Publication details
Euro-scepticism and Populism in the Czech Republic
| Authors | |
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| Year of publication | 2015 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
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| Description | Since joining the EU in 2004, the Czech Republic has belonged among its most Eurosceptical member states. At the party level, this reputation was for a long time secured particularly due to Eurosceptical opinions of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) and the Communist Party (KSCM). Both parties have been relevant actors in the Czech party system since 1993 and their Euro-scepticism (either the soft version in the case of ODS or the hard Euro-scepticism of KSCM) has been dominantly driven by parties` ideologies. Therefore, populism neither was for a long time important source of Czech Euro-scepticism, nor presented influential factor in party system as such. However, since 2010 parliamentary election, things have started to change. The electoral success of Public Affairs (VV) in the 2010 election and the rise of ANO 2011 and Dawn of Direct Democracy in the 2013 election has introduced populism as a relevant phenomenon in the Czech party landscape and in the case of the Dawn also in the Czech Euro-scepticism. The aim of the paper is to identify and evaluate mutual relation between Euro-scepticism and populism in the Czech Republic. Based both on quantitative and qualitative content analysis of parties` manifestoes and other parties` materials, we will thus focus on two questions - first, how is Euro-scepticism important for new Czech populists (VV, ANO, the Dawn) and second, how relevant (and if) populism has been for Czech traditional Euro-sceptics (KSCM, ODS). |
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