How did Populists and Eurosceptics use Facebook during the COVID-19 crisis: Evidence from Czechia and Slovakia

The crises that the EU and its member states have to face in last decade (or more) have left the European party systems with different consequences in terms of Euroscepticism, populism, democratic governance as well as politicisation (Taggart & Szcerbiak, 2018). While in many member states, Eurosceptic populist parties reinforced their public support, in some, this development was not so visible or had various directions and levels. It´s not, still clear how Eurosceptic populist parties reacted to another recent crisis, the covid-19 pandemic, which seems to have similar diverse impact across the world (cf. Ringe & Rennó 2023). Before the outbreak of this health and related economic crisis, soft Euroscepticism and populism had become the norm rather than the exception, even among the mainstream (government) parties of Central and Eastern European countries (Hloušek & Kaniok, 2020; Taggart & Pirro, 2021). Has the pandemic changed these patterns on? If yes, how and in which direction? Since our previous text focused on changes in political parties´ (Eurosceptic and populist) discourse during the Czech and Slovak parliamentary plenary debates, the current research investigates the behavior of Czech politicians on social networks. This paper aims to analyze the behavior of Czech politicians on social networks, specifically on Twitter and Facebook.