Slovakia

Date range: 1990-2020

Case notes

Movement for a Democratic Slovakia

The Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (Hnutie za demokratické Slovensko, HZDS) split off from the major Slovakian anti-communist dissident movement Public Against Violence (VPN) in 1991 (Bútora and Bútorová 1993, 79). Throughout the 1990s it was the major party of government, with its founder and leader Vladimir Mečiar serving as Prime Minister three times between 1990 and 1998 (throughout the period of the Velvet Divorce form Czechia). After the 1994 elections HZDS governed in coalition with two other smaller populist parties, the Slovak National Party (SNS) and the Union of Slovak Workers (ZRS). This government was defeated in 1998. The party added the words “People’s Party” to the end of its name (HZDS-ĽS) in 2000, but its support steadily declined in subsequent elections. Still under Mečiar’s leadership, HZDS joined the new Smer government after the 2006 election (where it polled 8.79%), but its vote dropped below 5% in the subsequent 2010 election and it formally dissolved in 2014.

Despite the fact that HZDS was always a core part of the political establishment of the Slovak Republic, it portrayed itself as representing ordinary people against a “‘grand coalition’ of forces conspiring to remove it from power” (Stanley 2017, 149–50). It often relied on grandiose rhetoric that depicted its opponents as “evil ones opposing Slovakia” (Ferencei 2020, 168), or simply “enemies of Slovakia” (Haughton 2003a, 269; Abrahám 1995, 99). These attacks often targeted other figures within the state, (including Mečiar’s archrival President Michal Kováč) whom the party collectively accused of trying “destroy the political system in Slovakia” in 1995 (Deegan-Krause 2012, 194). In Deegan-Krause’s words, Mečiar’s success was based on his “ability to sustain the image of an underdog fighting against a unified elite even while he exercised the full power of the state” (Deegan-Krause 2012, 187) (OTH_POLCLASS = 3). According to a number of other sources, the party’s anti-elite populist rhetoric declined after the 1998 election, at which point it tried to portray itself as a “normal party” (Deegan-Krause and Haughton 2009, 831; Stanley 2017, 50). For this reason, we’ve included it in the dataset only up to this election.

Most sources suggest that Mečiar embraced a form of Slovak nationalism that defined the people and their “others” in ethnic terms (Scheiring 2021, 1588; Deegan-Krause 2012, 186). This involved the frequent scapegoating of the large Hungarian minority (Stanley 2011, 258–59; Abrahám 1995, 97). In 1994, for example, HZDS campaign leaflets asserted: “Who does not vote for HZDS is voting for Hungarian autonomy” (Haughton 2001, 752). The HZDS’s ethnocentrism also targeted the Slovakian Roma population. One HZDS minister told a rally in 1995 that the government would ensure that the Roma birth rate is lower than that of the white population (Haughton 2001, 753). On both fronts it appears that the HZDS’s rhetoric has been somewhat softer than other parties (notably the SNS) (Abrahám 1995, 97). Nonetheless, there is sufficient evidence to code it 3 on OTH_ETHNIC in the years in which it features in the dataset. We’ve found no evidence that opposition to immigrants featured prominently in the party’s appeal (perhaps in part due to the low immigration rate in the 1990s) (OTH_IMMIGRANTS = 1).

In line with his nationalistic ideology, Mečiar’s opposition to the domestic political elite and ethnic minorities tied into a general claim that these enemies of the nation represented foreign powers, such that the true “elite” was elsewhere (Deegan-Krause 2012, 188; Deegan-Krause and Haughton 2009, 831). The Hungarian minority was thus linked to Hungarian meddling, as Roma were linked to the influence of the European Union (Deegan-Krause 2012, 186). The United States and the Czech Republic were also linked to domestic rivals in this way (Deegan-Krause 2012, 188) (OTH_FOREIGN = 3). We’ve seen no evidence of any OTH_MILITARY (= 1) or OTH_ECONOMIC (= 1) rhetoric.

HZDS’s ideology is generally considered nationalist, (Deegan-Krause 2012; Kim 2021, 224; Menzies 2004; Carpenter 1997), although it also contained a number of economically centrist, centre-left, or just “hazy” policy approaches that make the party difficult to categorise on the left-right spectrum (Haughton 2001, 763; Bútora and Bútorová 1993, 81). Throughout much of the 1990s it was considered “centrist” (Ferencei 2020, 168). Most sources claim that the party’s cultural nationalism was its most salient ideological element (Kim 2021, 224), and therefore we’ve coded it CR on LRPOSITION.

Mečiar has been considered a charismatic (Abrahám 1995, 89) and demagogic (Carpenter 1997, 212) figure, and many analysts have contended that the party’s appeal was meaningless but for its association with his personality (Haughton 2001, 748; 2003a, 269; Haughton and Rybář 2008, 242). Mečiar himself said “the strongest stream in the HZDS am I” (Van Duin and ková 2000, 342). According to Menzies,

The ideology of the movement was not sufficient to hold together a movement full of ambiguities and contradictions. From the very beginning, Vladimir Mečiar had been crucial in holding all these interests and beliefs together. That continued to be the case and so the HZDS must be seen as an example of a charismatic party (Menzies 2004, 65).

Structurally, while the party possessed a relatively robust party organisation (Deegan-Krause and Haughton 2009, 831), over time it came to be totally dominated by Mečiar (Deegan-Krause 2012, 195) (Haughton 2001, 754). As a consequence many in the literature have considered the party a “charismatic party” (Haughton 2001, 755) or at least a “leader-oriented political movement” (Ferencei 2020, 167) (CHARISMA = 3).

Owing to his time in government in the 1990s, Mečiar has been consistently considered as hostile to liberal democratic norms in Slovakia, with some analysts claiming that he “derailed” the transition to liberal democratic government altogether (Stanley 2011, 258), and embraced an “authoritarian” model (especially after 1994) (Kim 2021, 233). Regarding Slovakia’s democratic institutions, the HZDS government purged the state bureaucracy and intelligence services of non-allied employees (Bútora and Bútorová 1993, 81; Carpenter 1997, 215–16; Ferencei 2020, 168), kicked the opposition off powerful committees in parliament and other oversight institutions (Deegan-Krause 2012, 194; Żarna 2018, 105), called the Constitutional Court a “diseased element” (Ferencei 2020, 168), and sought to weaken the power of the president (Ferencei 2020, 168; Deegan-Krause 2012, 194). The government also curtailed the freedom of the press by shutting down opposition newspapers (Bútora and Bútorová 1993, 81; Abrahám 1995, 5), placing party members in charge of media regulation (Kim 2021, 233), and firing the political editor of a television broadcaster due to “biased coverage,” leading to the cancelling of all government-critical programming (Carpenter 1997, 215–16). Mečiar was also allegedly engaged in a plot to kidnap the son of president Michal Kováč’s (Carpenter 1997, 216; Haughton 2003b, 67). This is sufficient to code the party 3 on LIBDEMNORMS. Given that the party emerged out of the existing government within Slovakia (before the split with the Czech Republic), we’ve coded it 3 on INSIDER.

Slovak National Party

The Slovak National Party (Slovenská národná strana, SNS), was founded in 1990, at which point it was organised primarily around the demand for independence from the Czechoslovak union (Pytlas 2013, 168). It claimed successorship to the original SNS active between 1870 and 1938 (Walter 2017, 176). Though the party was regarded by some as an “extreme nationalist party” from its foundation in 1990 (see Żarna 2018, 74), others claim that under the leadership of Ľudovit Černák it espoused more of a “liberal conservative pragmatism” in its early years (Haughton, Rybář, and Deegan-Krause 2021, 331), and only turned to a radical ethno-nationalism and anti-establishment populism after the Velvet Divorce from Czechia and under the new leadership of Ján Slota from 1994 (Pytlas 2013, 168; Kevický 2022, 6). On the balance of evidence we’ve decided not to include the party in the dataset until its first election under Slota’s leadership in 1994. Under Slota the party polled 5.4% in the 1994 elections and gained 9 seats, forming a coalition government with HZDS and ZRS until 1998. The party split in 2002 when Anna Malikova took the leadership from Slota, who went on to found the Real Slovak National Party in protest (Haughton 2003b, 82). Both entities fared poorly and reunited under Slota’s leadership before the 2006 election, in which it won 11.7% and entered a coalition with Smer. It’s vote then declined and it failed to make the 5% threshold to enter Parliament in 2012, leading Slota to step down. His replacement Andrej Danko condemned Slota’s leadership and expelled him from the party (Rybář and Spáč 2017, 154), and made other changes to abandon radical nationalism and extremism (Školkay 2021, 11; Struhár 2016, 27) such that “the party may be considered a traditional right-wing party” from this point on (Karabová and Filipec 2018, 6). We have therefore not included the party in the dataset under Danko’s leadership.

Slota and the SNS engaged in “populist anti-establishment rhetoric” (Pytlas 2013, 168) against the Slovak political elite whom it accused of “extreme cosmopolitanism” (Żarna 2018, 111) and opposition to the Slovak nation (Ferencei 2020, 168). However, there is not a lot of discussion in the literature about the specifically anti-establishment elements of the party’s rhetoric, and Engler et al (Engler, Pytlas, and Deegan-Krause 2019, 1326) claim that the party’s anti-establishment rhetoric was notably lower than other populist parties in the region. More evidence would be useful here on the specific nature of the claims, but this does appear to be sufficient to code the party 2 for OTH_POLCLASS under Slota.

The principle framework of the SNS was ethnonationalism, which was targeted to appeal to ethnic Slovaks (Deegan-Krause and Haughton 2009, 829), and made “others” of both ethnic Hungarians and Roma (Haughton 2003b, 82; Haughton, Rybář, and Deegan-Krause 2021, 331; Lang 2005, 9). Its 2006 campaign slogan, for example, was “Let’s return Slovakia into the hands of Slovaks!” (Haughton and Rybář 2008, 241). It was initially the Hungarian minority whom the party focused on most, accusing it of national disloyalty (Stanley 2011, 258–59), comprising of a great evil (Deegan-Krause and Haughton 2009, 831), and seeing Slovakia as merely a Felvidék (“upperlands”) of the Hungarian state to which it should return (Pytlas 2013, 173). Slota said in 1994, for example that “the Hungarian [minority] political subjects should be outlawed because their true and direct objective is the destruction of the Slovak Republic as a state” (Carpenter 1997, 215). The party also targeted Roma as “parasites” underserving of social support (Ferencei 2020, 169) and alleged that the “Gypsy problem” (a pejorative term) could only be solved by extreme policies like confiscating children from “maladjusted parents” (Struhár 2016, 27), or, in more violent terms, with “long whip and a small yard” (Haughton 2001, 753). This is clearly deserving of a 3 on OTH_ETHNIC. Throughout the 1990s immigration was not on the party’s radar at all, but this changed as the party developed an anti-immigration stance after about 2005 (Stefancik, Némethová, and Seresová 2021, 732) (OTH_IMMIGRANTS = 1 1994-1998, 3 2006-2012).

Slota and the SNS exuded OTH_FOREIGN rhetoric, primarily against neighbouring Hungary but also against NATO (Evans and Whitefield 1998, 121; Żarna 2018, 111). However as this did not rise to the level of alleging that the political elite was wholly controlled by foreign powers (although it did think this about the ethnic Hungarian parties in Slovakia), we’ve coded it 2 on OTH_FOREIGN. We’ve seen no evidence for anything on the OTH_ECONOMIC or OTH_MILITARY variables (= 1).

The party is considered “far-right” by most scholars (Struhár 2016, 27; Stojarová 2018, 38), and ideologically nationalist and conservative (Sekerák 2019, 237). In its economic policy it has been considered either centrist (Hloušek and Kopeček 2008, 543–44) or right of centre (Pinterič and Žúborová 2014, 360), and at the time of its foundation it advocated for pro-market reforms (Barański 2020, 38). However its economic policies were “not important parts of the party’s platform” (Hloušek and Kopeček 2008, 543–44), and on the basis of its evident ethno-nationalism we’ve coded it FR. While the SNS had a highly leader-centric structure and communication strategy (Haughton, Rybář, and Deegan-Krause 2021, 334), and was clearly attached to Slota’s “boorish behaviour” under his leadership (Haughton, Rybář, and Deegan-Krause 2021, 331; Učeň and Gyárfášová 2021, 289), it also had a relatively strong base that evidently withstood a number of leadership changes since its creation (Rybář and Spáč 2020, 643–44). We’ve therefore coded it 2 on CHARISMA.

The SNS is somewhat difficult to define on the subject of liberal democratic norms. The best reason to code it above 1 on this register is its occasional celebration of the fascist World War II era Sovak President Jozef Tiso (Slota proposed a commemorative plaque to Tiso in 2000, Haughton 2001, 752). Aside from that, Slota has used violent language in his solutions to Roma related problems (see above) (Haughton 2001, 753). On more philosophical grounds, Abrahám claims that the SNS was hostile to the principle of individual human rights (Abrahám 1995, 98). While this is grounds to elevate the party beyond 1, we’ve not seen a lot of evidence of other violations of liberal democratic norms such as actual practices of violence or hostility to electoral or judicial democratic institutions that would put it on per with other parties coded 3, and hence we’ve coded the SNS 2 on LIBDEMNORMS for its time in the dataset. Due to the SNS’s role in the coalition government after the 1994 election, we’ve coded it 2 on INSIDER from 1998 onward.

The Slovak Workers’ Association

The Slovak Workers’ Association (Združenie robotníkov Slovenska, ZRS) was a left-wing party created by a former Party of the Democratic Left (SDL) MP Ján Ľupták. Ľupták formed the ZRS (first as a civic organisation in 1992 and then as a party in 1994) due to his frustration with the SDL’s failure to represent the interests of working people (Haughton 2004, 186). The party took an impressive 7.3% in the 1994 elections, where it campaigned as an “unpredictable” protest party (Abrahám 1995, 89). After that election it became a coalition partner of the HZDS and SNS in government until 1998. Voters abandoned the party in droves after this, in part due to the fact that Ľupták had promised not to join any government (Wightman and Szomolänyi 1995, 613), and it won only 1.3% in 1998. According to a number of sources, the party’s time in government dampened its anti-establishment themes (Spáč 2012, 244; Stanley 2017), and it “lost its distinctive voice and its ability to express anti-elite grievances” (Deegan-Krause and Haughton 2009, 830).

Appealing to the losers of Slovakia’s transition to a market system (Żarna 2018, 105), Ľupták and the ZRS crafted broad critique of the entirety of the political class (Deegan-Krause 2007, 6), which it accused of pursuing its own interests at the expense of ordinary people (Stanley 2017). Corruption allegations against the political establishment focused specifically on the sale of state assets (Abrahám 1995, 90; Ferencei 2020, 170). In Spáč’s words:

It defined itself as a politically and morally clean party with the goal of unifying the broader segments of society. The existing establishment was accused by the party of being egoistical and placing its own goals above general national and civic interest… From the beginning Ľupták’s party positioned itself to exploit the tension between society and the elites, with society being seen as morally good, the elites as a stratum that had betrayed its trust. (Spáč 2012, 243)

Ľupták articulated this “anti-establishment” (Školkay and Žúborová 2019, 7) politics in a “demagogic” style (Żarna 2018, 105), at one point demanding the “resignation of all deputies who have publicly humiliated workers” (Ulč 1996, 348). On this evidence we’ve coded the party 3 on OTH_POLCLASS. Aside from the political class, the ZRS focused attacks on the emerging economic elite that benefited from state privatisations (Nemčok and Spáč 2019, 767; Abrahám 1995, 90). According to Ulč, Ľupták was “an advocate of class hatred” who claimed that he could “respect only those people who built a house with their own hands” (Ulč 1996, 348) (OTH_ECONOMIC = 3). He was also critical of NATO, the EU and IMF (Bútora 1994, 53), and alleged that the west would convert Slovakia into its colony (Ulč 1996, 348). However we’ve not seen evidence that this related in any way to the party’s domestic rivals, so we’ve labelled it 2 on OTH_FOREIGN.

The literature considers the party “extreme left” (Wightman and Szomolänyi 1995, 612), “far left” (Nemčok and Spáč 2019, 760), “radical left” (Hloušek and Kopeček 2008, 537; Stanley 2017) “ultra leftist” (Ulč 1996, 348), or variations, owing to its clear opposition to market reforms and privatisations (Nemčok and Spáč 2019, 761). We see no reason to dispute this, and have coded it FL on LRPOSITION. The party had a strong membership and ideological base, but was clearly centralised around Ľupták in both organisation and image (Spáč 2012, 240). Some scholars attribute a portion of the party’s 1994 success to Ľupták personal popularity (Haughton 2004, 186) (CHARISMA = 3). The closest evidence we’ve found of violations of liberal democratic norms are Ľupták’s general criticisms of journalists (Carpenter 1997, 215), but this is insufficient to be coded above 1 on LIBDEMNORMS. Ľupták did not serve in government before 1994 (INSIDER = 1).

Smer-SD

Smer (meaning “direction”) was created by former SDL MP Robert Fico soon after the 1998 election (Spáč and Havlík 2015, 5). It placed third in 2002 and continually increased its vote in successive elections, forming a coalition government with the smaller HZDS and SNS in 2006, before going back into opposition in 2010, and returning to government outright in 2012. From 2006 onward, the party added the words “Social Democracy” to its name (“Smer-SD”). After dominating Slovak politics for over a decade, Fico was forced to resign in 2018 in the wake of mass protests following the death of a journalist who had uncovered corruption in his government (Weyland 2022, 26). After an initial non-ideological stance, by 2006 the party adopted a clear left-wing position and focused on socioeconomic issues in critique of the Dzurinda government’s liberal reforms (Hloušek and Kopeček 2008, 539), after which it moved into a more ethno-centric nationalism while in government. Smer’s vote declined to 18% in the 2020 election under Fico’s successor Peter Pellegrini. Smer supported the candidacy of incumbent President Ivan Gašparovič in the 2009 presidential election. However Gašparovič was an independent, and never belonged to Smer, hence we have not included that election in the dataset. Fico ran as Smer’s candidate in the following 2014 election, which we have included. He lost in the second round to independent Anrej Kiska with 40.6%.

There is no doubt that Fico and Smer were populist actors in the 2002 election, where they were “an avowedly anti-elite force” (Stanley 2011, 260), exercising “vitriolic personal attacks” on the incumbent government and established parties (Haughton 2003b, 78; Spáč 2012, 236–37). This campaign considered the political elite to be fundamental estranged from ordinary people, the latter having been “abandoned and mistreated by the elite” (Stanley 2017). In Kim’s words “In his creation of the ‘politicians’ as an antagonist, he merged the current and former governments ‘part of the same corrupt power bloc that has alternated in government and failed’” (Kim 2021, 241). As this implies, Fico did not consider differences within the elite to be any more than superficial, as all politicians were equally corrupt (Učeň 2007, 55; Deegan-Krause and Haughton 2009, 830). He also considered this elite to be fundamentally self-serving, deliberately placing their own interests before those of the ordinary people (Učeň 2004, 55; Kim 2021, 240; Spáč and Havlík 2015, 6). This was well-captured by the party’s iconic slogan from 2012: “as they stole under Mečiar, so they steal under Dzurinda” (Spáč 2012, 245). However the party is somewhat more difficult to classify from the 2006 election onward. Aside from its ideological shift toward the left (see below), several sources claim that Fico and Smer toned down personal attacks in the 2006 campaign (Haughton and Rybář 2008, 240), and even departed from a populist tone altogether (Stanley 2017, 247), especially after it was in power from 2006 (Spáč and Havlík 2015, 8; Školkay 2021, 7; Frič and Gyárfášová 2019, 237). However many of these claims appear to be linked to the fact that Smer moved its ideological profile from a “pure” populist force to a social-democratic one by 2006 (which doesn’t disqualify or alter their anti-political class populism by our definition), and other sources claim that Fico maintained a populist discursive stance after Smer’s post-2002 shift (Učeň, Gyárfášová, and Krivý 2005, 44), and continued to do so while in government (Deegan-Krause 2012, 197; Školkay 2021, 7). For these reasons we’ve coded SMER 3 on OTH_POLCLASS in 2002 but reduced this to 2 from 2006 onward.

Fico and Smer have repeatedly supplemented their anti-elite populist with a kind of “light” ethnonationalism (Stojarová 2018, 38) against minorities and immigrants. The targeting of ethnic Hungarians and Roma was present in 2002 (Haughton 2003b, 77; Mesežnikov 2008, 10; Rybář and Spáč 2017, 154). In 2001 Fico alleged that the incumbent Dzurinda government “assists Hungarians in their step-by-step coordinated endeavor aimed at strengthening their position in Southern Slovakia from the inside as well as from the outside” (Mesežnikov 2008, 20). He has also criticised the “irresponsible growth irresponsible growth of the Roma population” (Spáč and Havlík 2015, 6). Unlike the SNS, these appear to be “forays” into ethno-centric rhetoric rather than core pillars (Haughton 2003b, 77), and hence we’ve coded the party 2 on OTH_ETHNIC. In the context of the 2015 refugee crisis, anti-immigration rhetoric – specifically he labelling of migrants as an economically motivated security threat – “dominated” Smer’s 2016 campaign (Rybář and Spáč 2017, 154; see also Gyárfášová and Hlatky 2023, 4). We’ve therefore coded Smer 3 on OTH_IMMIGRANT from 2016 onward. Given that Fico’s anti-Hungarian rhetoric was targeted at both the ethnic Hungarians living in Slovakia and the Hungarian state (Mesežnikov 2008), we’ve coded Smer 2 on OTH_FOREIGN. Interestingly, though the party adopted a left leaning economic policy alongside its anti-elite populism from 2006, we’ve not seen any evidence that economic elites or businesses were targeted as “others” of the ordinary people in Smer’s populist rhetoric. In fact, according to Učeň (Učeň 2007, 56) Fico expressed an admiration for private sector management, which he advocated for the state (OTH_ECONOMIC = 1). We have also found no reference to the military (OTH_MILITARY = 1).

Smer’s ideological profile has been the subject of much discussion in the literature. At its formation Fico positioned the party in a post-ideological “third way” space that espoused “common sense” over the ideologies of other parties (Kim 2021, 240–41; Spáč and Havlík 2015, 2; Gyárfášová and Hlatky 2023, 4). Smer however is and always was a somewhat nationalist party (Walter 2017, 176; Mesežnikov 2008; Gyárfášová 2008), and one with a streak of conservative stances on social and cultural issues (Gyárfášová and Hlatky 2023, 4). On the balance of evidence it doesn’t appear that these are quite salient enough to consider it a fundamentally right leaning party, and hence the vast majority of the literature considers Smer to be left-wing from 2006 onward (Stojarová 2018, 38; Hloušek and Kopeček 2008, 543; Gyárfášová and Hlatky 2023, 4). From the available evidence it seems that its’ socio-economic policy was relatively mild (see Lang 2005, 11; Učeň 2007, 58), and hence we’ve coded it CL on LRPOSITION from 2006 onward, and C in 2002.

The literature clearly sees Fico as a dominant figure in the public images and internal organisation of Smer (Gyárfášová and Hlatky 2023, 4; Deegan-Krause and Haughton 2009, 831; Gyárfášová and Hlatky 2023, 4; Haughton 2003b, 77; Haughton, Novotná, and Deegan-Krause 2011, 397; Marušiak 2017, 185). In the words of Spáč and Havlík, “The party was created as a sole act of its founder Robert Fico what was reflected in its internal framework and processes. The original ‘structure’ of SMER consisted only of chairman, general manager and a central executive committee, however overshadowed by the party leader” (Spáč and Havlík 2015, 8) (CHARISMA = 3 2002-2016). This is more difficult to assess under Pellegrini during the 2020 election, given that Fico remained the party leader while Pellegrini was Prime Minister (Marušiak 2021). Even with this shift, Fico played a “supportive role” (Haughton, Rybář, and Deegan-Krause 2022, 742), and we’ve considered it hard to code the party as either 1 or 3 on CHARISMA in 2020 for this reason (= 2).

There are a number of reasons to claim that Fico and Smer threatened liberal democratic norms in Slovakia, including their attacks on the judiciary and open hostility to the media government (Stanley 2011, 259–60). However, in Deegan-Krause’s words,

Fico’s populism did not coincide with a significant erosion of democracy. It is true that the Fico government interfered with the independence of the judiciary, imposed restrictions on the use of the Hungarian language, and exhibited significant corruption. But unlike Mečiar Fico did not pose a fundamental threat to Slovakia’s basic democratic institutions (Deegan-Krause 2012, 197)

On this evidence we’ve coded Smer 2 on LIBDEMNORMS for its duration in the dataset. We’ve also coded it 3 on INSIDER from 2010 on, after Fico’s first stint as Prime Minister 2009-2010 (note that Pellegrini was incumbent Prime Minister in 2020).

People’s Party - Our Slovakia

People’s Party – Our Slovakia (Ľudová Strana Naše Slovensko, ĽSNS) formed as a political party in 2010 under the leadership of Marian Kotleba, a far right activist with a history of membership in neo-Nazi movements (Harris 2019, 540). The party made a breakthrough in 2016 on the back of the 2015 migrant crisis (Kazharski and Makarychev 2020, 177), when its vote escalated to 8% and it won 14 seats in parliament. It maintained this level of support in 2020, though soon afterward Kotleba was convicted of extremism and the party fell into disarray (Kevický 2022, 7).

The ĽSNS has consistently represented the political elite as a corrupt “system” distinct from the “decent people” (Kazharski and Makarychev 2020, 180; see also Mihálik 2017; Struhár 2016, 28; Harris 2019, 541; Cirner and Dudinská 2020, 185), and on this basis it has frequently been considered anti-establishment (Engler, Pytlas, and Deegan-Krause 2019, 1323) and anti-elitist (Just 2022, 163) in the literature. Its central campaign slogan in 2016, for example was “With Courage Against the System” (Filipec 2017, 24). The party considered the political elite to be essentially homogenous (Drábik 2022, 426) and to have “betrayed” the people (Stefancik, Némethová, and Seresová 2021, 739; Mihálik 2017, 13), by deliberately serving its own interests at the expense of the people (Řádek 2019, 47). Its campaigns claimed therefore that it was “trying to prevent further theft of Slovakia by politicians and parasites” (Řádek 2019, 48) (OTH_POLCLASS = 3).

ĽSNS was a fundamentally ethnonationalist party (Kim 2021, 223) that viewed the people and their “others” in largely racial and ethnic terms (Kazharski and Makarychev 2020, 180; Filipec 2017, 25). Its original target for this rhetoric were Roma (Drábik 2022, 422; Kazharski 2019, 1), whom the party called “social parasites” (Struhár 2016, 28) and practitioners of “Gypsy extremism” (Kazharski 2019, 1), who should be subjected to “discipline” (Škobla and Filčák 2020, 786–87) or even “cleansing” (Buzalka 2021, 1669). The party has also consistently espoused anti-Semitism (Just 2022, 163; Harris 2019, 542; Kazharski 2019, 7), and since the migrant crisis it has developed discourse harshly critical of “inhuman” Islam (Kevický 2022, 7), and “violent Africans, Turks and Asians” (Stefancik, Némethová, and Seresová 2021, 738) (OTH_ETHNIC = 3). ĽSNS has discussed the threat of immigration as “occupation” (Filipec 2017, 25), or potentially “national suicide” (Stojarová 2018, 36). One campaign document said that “Europe is inundated by an invasion of dangerous immigrants from Africa and Asia. They attack, rob, rape and murder the indigenous people of European countries every day” (Drábik 2022, 426) (OTH_IMMIGRANT = 3).

Alongside its ethno-nationalism, ĽSNS considered economic elites inside and outside of the country to be an enemy of the people (Filipec 2017, 24; Buzalka 2021, 1669). The party’s campaign discourse repeatedly considered “oligarch’s” as a part of the “system” (Kazharski 2019, 8) who had “stolen” businesses in the privatisation process (Řádek 2019, 49). For example, one billboard stated “We will take from the oligarchs and mafia and give to mothers, fathers, and pensioners!” (Buzalka 2021, 1671). Though perhaps not as salient as the party’s opposition to ethnic others and immigrants, this appears to be strong enough to code the party 3 on OTH_ECONOMIC. Another aspect of the party’s populism is its opposition to the foreign influence of the West (Mesežnikov and Gyárfášová 2018, 85), whom it accuses of attempting to control and subordinate Slovakia. It has called NATO a terrorist organisation (Řádek 2019, 48) and a “criminal pact” (Filipec 2017, 24–25), and considered Slovakia’s membership in the EU akin to colonisation (Kazharski 2019, 8) due to the latter’s plan to “destroy us not only economically but also socially” (Stefancik, Némethová, and Seresová 2021, 739; see also Kazharski 2019, 8; Buzalka 2021, 1671). It also considered the political class to be controlled by outside forces such as Zionists and international financiers, who insert multiculturalism as part of a plot to replace nation states with a single world government (see Kazharski 2019, 7–8; Řádek 2019, 48) (OTH_FOREIGN = 3). We’ve seen no evidence of OTH_MILITARY discourse (= 1).

Owing to the salience of ethno-nationalism in its ideological outlook, ĽSNS has been universally classed as a “far right” (Stojarová 2018, 38), or “neo-fascist” (Haughton, Rybář, and Deegan-Krause 2021, 331; Cirner and Dudinská 2020; Gyárfášová and Hlatky 2023, 4; Frič and Gyárfášová 2019, 238), and “neo-Nazi” (Drábik 2022, 417) party. While its economic program was clearly redistributionist, these or any other conventional policy issues were barely mentioned in its campaign materials (Drábik 2022, 424) (LRPOSITION = FR). There is relatively little written about the position of Kotleba in the party, but he has clearly played a dominant role it its functioning and representation (Gyárfášová and Hlatky 2023, 4). The party also added the name “Kotleba” to its official title in 2015 to indicate this. While there is a case that the ĽSNS’s populism is less leader-centric than other parties, given Kotleba’s position in and control of the party we’ve coded it 3 on CHARISMA.

According to numerous analysts, in words and actions ĽSNS has mounted a “denial of the fundamental principles and values of liberal democracy” (Frič and Gyárfášová 2019, 238; see also Kazharski 2019, 2; Harris 2019, 538). The most notorious examples of this are the party’s use of uniformed “security patrols” on trains (Harris 2019, 542; Kazharski and Makarychev 2020, 179), protecting, in its words, “decent” people from “Gypsy extremists” (Struhár 2016, 28). According to Kazharski and Makarychev, these guards deliberately wore uniforms similar to those of the nationalist militia active in Slovakia during the fascist wartime regime of Josef Tiso (Kazharski and Makarychev 2020, 179). The party has also pledged its affinity to the Tiso regime by parroting its slogans (Harris 2019, 538) (LIBDEMNORMS = 3). As the party has never been a member of a governing coalition, we’ve coded it 1 on INSIDER.

We Are Family

We Are Family (Sme Rodina, SR) was created by Boris Kollár, a controversial businessman with a “tabloid celebrity profile” in 2015 (Frič and Gyárfášová 2019, 238). It won 6.6% of the vote in the subsequent 2016 elections, which increased to 8.24 in 2020. Kollár and SR maintained an anti-establishment (Rybář and Spáč 2017, 155) and anti-elite narrative that emphasised the untrustworthiness of the political system (Mihálik 2017, 17), which he accused of endemic corruption (Školkay and Žúborová 2019, 8; Stojarová 2018, 38). SR conceived of politicians as a distinct and unified class who stood against the ordinary people’s interests, as is well-captured in its most memorable slogan form 2016: “I don’t vote for politicians, I vote for Boris” (Marušiak 2017, 193) (OTH_POLCLASS = 3).

Aside from its antagonism to the political elite, SR’s main campaign issue was its opposition to immigrants (Školkay and Žúborová 2019, 8), particularly Muslims, whom the party considered a danger to “our culture, religion and freedom, including our homes and families” (Mihálik 2017, 14; Marušiak 2017, 193). We have therefore coded it 3 for both OTH_ETHNIC and OTH_IMMIGRANT. SR was also strongly opposed to the European Union (Stojarová 2018, 38), which Kollár called “Euro-rubbish” and the “Brussels elite” (Školkay and Žúborová 2019, 13–15). While this foreign “other” was clearly an enemy of the people in SR’s rhetoric, it does not seem to be the case that it was considered to control the domestic elite (OTH_FOREIGN = 2). Despite Kollár’s own history as a businessperson, he and SR campaigned against financial interests and “oligarchs” influencing the political system (Mihálik 2017, 14; Stojarová 2018, 38). In one video he accused the political elite of “sponsoring grand capital with cheap labour” (Školkay and Žúborová 2019, 16). We’ve therefore coded SR 3 on OTH_ECONOMIC. We’ve seen no evidence of any opposition to the military (OTH_MILITARY = 1).

SR is somewhat difficult to define ideologically (Frič and Gyárfášová 2019, 238). On face value, it campaigned without any clear ideology (Mihálik 2017, 13), and Kollár frequently emphasised his aversion to any ideological label (Marušiak 2017, 193). The policies of the party are somewhat eclectic (Školkay and Žúborová 2019, 13). On the one hand its opposition to oligarchs and embrace of support for low-income people (Rybář and Spáč 2017, 155; Engler, Pytlas, and Deegan-Krause 2019, 1324) suggest a left-leaning position. On the other, the party is more frequently associated with the right owing to the centrality of its anti-immigrant nativism (Kim 2021, 223), its social conservativism (Marušiak 2017, 193; Gyárfášová and Hlatky 2023, 4), and its national conservativism (Just 2022, 167). Owing to the perceived salience of the latter issues in its campaigns we’ve coded it R on LRPOSITION, but this could be revisited.

SR was built around Kollár’s image, to the extent that it has been classed as an “entrepreneurial” party (Frič and Gyárfášová 2019, 238), and an “electoral vehicle” for its leader (Gyárfášová and Hlatky 2023, 4). The literature suggests that the party depended totally on Kollár’s charisma (Marušiak 2017, 193; Učeň and Gyárfášová 2021, 290; Školkay and Žúborová 2019, 8) (CHARISMA = 3). The literature does not suggest that SR threatened liberal democratic norms in Slovakia (Školkay and Žúborová 2019, 16) (LIBDEMNORMS = 1), and Kollár had not featured in government prior to the 2016 or 2020 elections (INSIDER = 1).

Ordinary People and Independent Personalities

Ordinary People and Independent Personalities (Obyčajní ľudia a nezávislé osobnosti, OĽaNO) started off as civic association founded by media mogul Igor Matovič that entered parliament in 2010 as a faction of the Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party (which we do not consider populist – see below). The group soon fell out with the SaS leadership (which was part of the governing coalition) and registered as an independent political party in late 2011. In the next two elections (2012 & 2016) OĽaNO polled third place with 8.6% and 11% respectively. As Matovič built a reputation as a flamboyant and effective anti-corruption campaigner (Kazharski and Makarychev 2020, 183), OĽaNO benefited most from the decline of Fico and Smer from 2018. In the 2020 election its vote rose to 25%, and Matovič became Prime Minister in a coalition government with three smaller parties.

OĽaNO is frequently described as an “anti-establishment” party (Rybář and Spáč 2017, 153; Engler, Pytlas, and Deegan-Krause 2019, 1322; Kohutova and Horvat 2018, 21; Marušiak 2017, 192) and a “protest movement” (Buzalka 2021, 1664; Školkay 2021, 12) with an “anti-party” character (Kim 2021, 223; Rybář and Spáč 2020, 646; Hloušek, Kopeček, and Vodová 2020, 103). The driving force behind its anti-establishment narrative was its anti-corruption motif, which took the place of any binding ideological agenda (Kazharski and Makarychev 2020, 182; Stojarová 2018, 37). In contrast to the “evil” ways of its established rivals (Hloušek, Kopeček, and Vodová 2020, 104), OĽaNO has, according to Gyárfášová and Hlatky, “dedicated itself to being perceived as a direct antithesis to political parties and establishment politics” (Gyárfášová and Hlatky 2023, 4). A key element of this has been Matovič’s elaborate and performative style (Kazharski and Makarychev 2020, 181), which have involved numerous publicity seeking stunts and crude language (Haughton, Rybář, and Deegan-Krause 2022, 737). For example, he once emptied a bag of fake banknotes in parliament to protest alleged corruption (Kazharski and Makarychev 2020, 183). Built into this anti-establishment narrative was the assertion that politicians were essentially a homogenous class opposed pitted against ordinary people (Engler, Pytlas, and Deegan-Krause 2019, 1323–24), and one whose main crime was being “thieves” (Kohutova and Horvat 2018, 15): in one of its manifestos, for example, it pledged that “property stolen by politicians we will return to the people” (Haughton, Rybář, and Deegan-Krause 2022, 739; see also Viera 2015, 105). This is clearly enough evidence to code the party 3 on OTH_POLCLASS.

Beyond its hostility toward the political class, OĽaNO did not exibit much rhetorical opposition to many other “Other” groups (Školkay 2021, 12). Matovič presented policies aimed at integration of Roma and criticised the media for stereotypes in coverage of Roma issues (Kohutova and Horvat 2018, 21). He also made a point of reminding voters that one of OĽaNO’s candidates was a Roma, and criticised the “fascism” of the ĽSNS (Hloušek, Kopeček, and Vodová 2020, 108). We’ve seen no evidence of other ethnocentric “othering” (OTH_ETHNIC = 1). The party also did not engage in the anti-migrant politics of the 2015 crisis, and were generally open to integrating migrants into society (Kohutova and Horvat 2018, 19) (OTH_IMMIGRANTS = 1). Matovič considered Russia to be the primary external threat to Slovakia (Kohutova and Horvat 2018, 21), but not to the degree that would be considered on the OTH_FOREIGN scale (= 1). We’ve also seen no evidence for OTH_MILITARY (= 1). One exception here is economic elites, given that Matovič repeatedly claimed that Slovakia had degenerated into an “oligarchic state” (Učeň and Gyárfášová 2021, 293), and contrasted OĽaNO to other parties due to the fact that “no oligarch’s stand behind us” (Učeň and Gyárfášová 2021, 293). This however doesn’t appear to have been as salient a part of the party’s rhetoric as its opposition to political elites, and we’ve coded OĽaNO 2 for OTH_ECONOMIC.

The initial literature on OĽaNO universally considers it to be a non-ideological party (Rybář and Spáč 2020, 651; Kohutova and Horvat 2018, 14), and lacking in any clear policy agenda or program (Mihálik 2017, 13; Stojarová 2018, 37; Engler, Pytlas, and Deegan-Krause 2019, 1322). More recent sources claim that OĽaNO was “conservative” (Kim 2021, 223), this appears to relate more to the recruitment of Christian and nationalist MPs into its ranks before the 2020 election (Buzalka 2021, 1658). These however appear to be factions among others (Just 2022, 167), and there appears to be nothing in Matovič’s or OĽaNO’s own stances that are notably right of centre, and hence we’ve coded it C on LRPOSITION.

All sources on OĽaNO state that Matovič’s image dominated the party’s brand. Specifically, his “unconventional” (Gyárfášová and Hlatky 2023, 4) “unrestrained” (Kazharski and Makarychev 2020, 182), and “demagogic” (Buzalka 2021, 1664) behaviour personified the party’s image. In Hloušek, Kopeček, and Vodová’s words: “Matovič displayed an attractive style of performance based on emotion and provocation. This political entrepreneur offered no technocratic-managerial vision, but a radical, uninhibited political performance” (Hloušek, Kopeček, and Vodová 2020, 101). Structurally, the party has had no real membership base of organisation beneath Matovič (Školkay 2021, 13), and it has been called an “owner party” (Marušiak 2017, 193), a “personalist” party (Weyland 2022, 37), and a “one man show” (Hloušek, Kopeček, and Vodová 2020). This means that Matovič has been unrivalled within the party for leadership (Rybář and Spáč 2020, 646). (CHARISMA = 3).

We’ve seen no evidence that OĽaNO as violated liberal democratic norms (on the contrary, OĽaNO made point of distancing itself from anti-democratic nature of more extreme populist parties, see: Kohutova and Horvat 2018, 23) (LIBDEMNORMS = 1). Given that Matovič and was briefly a member of the governing coalition 2010-12, we’ve coded OĽaNO 2 on INSIDER for each subsequent election.

Not Included

The Party of Civic Understanding (Strana občianskeho porozumenia, SOP) emerged before the 1998 elections under the leadership of Rudolf Schuster. It also offered a broad critique of the political class (Stanley 2017, 149), due to which it has been considered populist in some of the literature (Učeň 2004, 52; Spáč 2012, 17). However its main criticism of the elite was less about moral failures and more about its inability to work together (Marušiak 2017, 184), and it based its campaigns on the proposition of a “national understanding” to bring all parties together (Učeň, Gyárfášová, and Krivý 2005, 32). Any element of anti-elite populism was also lost after it joined the coalition government in 1998 (Deegan-Krause and Haughton 2009, 830–31). On the available evidence we’ve not considered SOP populist by our definition. New Citizens Alliance (ANO) was a personal vehicle of powerful media mogul Pavol Rusko, who launched the party to advocate for liberalisation of the economy before the 2002 elections. ANO has occasionally been considered among populist parties in Slovakia (Učeň 2004, 59–60), owing to what seems to have been a present but quite mild opposition to the political elite (Spáč 2012, 237 (Spáč 2012, 237; Stanley 2017, 149), and its allegation of improper links between politicians and economic elites (Učeň, Gyárfášová, and Krivý 2005, 36). However other scholars have questioned its degree of populism (Kim 2021, 244; Školkay 2021, 11), and according to most literature that we’ve seen there is not quite enough rhetoric in line with our definition to warrant its including in the dataset. For example, according to Učeň, ANO “focused on criticizing incompetence rather than chastising the elite for its moral failings” (Učeň 2004, 59–60). Freedom and Solidarity (Sloboda a Solidarita, SaS) was a sort lived anti-immigrant and anti-EU party led by Richard Sulík that has also been included in the broad discussions of Slovak populism. There are some sources that claim SaS practiced an “anti-establishment rhetoric” (Marušiak 2017, 191), but this is not consistent enough in the literature to consider them populist by our standards.

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