal in societal issues and the new party was more opinion plural in contrast with ideological environment of chairman Klaus. The Freedom Union was de facto movement liberal in ODS. The party was founded in the 1998 and in the early election in same year gained the representation in the Chamber of Deputies. In the 2002 Freedom Union merged with smaller right-liberal party Democratic Union (DEU) with the new name of the party US-DEU.
Slovak Democratic and Christian Union – Democratic Party (Slovenská demokratická a kresťanská únia – Demokratická strana, SDKÚ-DS)
Democratic Party of Slovakia and Green Party in Slovakia formed coalition before the general elections of 1998 however due to new amendment to the electoral law they would need get 25 % of the votes to enter the National Council. That was the reason why they take part in the establishment of the new party SDK. SDK competed in elections instead of the five parties and all membership of the new party comprised of the leaders and politicians of the five coalition parties. SDK succeeded and after the elections led as a senior partner wide so – called anti – Mečiar coalition. During the 1999 and 2000 leadership of the SDK namely Mikuláš Dzurinda and Ivan Šimko originally from KDH pushed for further integration of the right – wing parties in SDK. Internal struggle in the main government party SDK did not led to serious weakening of the coalition and it survived full term till the elections of 2002. In these elections SDKÚ proved to be successful project when it gained more than fifteen percent and overall second place. SDKÚ joined coalition with other center – right parties and Dzurinda formed his second government. During the 2003 conflict in SDKÚ arose in connection with the so – called “small group” affair.
The League of Polish Families (Liga Polskich Rodzin, LPR)
The party was founded shortly before the 2001 election and emerged as the sixth party in the Sejm having gained 7.9% of the vote.
Fidesz-MPP (Fiatal Demokraták Szövetsége, Fidesz – Magyar Polgári Párt)
The party was founded in 1988 as an organization of the radical liberal student movement. After 1990 Fidesz underwent a transformation process in order to become more electable.
People's Party - Our Slovakia (Ľudová strana - Naše Slovensko)
The roots of the People’s Party – Our Slovakia are traceable into the nineties when organization Slovak Brotherhood was formed. As one of many extreme – right groups in Slovakia it was unnoticed by general public until first years of new millennia. Media started to pay attention to the Slovak Brotherhood after its members started to attend memorials of important events of the Slovak national history. Members of the Brotherhood wore distinctive uniforms which resembled uniforms of paramilitary fascist Hlinka’s Guards. Brotherhood and their uniforms became synonym and face of the extreme – right.