NATIONALIST POPULISM AND POST-COMMUNISM

with the overall performance of the government, and coalition leaders were often accused of favouring foreign capital over domestic investors. Not only that – other accusations included the betrayal of the economic interests of the state or clientelism. Ethnic prejudice and animosity toward “others” The most important “others” in the Polish political discourse of the early 1990s were the Germans, Russians and Jews. Although all three of these groups occupied a significant position in the 2001 political discourse too, the analysis showed that their importance – as measured by the total number of statements in the political discourse – decreased in the course of ten years. In the search for reasons, a large number of factors has to be considered. First, the geopolitical situation changed significantly. In 2001, Poland was already in the final phase of its negotiations on the EU accession and was a regular member of NATO. Secondly, there appeared a shift from “symbolism” to “pragmatism” in the Polish politics. As was mentioned in the empirical part, the importance of the division between the “solidarity camp” and the “post- communist left” decreased significantly in 2001 when compared to 1991. This shift from symbolism to pragmatism in the domestic politics was also reflected in the foreign policy, especially where the relations between Poland and its neighbors were concerned. The strong German support for the membership of Poland in the EU and the lack of open problems in the Polish-Russian relations did remove the anti-German and anti-Russian feelings and attitudes from the top positions on the list of the most frequent nationalist populist appeals. Even though anti-Semitism was still a part of the ideological background of some parties, or at least party factions, in 2001 – LPR can be mentioned as an example – the majority of the party leaders avoided using anti-Semitic rhetoric in their statements. One of the possible explanations might be that the political elite simply learned that, in order to be accepted by their Western counterparts, and especially by the EU, they had to stop making anti-Jewish statements. Even though the Western policymakers had condemned any manifestations of anti Semitism in 1991, the international pressure at that time was much lower than ten years later, on the eve of the EU accession. In the Slovak case, the situation was quite different. Even though Slovakia was enjoying the process of approaching both the EU and NATO in 2002, and there was no direct threat against its sovereignty, security or territorial integrity, the perception of an “external” threat was much more present in the Slovak political discourse than in the Polish case. As was the case ten years earlier, the most powerful “external other” in 2001 was again Hungary and the Hungarians. Anti-Hungarian rhetoric was rooted in the Slovak political discourse and the Slovak-Hungarian relations remained the most sensitive issue to be discussed

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