‘We will protect our countryside without a green deal’: the populist radical right and the environment in Czechia and Slovakia
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| Year of publication | 2023 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | The electoral success of the populist radical Right (PRR) is currently increasing across Europe. These political parties are also increasingly commenting on environmental issues. On the one hand, the PRR parties highlight the beauty of nature and strive to preserve the landscape’s traditional natural and rural character. On the other hand, they deny global climate changes and criticise solutions to reverse these, such as the Green Deal. The study’s objective is to explain this dichotomy in the attitude towards environmentalism using the concepts of nationalism, globalism and populism. The empirical analysis is based on an analysis of official political texts and statements by selected PRR parties in Czechia and Slovakia. The results show that PRR parties in both countries use nature’s aesthetic, symbolic and material aspects to create an image of a traditional, rural country that the nation can be proud on and which is crucial to protect. In contrast, the PRR sees global environmental change and the efforts to mitigate it as ‘external enemies’ attempting to change the traditional landscape. Therefore, PRR parties use these themes to attack globalisation and transnational organisations’ economic and cultural aspects. Finally, the PRR uses the environmental issue for populist strategic considerations, demonstrating authenticity and creating part of a chain of equivalence. |
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