national populism and slovak – hungarian relations in - MEK

Approaching National Populism12 In fact, the purest anti-establishment party from among the mentioned was NDSV. While,SOP and namely DP had certain leftist tint, RP, but namely JL declared themselves centreright. The message which resonated among electorates, and thus delivered then electoralreturns, though, was the criticism of establishment.13 More often than not, the life-span of those parties proved to be short; they either vanishedor transformed through adopting a more traditional ideological profile. For the fortunes ofthe parties at issue see Uèeò 2007a.14 For a complete discussion of the transformation populism, we would have to take intoaccount also the ‘delayed’ emergence of the PRR Ataka and the successful anti-establishmentdrive of Boyko Borissov and his GERB in Bulgaria.15 We are somewhat uneasy with calling Mr. Meèiar’s rule a regime but do not exclude it.16 This attempt could be easily traced in the textual analysis of the newspapers SlovenskáRepublika and Nový deò, as well as weekly Extra.17 Or still otherwise: “Among parties representing ethnic Slovaks, Meèiar’s HZDS propelledthe integration of multiple nationalisms into a single, increasingly well articulated message.From a position that Slovaks had faced multiple national threat, HZDS leaders graduallymoved to a position that the new country’s enemies were in fact one and the same,because opposition leaders – Slovaks without strong nationalist feelings – had conspiredwith the Hungarian minority and representatives of NATO, the EU, and multinational corporationsto eliminate Slovakia’s independence” (Deegan-Krause, 2004, 691).18 That politicisation was not to attract the new voters. After all, from 1994 the voting choicebased on nationalism has been stabilized – those who were not nationalists would notbecame them, and vice versa. The politicisation, however, was capable of changing supportersmind as to which kind of nationalist sentiment they ‘approved’ to be cultivated bythe ruling group.19 “[M]any nationalist movements use an emancipatory discourse in which the nation (equatedwith the ‘true’ people) is to be liberated from foreign domination (as, for instance, inthe form of the ‘transfer’ of Western institutions) and domestic subjugation to politicalélites. In these discourses, an argument is often made for increased popular sovereigntythrough the granting of absolute priority to the nation, in other words, to the people as anundivided and organic unity, and the expression of its will” (Blokker 2005, 377).20 We tend to concur with Deegan-Krause that the essence of HZDS’ authoritarianism wasan attempt to undermine mechanisms of horizontal accountability in order to eliminatetheir constraints on furthering the national populist project.21 Other explanation for the relationship of authoritarianism and nationalism offers Snyder(2000, 332, cited in Hearn 2006, 134): “Democratization produces nationalism when powerfulgroups within the nation not only need to harness popular energies to the tasks ofwar and economic development, but they also want to avoid surrendering real politicalauthority to the average citizen. For those élites, nationalism is a convenient doctrine thatjustifies a partial form of democracy, in which an élite rules in the name of the nationyet may not be fully accountable to its people. Under conditions of partial democratizationelites can often use their control over the levers of government, the economy, andthe mass media to promote nationalist ideas, and thus set the agenda for the debate.Nationalist conflicts arise as a by-product of élites’ efforts to persuade the people to acceptdivisive nationalist ideas.” While appreciating the insight, we take the view that explanationof nationalism as a straightforward tool for the authoritarians has a limited power.22 Recent warm realtionships between Ján Slota and Kia, a representative of not only the foreignbut even the ‘foreign race’ capital, is a telling (but not the only one) example of that.National Populism and Slovak – Hungarian Relations in Slovakia 2006 – 2009. Forum Minority Research Institute Šamorín – Somorja, 200937