Post-peasant populism: the case of Slovakia

Populist parties have long enjoyed a dominant position in Slovak politics. Support for such forces can be explained by multiple factors, including nostalgia for state socialism, nationalistic sentiment, and the repudiation of the political elites and (neo)liberalism in general. The aim of this paper is to identify the most significant populist actors in Slovakia, and to explore their influence on domestic economic policy over time. The foundations of populist policy making in Slovakia are found to rest on two pillars. First, the failure to resist the lures of short-termism undermines fiscal responsibility: the costs of redistributive policies are usually imposed on future generations. Second, the distrust of markets and the institutions of capitalism prompts populists to offer alternatives in the form of popularity-seeking rhetoric or measures with distortionary effects; reforms of the pension system constitute a prime example. Such alterations and other country-specific variations are evaluated through indicators on macroeconomy and human geography, while an overview of the personalized patterns of Slovak capitalism is also provided. Besides analysing the Fico cabinets (2006-2018), an emphasis is placed in the conclusion on how the current Slovak government, which comprises two populist parties, has addressed the social and economic implications of the COVID-19 pandemic and the issue of corruption, since anti-corruption fight was the political case along with the coalition had been formed in 2020.