Abstract
ABSTRACT This paper draws on Laclau’s theory of discourse, hegemony, and populism to analyse competing forms of populism in the Czech Republic within the discursive context of ‘post-November transformation’ as well as in relation to hegemonic struggles over the construction of social order. It is argued that the discourses of Public Affairs (VV), ANO, Dawn of Direct Democracy, and Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) all feature a populist opposition between the ‘people’ or ‘citizens’ on the one hand and ‘political dinosaurs’, (‘traditional’) ‘parties’, or ‘godfather party mafias’ of both ‘left’ and ‘right’ on the other, while also radicalizing in different ways the exclusionary constructions of ‘work’ in the established discourses of the Civic Democrats (ODS) and Social Democrats (ČSSD). While ANO constructs ‘hard work’ in a populist manner against the (‘traditional’) ‘parties’, VV and Dawn/SPD articulate an exclusion of non-working ‘unadaptables’ that points to a notable interplay of hyper-neoliberal welfare chauvinism and anti-minorities illiberalism.
Highlights
Following weeks of post-election uncertainty, the successful formation of a minority coalition government of Andrej Babiš’s ANO and the Social Democrats (ČSSD) with external support from the Communist Party (KSČM) in 2018 marked the culmination of at least three notable developments in Czech party politics: 1) the rise of ANO to the status of main governing party within seven years of its founding; 2) the confirmed unwillingness of ANO to govern with its far-right populist competitor, Tomio Okamura’s Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD), in a ‘populist coalition’; and 3) the inclusion of the Communists in a governing arrangement for the first time since 1990, suggesting a dislocation in the rules of the game that had long defined party politics in the ‘post-November’ period
The Czech case is notable not least for the early salience of a strongly neo-liberal transformation project that -PM Václav Klaus famously summarized as ‘market economy without adjectives’ as well as a largely differential and non-antagonistic context of left/right competition, as exemplified in the 1990s Opposition Agreements. It is in the context of dislocations in this hegemonic stability that populist challenges subsequently emerge in the form of Public Affairs (VV), ANO, and Dawn of Direct Democracy as well as its offshoot Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD), all of which interpellate the ‘people’ or ‘citizens’ against a power bloc of established forces of both ‘left’ and ‘right’. These populist discourses are notable for the selective reproduction and radicalization of hegemonic effects from the established discursive context, most notably the exclusionary constructions of ‘work’ that pervade the discourses of both the Civic Democrats (ODS) and Social Democrats (ČSSD) throughout the 1990s and early 2000s
While ANO articulates notions of entrepreneurship and ‘hard work’ in the populist terms of ‘people’ against the ‘politicians’, the discourses of VV and Dawn/SPD radicalize the exclusionary construction of ‘work’ in opposition to ‘unadaptables’ and ‘scroungers’ who supposedly live off the work of others, combining a populism directed against established forces with a hyper-neoliberal welfare chauvinism that associates the category of ‘unadaptables’ with entire minorities such as the Roma and ‘immigrants’ and dovetails with an anti-minorities illiberalism, all the way up to SPD’s demand for a ban on Islam in the Czech Republic in the name of ‘freedom’ – closely resembling what has been described as a ‘neoconservative’ position (Vossen, 2011) in the case of the Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV)
Summary
Following weeks of post-election uncertainty, the successful formation of a minority coalition government of Andrej Babiš’s ANO and the Social Democrats (ČSSD) with external support from the Communist Party (KSČM) in 2018 marked the culmination of at least three notable developments in Czech party politics: 1) the rise of ANO to the status of main governing party within seven years of its founding; 2) the confirmed unwillingness of ANO to govern with its far-right populist competitor, Tomio Okamura’s Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD), in a ‘populist coalition’; and 3) the inclusion of the Communists in a governing arrangement for the first time since 1990, suggesting a dislocation in the rules of the game that had long defined party politics in the ‘post-November’ period. The Czech case is notable not least for the early salience of a strongly neo-liberal transformation project that -PM Václav Klaus famously summarized as ‘market economy without adjectives’ as well as a largely differential and non-antagonistic context of left/right competition, as exemplified in the 1990s Opposition Agreements It is in the context of dislocations in this hegemonic stability that populist challenges subsequently emerge in the form of Public Affairs (VV), ANO, and Dawn of Direct Democracy as well as its offshoot Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD), all of which interpellate the ‘people’ or ‘citizens’ against a power bloc of established forces of both ‘left’ and ‘right’. The radicalizing dynamic in SPD’s discourse can be seen vis-à-vis earlier neo-liberal discourses, and in relation to the populist constructions in the competing discourse of ANO
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