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.
Slovak National Party (Slovenská národná strana - SNS)
Slovak National Party claims to be the oldest Slovak political party, tracing its roots to the 19th century Slovak National Party. However this historical SNS was rather an honorary party representing all political groups nationally self-defined as Slovak. Moreover, there is no traceable continuity among these two subjects from 1938 to 1990. With the exception of the period from 2002 to 2006, SNS was a permanent parliamentary party. Since March 1990 when it was established, SNS has experienced several internal conflicts and secessions. Almost immediately afer the first general elections in 1990, Stanislav Pánis, a proponent of the ultra-nationalistic faction of SNS, left the party and formed the party Slovak National Unity (Slovenská národná jednota, SNJ). In 1993 a struggle between the liberal and nationalistic wings of the party resulted in the secession of the party leader Ľudovít Čermák and his followers and the election of a new chairman, Ján Slota. SNS was part of the majority in the two governments of Vladimír Mečiar from 1992 to 1993 and from 1994 to 1998.