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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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.
People’s Party – Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (Ľudová strana – Hnutie za demokratické Slovensko ĽS-HZDS)
ĽS-HZDS was formed in April 1991 afer the internal conflict in the senior coalition party Public against Violence. The chairmanship of the party withdrew its popular Prime Minister Vladimír Mečiar from office. As a consequence Mečiar and his followers left VPN and formed the new party ĽS-HZDS. Mečiar has been the one and only chairman of the party since then. In the subsequent general election, ĽS-HZDS won with the landslide support of 37 % of voters. Due to the electoral system it took almost half of the seats in the National Council.Between the years 1992 and 1994 many prominent figures left ĽSHZDS, mostly because of the political style of its chairman Mečiar. However, none of these defections harmed ĽS-HZDS considerably and it managed to win the next elections. In 1994 ĽS-HZDS formed its second government and Vladimír Mečiar already his third. In the following years the coalition of ĽS-HZDS, SNS and the small Union of the Workers of Slovakia ruled Slovakia in a way which was considered by many to be authoritative and Mečiar was accused of misuse of state power to curb the democratic process and of the attempt to influence elections.