Petőcz Kálmán (szerk.): National Populism and Slovak - Hungarian Relations in Slovakia 2006-2009 (Somorja, 2009)
Peter Učen: Approaching National Populism
Peter Učeň and that the politicisation was not the job of the nativist SNS. Rather it was Vladimír Mečiar and his Movement for Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) who were in charge. SNS was a willing ally for the reasons of opportunity to shape national politics and the access to political spoils. But it was Mečiar who had been deciding on who posed a threat to the Slovak nation and what the nature of the threat was. The essence of politicization of Slovak nationalism was accentuating those versions of nationalist feelings which seemed opportune to the ruling groups ’ interest, namely to justify its foreign and domestic policy actions (often failures). Deegan-Krause summarised the findings of his research, based on analysis public opinion polls, as follows: “The polarization of anti-Czech peripheral nationalism traces a sharp rise in 1992 and 1993, followed a year later by a nearly identical pattern for anti-Hungarian nationalism and two years later by anti-Western peripheral nationalism. The timing is significant because it closely matches changes in the electoral strategies of Slovakia’s political parties. Content analysis of party programs for the 1992, 1994, and 1998 elections indicates a distinct set of shifts in the frequency of references to various national issues... [tjhe focus of programs shifted from an emphasis on issues related to peripheral nationalism (primarily against the Czechs) in the 1992 election, to a greater emphasis on state-building nationalism (much of it stated in general terms but clearly applicable only to Hungarians) in the 1994 election campaign, and then back toward a renewed emphasis on peripheral nationalism in 1998 (this time directed toward the West)” (Deegan- Krause 2004, 685-686, our emphasis). The flexibility advantage of the HZDS national populism was thus obvious. The SNS, being, by and large, consistent in its nativist nationalism, looked at the Mečiar’s ‘ever changing nationalism’ with both envy and disdain; indeed, conflicts were not infrequent. Having stated that nationalism was a key element of success of what we termed ‘national populism’, we should also address the question what makes populism and nationalism to combine so well. Drawing on Blokker (2005) we suggest it is their shared emphasis on centrality of the people and on the emancipatory claims related to the popular sovereignty.'9 When conceptually separated, nationalism and populism do the job differently. While populism claims to deliver people from the subjugation to the elite, nationalism calls for emancipation in national terms, that is, more often than not, asserting the state rights, deliverance from the suppression of other ethnics, nations, and curbing the influence of ethnic minorities and non-nationals. When the ‘marriage’ takes place, as it was the case with a number of postcommunist societies, the people is interpreted in the national (not necessa-30
