NATIONALIST POPULISM AND POST-COMMUNISM

in the region may differ from one scholar to another, nationalism continues to represent an important challenge for the countries in Central and Eastern Europe two decades after the regime change. In some of those countries, especially in the Balkans, nationalism reached the most violent forms; while in others it has been more moderate. Nevertheless, even in the countries labelled as the “transition leaders” 5 the presence of various kinds of nationalist appeals is apparent. The attractiveness of ethnicity, nationalism and the related issues to a country’s population, together with their large mobilisation potential, have continuously presented a challenge to the political elite in Central and Eastern Europe. In particular, the instrumental exploitation of these issues in the communication strategies with the electorate has become an important tool for voter mobilisation throughout the so-called post-Soviet region. With the changing geopolitical reality in the post-Soviet space, prejudices against historical “others” have been rediscovered. At the same time, new “others” were invented. These recently invented enemies, together with the mythological “ghosts of the past”, quickly became a popular point of reference for a significant part of the political elite in the CEE countries. 1.2. Main goals In this research study, there are three main tasks. The first aim is to identify and further analyse nationalist populist appeals in the Polish and Slovak political discourse in the period of the post-communist transition, through a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the party slogans and media statements of representatives of the political elite. The second task is to conduct a cross-country comparison, in order to highlight the similarities and differences between the Polish and Slovak political discourses in terms of the presence and usage of nationalist populist appeals. The third task is to provide a cross-time comparison, which should underline the dynamics of changes in both the Polish and Slovak political discourses during the course of ten years.

5 The term “transition leaders” includes the countries of the Visegrád Four (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia), Baltic Three (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) plus Slovenia. These are the countries which managed to successfully conclude negotiations with the EU and became members in the first wave of enlargement.

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