Petőcz Kálmán (szerk.): National Populism and Slovak - Hungarian Relations in Slovakia 2006-2009 (Somorja, 2009)
Peter Učen: Approaching National Populism
Approaching National Populism rily strictly nativist) terms, and the populist and nationalist ‘exclusion from the people’ may converge in case of (anti-national) elite or (disloyal) minorities. “At least part of the program of national populists is about the mobilization of the people around the idea of national emancipation and collective autonomy, and consists of a critique of existing institutions and the defenders of the status quo as failing to represent the ‘true’ people and its sovereignty. The populists claim to more fully represent the national will and interest and therefore the people” (Blokker 2005, 384, original emphasis). Regarding another usual companion, the authoritarianism, national populism perceived as a criticism of liberal democracy as failing to secure superior - nation-related - goals and concerns, entails also offering other means to ascertain those goals instead. The nature of national populist illiberalism can be derived from the assumption that “[institutional democracy based on the rule of law and legal proceduralism is always open to the political critique of serving particular social forces (in Eastern Europe often reformulated as foreign, alien forces) rather than the social whole... More importantly, pluralism, parliamentary negotiationism and compromise, and institutionalized conflict can be portrayed as structurally incapable of representing the societal, organic whole and therefore as undermining the real interests of the people. From the populist point of view, legalism and the rule of law hinder the full realization of the rule of the people” (Blokker 2005, 381-382, my emphasis). The logic described above provides for explanations of the ‘more-thana-normal’ degree of authoritarianism in a political conduct of the national populism in power. In the Slovak context, authoritarian-prone national populism in Slovakia was the result of both its inherent logic and the exigencies of the struggle for (retaining the) power - the latter possibly strengthening the former.20 The lesson is that any mixture of nationalism and populism, owing to their inherent assumptions, can hardly be free from an authoritarian conduct.21 NatíonaI PopulisM "UqIht"? Nurturing itself on social deprivations of transition, Mr. Mečiar’s national populism owed its success to a clever blend of nationalism and populism. Political defeat of the movement was made possible by Slovaks starting to mind the authoritarian excesses and resulting international isolation of the country. While the latter can be easily attributed to the politics of nationa-31
