Village Fascists and Progressive Populists: Two Faces of the Countermovement in Slovakia

Abstract

The introduction of liberal reforms in Slovakia has generated countermovements that build upon nostalgia for state socialism. This essay shows how countermovement emotions can be successfully employed by both reactionary and liberal leaders, provided that they accurately respond to voters’ concerns by mitigating the economic ideology of the free market and reflecting voters’ preferred ways of life. It argues that recent protest movements, whether reactionary or progressive, derive their impetus from the resilient agrarian features of state-socialist modernity. They must therefore be analysed in terms of a historical cultural economy that predates the current crisis of neoliberal capitalism.