Between Atlanticism and Sovereignty: Populist Narratives in the Czech and Slovak DCA Debates

This article examines the politicization of foreign and security policy in the Czech Republic and Slovakia through parliamentary debates on the approval of bilateral Defence Cooperation Agreements (DCAs) with the United States. Although both agreements were ultimately ratified, they triggered intense public and political contestation, especially in Slovakia. The study employs a comparative narrative analysis of the parliamentary discourse of the main populist opposition parties in both countries, and it contributes to the growing literature on how populist actors shape foreign policy discourse in Central Europe. The findings reveal divergent strategies used by populist actors. While the Czech technocratic-populist ANO movement supported the agreement with limited politicization and framed its concerns mainly in legal and procedural terms, Slovakia’s Smer-SD adopted a confrontational stance, mobilizing against the agreement through strong anti-Western rhetoric. This rhetoric closely resembled that of far-right parties, such as the Czech SPD and Movement Republika in Slovakia. The analysis suggests that these contrasting approaches stem from the main populist parties' distinct ideological foundations and domestic political contexts, as well as the two states' differing foreign policy trajectories since the early 1990s. Thus, the article highlights how mainstream populist parties can dampen or amplify far-right narratives in foreign and security policy debates. This has significant implications for the resilience of Euro-Atlanticism in the region.