Populism has been the buzzword of Czech politics for quite some time. Coming into prominence in the late 2000s, it has been used as an efficient instrument for bashing socialist governments for irresponsible spending (“bribing” voters) and later became a synonym for likeable, simplified and often confrontational political rhetoric and policies that might bring short-term popularity while creating major problems in the long run. Reading this wannabe definition, you might spot a crucial flaw: such phenomena have always been part of politics, democratic or otherwise, and few political actors steer clear of them at all times. Unsurprisingly, this confusion of populism with demagoguery and/or instruments of standard political contestation have resulted in the current state of affairs, where all the major political parties – including the Communists! – constantly blame one another for being “populist”.
The definition has, however, become somewhat less murky since the emergence of genuinely populist projects. Svoboda a přímá demokracie (Freedom and Direct Democracy, SPD) led by the political entrepreneur Tomio Okamura has embodied many of the major features of an actual populist project. They used the crisis of the post-recession right-wing government and fears of an overbearing migration crisis, mobilizing “the people” against “the elite” and promoting a chaotic, issue-driven mixture of nationalism, traditional welfare mechanisms and often contradictory policies based on current popular sentiments and efficient “othering” of ethnic minorities or the non-governmental sector. Andrej Babiš’s ruling ANO (originally ANO 2011, the acronym once standing for something along the lines of “action of the outraged citizens”), while often employing populist features, is rather a combination of a traditional catch-all political party and a political enterprise with populist or plebiscitarian features. Since populism, crucially, is not an ideology, but rather a kind of political logic that may be saturated by various ideological contents, ANO as a centre-right party remains far too embedded in the political field as we’ve known it since the 1990s – even though it struggles to convince us of the opposite. Its focus has so far been on executive power, its politices based on good old corpratism and a drive for monopolization, which, in itself, would seem rather dull for a true populist party or movement; as Nadia Urbinati reminds us, populism aims to dismantle traditional political institutions, to eradicate political antagonism, to level the discoursive field, so to say. Its aim is not only power, it is the eradication of pluralism, a formation of a majoritarian collective will, re-affirmed against a tiny elite and/or peripheral social groups. There is little reason to believe ANO has any such ambition.
ANO, while arguably having certain populist features, rather seems closer to the traditional mash-up of the democratic and plebiscitarian model. Plebiscitarian notions have been quite prominent in the CR: the idea of purely electoral democracy, of the passive public selecting – or, rather, confirming – powerful leaders and otherwise being mostly spectators of the political goings-on, has always been the wet dream of the likes of Václav Klaus, our Schumpeterian pioneer of the model of governance, where civic participation begins and ends at the ballot box. The problem is that the plebiscitarian leader, in our current case Andrej Babiš, actively weakens the citizens’ role as agents, the act of legitimization being rather an act of affirmation, or faith. This faith has to be perpetually tested, rendering the leader undisputed in terms of material power, but extremely responsive, since their legitimacy has to be constantly re-affirmed by the many. A plebiscitarian leader therefore may show no interest in building a truly viable political party or “marching through the institutions”. In effect, Babiš has very little to lean on, and is left wholly reliant on perpetual confirmation: his position depends on regular applause. It is no surprise that such actors – no pun intended – keep a close eye on opinion polls: therein their power resides.
Our leader thus finds himself in a hard place. The success of populist and semi-populist parties has often proved to be very short-lived, one of the reasons being the very feature the populists perceive (and “sell”) as their major strength: they tend not to be embedded in traditional institutions or to follow established procedures – including those that shape the public discourse, education, political culture in general, etc. They usually have weak organisational foundations and only short and turbulent history. (Okamura actually founded several “movements” in sequence, the first major organization being Úsvit, which is Czech for “dawn”, which was established around the time of the rise of the Greek neo-fascist party The Golden Dawn.) The Hungarian example with Viktor Orbán conducting a campaign of infiltration of various administrative, judicial and cultural institutions, may indicate a more stable future of thriving populists, but, in any case, we see no such trend in the CR.
It is therefore a somewhat banal assumption that both populist and plebiscitarian political actors, while often emerging thanks to crises they tend to exploit and promise to overcome, are quite terrible at managing an actual crisis. With the feedback to long-term policies coming with considerable delay, Babiš can hardly follow the likes of Angela Merkel, who can rely on traditional democratic organisation and procedures.
As I’m writing this post, we are currently allowed to mingle in cafés and restaurants, but forbidden from buying a coffee for takeaway, so I guess I can imagine a lot of things. But I can’t imagine Babiš announcing, say, a three-month period of steady pandemic-related restrictions, regardless of week-to-week figures. The policies of our government will always reflect current attitudes and focus on day-to-day micro-management. If we accept that “crisis” is a real thing and not another buzzword for a number of phenomena that are far from new or incidental – which is, perhaps, an issue for another blog – let’s remember that this lot is an absolute nightmare when a true crisis comes about, and act accordingly once we are allowed to participate.
Further reading: Nadia Urbinati. Democracy Disfigured. Opinion, Truth and the People. Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2014.
Antonín Handl 