NATIONALIST POPULISM AND POST-COMMUNISM

The attractiveness of positive national self-presentation appeals did not decrease in either the Polish nor in the Slovak political discourses in the course of ten years. Since the majority of the population accepted this kind of statement, they also became popular among the leaders of a wide range of political parties. The popularity of this kind of statement or slogan was even stressed by their legitimisation by important political leaders in the “old” EU member states. So called patriotic slogans and appeals were frequently used in the language of the majority of Western political leaders as well. Economic nationalism Apart from structural changes in the economy, the process of the economic transition from a centrally planned to a free market economy was characterised by changes of the ownership rights and privatisation. The latter concerned small businesses, but also companies with a strategic importance for the state and particular regions, especially when their impact on the level of employment was concerned. When analysing the statements of the political elite and the party slogans, it turned out that foreign investors were presented as enemies endangering the well-being of the local population. Since the level of the FDI in 1992 in Slovakia was significantly lower than in the case of Poland, and so was the interest of foreign companies to invest in the Slovak economy, the issue of the “sell out” of the economy to foreign owners was almost entirely missing in 1992 political discourse. On the other hand, the state-splitting process turned the attention of the Slovak leaders to the economic policy of their Czech counterparts. In light of the above, the economic equality of the two republics and the disadvantages resulting from the coexistence in a common state with the Czechs, as well as the questionable division of federal property, were among the most discussed topics in the 1992 political discourse. The process of the accession to the EU served some political parties and their leaders as a background for spreading anti-European propaganda. Fears connected with the sell out of the economy and land to foreign owners were becoming stronger with the increasing openness of the Slovak and Polish economies to the EU. The single market was considered to be a real threat to the national interests by significant number of political actors, especially in the Polish case. “Economic others” from 1991-2 were the Czechs for the Slovaks and the Germans for the Poles, but in 2001-2 they were reduced to the single one – the EU. Another apparent observation is that the frequency of statements containing elements of economic nationalism were significantly higher in 2001‒2 in both cases. The investment boom in Slovakia and the continuing attractiveness of Poland for foreign investors might be a powerful explanation for this increase. In some cases, the privatisation activities of foreign investors were connected

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