Mainstream and Extreme Right Opposition to Europe in the Czech Republic and Slovakia

The paper examines the discourses of mainstream and extreme right political parties in relation to Europe and the European Union (EU) criticized and desired in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The extreme right in their discourses builds upon the populist “us” and “them” identification and offers a distinctive hostility towards the EU. The positions of mainstream parties towards Europe are not as straightforward, however, they may radicalize their responses, use populist claims and criticize Brussels and political process of the European integration, especially when faced with public opinion negatively-skewed towards the EU. Looking at the period of 2004-2013, the paper looks at the construction of meanings within the mainstream politics and extreme right’s antagonistic strategies in relation to Europe after the countries accession to the Union. The paper asks what do parties consider as problems in their perceived reality and what solutions do they offer when talking about Europe? It builds upon the framing theory and distinguishes between diagnostic and prognostic frames. The paper applies formalized frame analysis on different sets of party documents and through qualitative pre-analysis identifies issue-specific frames and actors that are operationalized and manually coded. The results are discussed in light of contextual (political and discursive) and ideological factors.