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.
Alternative für Deutschland - AfD
The right populist formation was founded in winter 2013 to establish discussion on German European policy and generally on the future of common Union currency. Although the party profile aimed to be a conservative one; the election campaign showed that party got a lot of support as a protest movement. The election manifesto as well as public activities displayed the movement more as a single issue party than a serious conservative opposition to Merkel. However, the party did not pass the 5 % threshold, with a vote of 4.9 % the AfD can be seen as a real challenger to Merkel’s European policy.
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.
Alliance of the New Citizen (Aliancia nového občana, ANO)
The liberal Alliance of the New Citizen was registered by the Slovak Ministry of Interior in May 2001. The party was closely connected with the Markíza TV channel, owned by businessman Pavol Rusko who actually became the first chairman of the party. Other personalities working at the channel became prominent members of the party’s leadership – including among others Ľubomír Lintner and Eva Černá. ANO was formed a year and a half before the 2002 general election, with the only purpose being to succeed and enter the National Council. In 2002 the party proved to be a successful project when it a little more than eight percent of the votes and became part of the centre-right coalition together with SDKÚ – DS, KDH and SMK. Participation in the government, however, brought a series of scandals which resulted in the departure of several prominent politicians from the party. is development led to defeat in the 2004 European elections in which ANO acquired slightly less than the required five percent threshold and failed to enter the European parliament. Before the general election of 2006 there remained just a few people from the original party leadership and ANO competed with several liberal rightwing formations, one of which was formed by deserters from ANO. These circumstances led to yet another electoral defeat in 2006 and thus the party’s absence from the National Council. From 2007 the chairman of the party was Róbert Nemcsics, however the party did not participate in the subsequent European elections of 2009 and the general election of 2010.
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.
Party of the Hungarian Coalition (Strana maďarskej koalície – Magyar Koalíció Pártja, SMK)
The Party of the Hungarian Coalition was formed before the general election of 1998 in response to the amended election law which made the candidacy of coalitions of parties in elections pointless. SMK was formed by three parties representing the Hungarian minority in Slovakia: the Hungarian Christian-Democratic Movement, Coexistence and the Hungarian Civic Party. By 1998, these three parties had cooperated together for six years already, and therefore they had no problem to adjust to the new circumstances and to merge into one party. The chairman of the Hungarian Christian-Democratic Movement, Béla Bugár, became the leader of the new party. SMK has proved to be the most stable party on the Slovak political scene for almost ten years. Not only has it kept all internal struggles private and none of the prominent members of the party have left, SMK has also managed to have very stable election results. It gained 10.2 percent of the votes in the 1998 general election and became part of the so-called anti-Mečiar coalition. In 2000 SMK was accepted into the European People’s Party as a full member. The stability of the party and its performance was proved in the general election of 2002 when it got more than 11 percent of the votes and entered the centre-right coalition for the second time. SMK achieved great success in the first European elections in Slovakia in 2004 when it gained 13.24 percent of the votes and two seats. In 2006 SMK again got 11.7 percent of the votes but this time went into opposition, while Slovak National Party formed a coalition with Direction – Social Democracy.