Petőcz Kálmán (szerk.): National Populism and Slovak - Hungarian Relations in Slovakia 2006-2009 (Somorja, 2009)
Grigorij Mesežnikov: National Populism in Slovakia - Defining the Character of the State and Interpreting Select Historic Events
GRIGORIJ MESEŽNIKOV: NaTÍONaI PopuliSM ÍN SloVAkiA - DEfiNÍNq tIhe Character of tIhe State anc] Interpretînç SeIect Hístoríc Events NatíonaI PopuliSM ancI tIhe Context of íts Exístence ín SIovaI<ía In recent years, political players in Slovakia have grown increasingly fond of such patterns of appealing to the electorate that are based on applying populism strategies with strong ethnic-nationalist undertones. This way of addressing voters became typical for the country’s political life quite some time ago. Since the 1989 collapse of the communist regime and reinstatement of pluralistic democracy, it has proven to be sufficiently effective and at times brought ample power and political gains to its upholders. The recent revival of national populism is interesting especially because the conditions for its existence are quite different compared to the mid-1990s - they are characterized by generally successful social transformation that helped build foundations of a liberal-democratic regime and achieve the country’s integration goals, i.e. its full-fledged membership in the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO). The term of “national populism” is generally used to describe political activity (in the multitude of its displays) that focuses on addressing voters via traditional populistic methods' while accentuating strong ethnic-nationalist (‘national’) chords. It applies to a broad spectrum of political players, i.e. not only to supporters of extremist, radical and nationalistic ideas but to all those politicians of various ideological affiliations (including declared ones) whose preferred modus operandi combines populist appeal and ethnic nationalism. It is obvious that the prime mover behind recent activation of national populism forces in Slovakia was the power change that took place after the 39
