In the Mood. Populism in Czech Republic (almost) without Populists?

During the last decade we have seen the growth of populism throughout Central European countries and more generally within the European Union, but the Czech Republic seems to stay out of this general trend. In our paper we intend to relativize this assertion by focusing not only on few populist parties and movements (Public affairs, Dawn of direct democracy and its split), but also by analysing other parties functioning in the frame of the Czech Parliament, especially the established ones. We will not only compare the discourse (especially when the parties are facing the migration crisis without migrants) but also the general context of this paradoxical phenomenon of populist mood in this EU member state, from the appeal to the people to the rejection of the parliamentary democracy. This general “populist mood” is quite general, shared by all the parties, some fearing the retraction of electoral support, some looking for new ideas and topics able to help them to face the concurrence of new anti-establishment parties; even if they stay more or less on their classical/historical ideological basis. The parties we will here mainly focus on will be the Communist party (KSCM), the Conservative-liberal party (ODS), the Social-democratic party (CSSD), the Christian-democratic party (KDU-CSL) and the Movement of unsatisfied citizens (ANO 2011).