Populism in Central Europe? The V4 and its Position towards the Refugee Crisis

Populism as a global issue is at the center of academic interest, but the research is very often focused on the countries of Western Europe where populist parties rarely win elections. It is quite a paradox because political parties which are often labeled as populist these days form governments in four Central European post-communist countries which are members of Visegrád four (V4) that is organization established in order to promote their interests. In the Czech Republic, the party of the billionaire Andrej Babis called ANO 2011 came up with an antiestablishment program and dramatically won the election in 2017. We can see parallels between Andrej Babiš’s victory and Donald Trump’s victory in 2016. In the other three countries of the V4, the nationally oriented parties are in power: left-wing Direction-Social Democracy in Slovakia, right-wing Law and Justice in Poland and right-wing Fidesz in Hungary. However, are these four parties really populist according to definitions in political science? What are differences between them? A number of populists and radical parties have emerged in the European space, putting up their rhetoric in opposition to refugees. Paradoxically, while in Western Europe this discourse has come from right-wing populists often even far-right parties, in the V4 countries, these parties, criticizing the EU's approach to migrant quotas, have been part of the mainstream and national governments. Major questions of this study are: What are the attitudes of their citizens to the refugee crisis? Are citizens of countries whose governments are pushing anti-immigration policy more distrustful of the EU? Has populism dominated across the political spectrum in these four countries? This study draws from several sources. These include public opinion polls such as the Eurobarometer, as well as the European Social Survey, the European Values Study etc. For the mapping of political parties, it draws on political science literature, data from Chapel Hill expert surveys and the Manifesto Project. Of course, the study analyses direct statements from the leaders of national parties including social networks (Twitter and Facebook). Main questions are answered by statistical methods, especially regression models.