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ABSTRACT
The effects of the so-called “refugee crisis” seem to be particularly pronounced in Central and Eastern Europe. However, its impact has rarely been systematically analyzed in this particular region. I argue that the “crisis” has radically increased the salience of immigration and, related, Islamophobia in the region. This, in turn, has led to (1) the radicalisation of the mainstream, even in cases where it was not previously radicalised, and (2) the transformation of far-right parties, thus creating a “renewed” far right in terms of issues. These arguments are evaluated on the extreme case of the Czech Republic.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Cas Mudde, Bartek Pytlas, Carlos Gomez Del Tronco, and Neil Williams for all their valuable comments on previous versions of this paper.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 For instance, surveys of the public in the EU member states demonstrate sharp increase (42% relative increase on average) in the importance of immigration issue between the Spring 2015 (European Commission Citation2015) and the Spring 2016 (European Commission Citation2016) in all CEE countries except Lithuania.
2 The most recent Eurobarometer data (European Commission Citation2020) from November 2019 demonstrate decline in immigration salience in all CEE countries except Slovenia.
3 This does not necessarily mean that other issues, especially those related to traditional minorities (Roma), have completely disappeared from the far-right agenda in the wake of the “refugee crisis”(see e.g. Pirro et al. Citation2019), but merely that immigration has become the most prominent issue.
4 The general effect of the media’s anti-immigration rhetoric on the Czech public anti-immigration attitudes has been proven elsewhere as well (Štětka, Mihelj, and Tóth Citation2020).
5 “Arab” and “Muslim” are usually considered as interchangeable terms in the Czech public and political discourse.
6 Moreover, other datasets, such as the Comparative Manifesto Project (Budge et al. Citation2001), not only concentrate solely on official party literature but also do not include data on immigration for Czech parties.
7 Unfortunately, CHES does not include immigration salience for 2013.
8 For instance, Zeman delivered the opening speech at the 2017 SPD’s party congress (see Fraňková Citation2017).
9 Judge Šindelářová also indirectly compared the accused activists to the famous Czech(oslovak) politician Milada Horáková, a national hero to Czechs, who was executed by the Communist regime in 1950.
10 In far-right circles the number “88” stands for “Heil Hitler”, with H being the eighth letter in the alphabet.
11 For the full lyrics see: http://www.ortel.cz/tvorba/text-skladby-ortel-mesita-mesita
12 The organisers later subtracted some of the band’s votes due to alleged voting fraud, namely the prohibited campaign for voting for Ortel by its fans on Facebook (see iDNES.cz., Citation2017). This led to a wave of criticism and the Czech rock band Kabat, which has been given the award after the subtraction, as well as singer Michal David, who finished second in the singer award as a result of the subtraction, both returned their awards in disagreement.
13 Other examples of musicians who express explicit negative opinions towards refugees and Islam are Aleš Brichta, the former singer of the popular thrash metal band Arakain, and an even more successful solo artist, as well as Vilém Čok, bass guitarist of the popular rock band Pražský výběr (see Průša, Citation2016).
14 I focus on two far-right parties here, i.e. Dawn of Direct Democracy of Tomio Okamura (Úsvit přímé demokracie Tomia Okamury, ÚSVIT) and the previously mentioned SPD. However, given that both are “personal projects” of their leader, Tomio Okamura, they can be treated as one party for the purpose of this analysis.
15 According to CHES, on the overall orientation towards European integration, on the scale from 1 (strongly opposed) to 7 (strongly in favour), the ODS scored 3 in 2010, 2.9 in 2014, and 3.4 in 2017, while the ČSSD’s scores were 6.2 in 2010, 6.1 in 2014, and 5.6 in 2017, and the ANO score was 4.1 in 2017 (see Bakker et al. Citation2015; Polk et al. Citation2017).
16 In 2013 (European Commission Citation2013), 44% of the respondents totally agreed that the Czech Republic would be better off outside of the EU. In 2014 (Ibid. 2014), this number went down to 38%, while in 2015 (Ibid. 2015) only 30%. In 2016 (Ibid. 2016), the number went up again to 40%.
17 In 2013 (European Commission Citation2013), 17% responded that the EU means “not enough control of external borders”. The number went up every year since then, however staying around 20%. In 2016 (Ibid. 2016) it reached 40%.
18 The centre-right ODS obtained solely 7.7%, finishing on the 5th place.
19 The ČSSD has lost 8.3% of votes compared to the previous regional elections and won only 2 seats in the Senate.
20 The party obtained 7.3%, and finished 6th.
21 The SPD received almost 11% of votes in the 2017 Parliamentary elections, winning 22 seats, and thus becoming it the third largest party (tied with the Pirate party). This was the best result of a far-right party in the Czech history.
22 In Hungary, according to the CHES data (Polk et al. Citation2017), all parties other than Fidesz and far-right Jobbik score bellow 5 on both immigration policy and salience. Similar, in Poland, immigration is viewed negatively and as salient only by PiS and other far-right parties but not by any other party.
23 The Slovak Social Democratic party Direction (Smer – sociálna demokracia) is one of the most outspoken opponents of (Muslim) immigration and has been governing with the far-right Slovak National Party (Slovenská národná strana, SNS) in several coalitions.
24 The CEE and Western European far right also increasingly cooperate at the EU level. For instance, the Czech SPD and the Conservative People’s Party of Estonia (EKRE) are both members of the far-right group Identity and Democracy (I&D), led by some major Western European far-right parties, while the Polish PiS is have been dominating the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) since the Brexit of the UK Conservative Party, collaborating with a host of West European far right parties like the Dutch Forum for Democracy (FvD), Spanish Vox, and the Sweden Democrats.
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Jakub Wondreys
Jakub Wondreys is currently a Ph.D. Candidate at the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA), Department of International Affairs, at the University of Georgia in Athens, GA, USA.