National issues and

institutional encroachment

in Slovakia

 
 Kevin Deegan Krause
 University of Notre Dame
 814 Thomas Rd.
 Columbus, OH 43212-3715
 (614) 424-6295
 Krause.4@nd.edu
 http://www.nd.edu/kkrause
 
 Prepared for presentation at
 the convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies
 Boca Raton, Florida
 25 September 1998
 
Research for this article was supported a grant from the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX), with funds provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the United States Information Agency, and the US Department of State, which administers the Russia, Eurasian, and East European Research Program (Title VIII), a grant from the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, and a seed-money grant from the Kellogg Institute for International Studies.
Please do not cite without permission of the author

Two facts attract the attention of even a casual observer of politics in Slovakia.  The current government abuses its authority.  The current government talks makes frequent reference to the Slovak nation and its new state.  From these facts, many authors have deduced a "triumph of nationalist populism"(Carpenter 1997) and reached similar conclusions.  Yet far more rarely have any authors gone further to examine three important underlying questions:  What does "nationalist" mean in the Slovak context?  What does "populism" mean?  And how, if at all, are the two linked together.  In this paper I will use my previous explorations of the first two question to provide initial answers to the third.  I briefly describe Slovakia's national question in terms of an increasingly polarized division three-fold of Slovakia's parties on national issues.  In somewhat more detail, I describe Slovakia's authority question in terms of the absence of effective restraints at the institutional level and, as a result, the removal of restraints at the electoral level.  Finally, I show how that the two phenomena are connected in very specific ways.  First, I argue that Slovakia's national and institutional changes are not closely related at the level of policy but that they are related at the electoral level.  The governing coalition uses nationally-oriented explanations to justify some of its encroachments, to discredit criticism of those encroachments, and to convince voters that such encroachments matter little in the face of larger threats.  Even more important than these conclusions is the evidence of an underlying dynamic that runs counter to conventional wisdom on the relationship between nationalism and authoritarianism in Slovakia and in general.  Nationally-based appeals that call Slovakia's voters to overlook authoritarian behavior succeed only when they can characterize rival political leaders and institutions as non- or anti-national and therefore threatening to national survival.  It is not the overwhelming strength of nationally-oriented forces but rather their potential weakness in the face of others that provides the link between national appeals and abuse of authority.
 

Polarization on national issues

As I note in another paper (Krause 1998), questions of the nation in Slovakia's politics revolve around three distinct but linked themes: Slovakia's place within larger political and economic structures, relations between the Slovak and Hungarian ethnic groups in Slovakia, and the depth of national feeling within the Slovak ethnic group.  I argue that political parties and their supporters have over time moved away from mean positions on all three themes and that the movement has produced a three clusters of political parties.  One cluster, dominated by the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) and the Slovak National Party (SNS), exhibits strong support for the separation of Czecho-Slovakia and for Slovakia's continued independence coupled with increasing resistance toward international bodies and foreign investment, a refusal to grant collective rights to the Hungarian minority and an emphasis on national feeling.  A second cluster consists of three Hungarian political parties which did not support the separation of Czecho-Slovakia and in its wake welcome the Slovakia's integration with the rest of the world as a means of protecting their own position.  These parties seek collective rights and through them collective benefits roughly comparable to those enjoyed by Slovaks.  A third group of parties, consisting of the Christian Democratic Movement (KDH), the Democratic Union (DU) and the Party of the Democratic Left (SDL), exhibit moderate to low support for the separation of Czecho-Slovakia and endorse most steps toward integration.  These parties take generally centrist stands on Hungarian issues and questions of Slovak national feeling, and minimize the importance of these issues in Slovakia's politics.

With the exception of an eight month period in 1994, the first of these three groups--the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) and the Slovak National Party (SNS)--have maintained an informal or formal majority coalition in parliament and controlled government appointments.  The political steps actually taken by this coalition on national-related issues reflect many, though not all, of the positions held by the coalition parties and their supporters, a subject which will receive greater attention below.
 

Erosion of institutional restraints

Since independence and in particular since the parliamentary election of 1994, Slovakia has experienced a series of changes at the institutional level which pose an increasing threat to electoral democracy.  Using the increasingly common distinction between "vertical" ties in democracy–relationships between citizens and political institutions–and "horizontal" ties–relationships among political institutions–it can be argued that since 1994 horizontal relationships among political institutions have shifted to favor the government and its majority coalition in parliament at the expense of almost every other institution.  The shift has been so significant, in fact, as to threaten not only the horizontal aspects of democracy but also the vertical aspects.  Put in other words, the imbalances which emerged at the institutional level permit a potentially dangerous degree of control by certain institutions at the electoral level.

In other works, I categorize the basic principles which underlie the horizontal aspect of democracy, counterparts to the basic principles underlying the vertical aspect as detailed in Dahl's Polyarchy and related works.  These underpinnings of horizontal democracy can be briefly summarized as follows:

These conditions integrate key aspects of concepts such as rule of law and constitutionalism.  They emphasize the importance of law in governing institutional behavior as well as the importance of certain extra-legal principles in governing the dictates of law.

Although a tendency toward challenging these principles appeared early in Slovakia's independent political history, few clear violations became apparent until after the 1994 election. The governing coalition formed after that election, consisting of the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS), the Slovak National Party (SNS), and the Association of Workers of Slovakia (ZRS) demonstrated a consistent rejection of these principles, a rejection made practical by both gaps in the principle of legality and a conscious effort by the coalition to undermine the principles of separation and accountability.  Without adequate legality or separation, accountability disappeared in many spheres, and the absence of accountability allowed further encroachments on legality and separation.  Thus unfettered, institutions controlled by the governing coalition took steps to undermine not only the horizontal but the vertical restraints of democracy.

The elimination of separation within Slovakia's institutional structure began in minor ways in November of 1994 when Slovakia's parliament made sweeping changes in the memberships of parliamentary committees and boards overseeing a variety of important functions including privatization, public broadcasting and the activity of Slovakia's intelligence service.  Committee changes gave coalition parties a disproportionate majority while the board changes entirely eliminated non-coalition representation.  Because of the cohesion of the main coalition party, the subsequent appointment of coalition representatives to head public broadcasting services and the intelligence service and meant the practical removal of distinction between overseer and overseen and exempted both institutions from effective independent control.  Similar developments occurred in the realm of privatization and in certain segments of the state administration where the coalition made personnel changes at levels well below the upper management.

The coalition took advantage of the lack of separation and accountability in certain areas to reduce its accountability to institutions which could not be absorbed through direct appointment.  In particular, the coalition used its parliamentary powers to cut the budget of the Office of the President and used its control over public broadcast media to limit the media access of the president.  The coalition also took advantage of certain low barriers to institutional change by removing presidential prerogatives not explicitly protected by the constitution.

In 1995 the presidency became the subject of a complicated series of events which demonstrated further declines in separation and accountability when the son of the president was kidnaped and transported to neighboring Austria.  This action led to a number of significant  repercussions: the prosecutor general removed the chief investigator from the case shortly after the latter suggested publicly that Slovakia's intelligence service had been involved in the abduction; within a month a second investigator was removed from the case after making similar allegations; several months later a go-between for a witness who testified to intelligence service involvement died in a car-bomb explosion; and reporters obtained what appeared to be an audio recording of a conversation during which the minister of the interior accepted to the request of the director of the intelligence service to limit police investigation in the case.  Although government officials rejected political motivation for the change of investigators and strongly denied involvement in the explosion or the taped conversation, evidence suggests that there existed an inappropriate degree of external pressure on the police investigators.  It is especially significant that the investigations of the explosion, the taped conversation and the abduction itself all ended without the filing of a single charge.  The matter was further settled in 1998 when the president's term expired before the election of a successor and presidential powers including the power of pardon devolved to the government.  The government immediately used this power to issue an order preventing any prosecution related to the abduction of the president's son.

In any attempt to evaluate these circumstances, it is at the very least apparent that lack of separation between investigators and other government officials hindered further action in the case and thereby prolonged the awkwardness of the situation for the president.  In light of the available evidence, moreover, it is probable that the abduction itself involved intelligence service personnel as part of an attempt to undercut the power and reputation of the president, thereby reducing his ability to exert accountability over the governing coalition.  In this case, the lack of separation between investigators and investigated translated also into the absence of legal accountability for at least one serious capital crime.

Lack of separation and accountability in the horizontal plane allowed for encroachments in the vertical, electoral, plane as well.  In November of 1994 a parliamentary commission composed exclusively of coalition members of parliament began investigation of the electoral petition of the opposition Democratic Union, even though the petition had already been accepted by the Central Electoral Commission and even though the Constitutional Court had already refused to overturn the Electoral Commission's decision.  Although the committee ultimately took no action–and had no legal authority to take action in any case–its investigation involved extensive police verification of petition signatures which was used to cast doubt on the party's right to participate in parliament and to threaten sanctions against the party.

In late 1996, parliament voted to accept the letter of resignation of a member of the coalition's parliamentary delegation despite that member's protestations that he did not wish to resign and that the letter had been held on file by the party for several years as a potential disciplinary measure.  Although the Constitutional Court later declared that the members rights had been violated and that the dismissal was not valid, the coalition's parliamentary delegation voted to disregard the court's verdict.  A nearly identical circumstance occurred in 1997 when parliament refused to accept the designated alternate for a vacant coalition seat because the alternate had left the party in the interim.  Again the Constitutional Court declared a violation of rights and again the coalition's parliamentary delegation voted to disregard the court's verdict.  Through these processes, the coalition refused accountability to individual parliamentary deputies and to the country's highest judicial body.

In 1997 the coalition further rejected accountability both to the court and the electorate in response to a referendum on the direct election of the president proposed by opposition parties.  In an echo of coalition tactics, the opposition's proposed referendum cleverly circumvented accountability mechanisms held by the coalition.  The coalition, however, intervened at the one point where it possessed administrative access to the referendum process:  the printing and distribution of the ballots.  Though the minister of the interior made this intervention without a firm legal basis, he ultimately faced no sanction as a result of unclear legal guidelines and the reduced separation between coalition forces and prosecutorial staff.  When the government acquired certain presidential powers, as mentioned above, it further prevented the possibility of future sanction by issuing a general amnesty regarding the conduct of the referendum.

Having proven its ability to intervene in the balloting process, the coalition went further in spring of 1998 to modify the election law in ways which created administrative problems for opposition parties, which reaffirmed the role of the coalition-controlled public media, and which increased the administrative role of coalition-controlled ministries in the election process.  Given the coalition's recent actions in the electoral realm, it is possible and even probable that it will become involved in questionably legal attempts to shape the results of the September 1998 parliamentary elections in its favor.  Success in that election would raise the possibility of the coalition remaining in power until the expiration of the terms of nearly the entire Constitutional Court.  Appointment of coalition loyalists in those positions would eliminate the separation between the coalition and the single remaining independent–if sometimes ignored–constitutional institution.  Such a change could effectively prevent judgment of the coalition's legislation as  unconstitutional and thereby eliminate the principle of "durability," the one horizontal principle of democracy which has remained substantially intact in Slovakia.
 

National issues and institutional restraint

The heart of Slovakia's "national question" does not lie in the overall degree of national feeling by Slovaks but rather in the growing polarization of the country's political life into three separate spheres on the basis of the type of national feeling.  The heart of Slovakia's "authority question" does not lie in the triumph of authoritarianism or even populism but rather in the capacity of particular political leaders to overcome essential restraints of democracy and encourage the erosion of others.  Determining the connection between the polarization of political parties on national issues and the erosion of particular political restraints is an easier proposition than finding the connections between nationalism and authoritarianism.  Although answers to a more limited question may prove to be of more limited value, the greater concreteness of those answers may help at least to illuminate the larger question.

The erosion of institutional restraint through the undermining of separation and accountability offers a comparatively uncomplicated topic for investigation.  The actions in question can be traced to a single coalition and most can even be traced to the representatives of or appointees a single party: the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS).  Furthermore, the steps are such that they do not involve concession or collaboration by representatives of other parties or by other individuals.  Erosion of political restraint results directly from the action of a particular coalition and its member parties.

Although the elements of this question are already relatively simple, it is useful for the purposes of exploration to make one further simplification at the outset, one which will not interfere with the re-introduction of complexity at a later point..  Although the motivations of political leaders are infinitely varied, two motivations are ascribed to them with particular frequency even in the simplest models of political behavior: to win elections and to achieve certain policy goals (Shapiro and Green 1994).  And although these two motivations are intertwined in extremely complicated ways, it is necessary to try and separate them.  In practice, this means asking how well the coalition's actions in the institutional sphere contributed to its goals in enacting national policy and in affecting nationally oriented voters.  Likewise, it means asking how well its actions in the national sphere contributed to its goals in its institutional policy and in affecting institutionally oriented voters.
 

Institutional action and national policy goals

According to one hypothesis regarding the broad interaction between nationalism and authoritarianism, the achievement of national goals may require--or may be perceived to require--political action which steps outside the boundaries of democracy.  It is with regard to such scenarios that Kedourie quotes Lord Acton:  "nationality ... does not aim either at liberty or prosperity, both of which it sacrifices to the imperative necessity of making the nation the mould and measure of the State"(Kedourie 1960).  Yet such a course of events, although it may be common elsewhere, does not easily explain developments in Slovakia. As previous sections have detailed, parties of the ruling coalition express a number of common goals on national issues.  These involve preservation of Slovakia's sovereignty from foreign interference, preservation of a majority status for the Slovak ethnic group, and increase of national pride among Slovaks.  Few if any of the institutional steps taken by the governing coalition can be directly traced these goals.

The party programs of the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) and the Slovak National Party (SNS) between1992 and 1998 seek the greatest feasible independence for Slovakia, at first from Czechs, and later from international interference in Slovakia's domestic affairs or domestic markets.  Only a limited number of violations of institutional restraint toward the opposition parties, the state administration, the presidency, the legal system, and the electorates appear related to these national goals and these only tenuously so.  Coalition leaders argued that changes in the method of privatization from coupon sales to direct sales introduced by the coalition after the election served to create a "domestic entrepreneurial stratum" which kept Slovakia's capital in the hands of its citizens (Meciar 1998).  But this same goal could presumably have been accomplished without selling considerable property at minimal prices to domestic entrepreneurs who were high ranking members of coalition parties.  Coalition leaders also argued that President Michal Kovac harmed Slovakia's image abroad by his criticism of the government and identified him as "the only president in the world who abandons his own country, own government and democratic regime" (Meciar 1995) But it is difficult to understand how removal of presidential prerogatives and refusal to undertake effective investigation of his son's abduction could stop presidential criticism in foreign countries--especially when the coalition's steps included limiting the president's access to domestic broadcasting--or repair damage to Slovakia's image.

In fact the actions of the coalition in the institutional realm themselves led to severe criticism of Slovakia and contributed directly to its worsening image abroad.  Although the first instances of this problem could be attributed to misjudgements about how foreign countries and organizations might perceive the actions, this interpretation is not possible in the case of later actions such as the 1997 referendum modification and the 1998 alterations to the electoral law.  In these cases and in others, representatives of EU and NATO countries made their expectations public in advance, and coalition leaders therefore acted with the knowledge that their action would further damage Slovakia's reputation abroad.Find this!!!  It must be there.

On the question of relations between Slovaks and Hungarians, it is difficult to find connections between institutional restraints and the maintenance of Slovaks as Slovakia's predominant ethnic group.  Lists complied by the Hungarian parties--the group most sensitive to any coalition efforts in this area--cite problems including a more restrictive language law, the implementation of more restrictive regulations in the spheres of education and culture and the creation of a hostile cultural environment (1995; Duray 1997).  None of these lists, however, involves the separation and accountability questions listed above.  Maintaining or expanding the positions of Slovaks in Slovakia apparently could be done to the coalition's satisfaction without the violation of institutional restraint.

Much the same can be said regarding the goal of increasing the pride of Slovaks in the new Slovak Republic.  Although the criticisms of institutional restraints from at home and abroad may have caused some Slovaks to rise to the occasion of defending their native land, it produced a corresponding decrease in pride among others who saw the Slovak Republic as the one country in the region which did not meet the political criteria of the European Union.  The institutional violations appear to have served the coalition in a variety of ways, but it seems that they did not contribute to establishing the Slovak nation as "the mould and measure" of the Slovak Republic.
 

National appeals and institutional policy goals

Much recent work on nationality in politics focuses not on the use of politics to achieve national goals but rather on the use of the nation for political goals.  It is possible that the connection occurred in the reverse direction, that the coalition's steps in the national sphere allowed it to achieve its political goals.  The record shows that those political goals amounted to little more than the elimination of any mechanisms that could hold the coalition accountable for its actions.

At the level of seats and votes, it is difficult to find any clear connection.  Between 1994 and 1998, the coalition held a majority in parliament.  All parliamentary encroachments on institutional restraint occurred on the basis of this majority and none required support from outside the coalition.  Institutional violations committed by the government involved little reference to national issues, and such issues played little role in the parliament's decisions concerning presidential prerogatives or the expulsion of deputies.  Only on appointments to committees did national issues play a role and then only in limited ways  In 1996 and 1997, for example, coalition deputies rejected opposition appointees to the committee for overseeing Slovakia's intelligence service on the basis of their "contacts with foreign secret services"(Krno 1997) and implications of potential for disloyalty (Minarik, Sliskova, and Skoda 1996).  Yet even in this case, as in all others, outcomes rested solely on the coalition's parliamentary majority and not on the national-related explanation.

Although the coalition did not require the use of national issues for the acquisition of a parliamentary majority, it is apparent that coalition members did on occasion take advantage of national issues to maintain coalition unity.  Charged with the task of forming a governing coalition, Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) made a strong start in this direction by accepting the claims of the Slovak National Party (SNS) to two ministries closely tied with national goals: defense and education.  This and other occasional concessions appear to have strengthened the coalition and provided a stronger coalition-wide basis for support of institutional encroachments proposed by HZDS.  This linkage between national issues and coalition cohesion also operated in a negative fashion to the extent that for SNS coalition with any party other than HZDS would make it dependent on the support of the far less nationally oriented parties of the Slovak opposition as well as on Hungarian parties.  When a dispute over privatization threatened to disrupt the coalition in 1996, HZDS leaders were quick to remind SNS of its lack of real alternatives.  In two separate articles in one issue of the daily Slovenska republika, HZDS deputies concentrated on the difficulties of the SNS position.  "It is a paradoxical situation when SNS votes with Hungarian parliamentary deputies"(Slovenska republika 1996, 2) noted HZDS deputy Tibor Cabaj, while deputy Jan Smolec asked rhetorically whether, "the nationally-oriented (narodniar) will embrace Hungarians?"(Smolec 1996, 2).  In all likelihood, it was not national issues alone that returned SNS to full participation in the coalition, but national issues certainly contributed to that outcome.

In doing so, national-related actions and promises helped to ensure the institutional encroachments that followed.  It is in this indirect fashion and not through any direct connection that actions on behalf of the nation contributed to the coalition's--and especially HZDS's--goal of eliminating political restraint.
 

National appeals, institutional action and voters

The lack of tangible, direct links between actions and policy goals is more than compensated for in the strength of links between actions and electoral goals.  The connection between party action in the institutional and national realms and its strategies in elections emerges quite clearly, though there does not appear to be any single direction of causality.  The coalition's actions in the national realm suggest an attempt to affect public perceptions of the meaning and importance of its institutional encroachments.  Conversely, the coalition's actions in the institutional realm appear to stem in part from fear of non-national victory in the electoral realm.
 

National appeals and voting on institutional encroachment

In the short run, the institutional encroachments made by the coalition did not depend on much on the enactment of national policies or national appeals.  In fact they did not depend on particular policies or appeals; they depended only on the ability of the coalition to remain in government and hold its parliamentary majority.  In the longer run, however, the institutional encroachments created other needs.  In particular, they created the need to minimize the negative impact of the encroachments among voters.  This need by no means affected all voters.  Surveys of public opinion show a small but not insignificant share of Slovakia's citizens to be unaware of the coalition's encroachments (FOCUS 1995).  Among the others, however, it is likely that there existed a portion of the population for whom issues related to the encroachments would negatively influence the likelihood of voting for a coalition party.  The coalition's public references to national issues appear designed in many cases to preserve the allegiance of this group of voters.  The statements involve two distinct but closely related sets of claims.  One of these sought to minimize negative reaction to the encroachment.  The other sought to magnify the dangers of alternative party choice.

Beginning with the first moves by the post election parliament in 1994, each encroachment discussed above evoked sharp criticism from opposition parties.  Over time the encroachments also incurred increasingly sharp criticism from western governments and international organizations.  One of the coalition's strategies--arguably its primary strategy--of deflecting these attacks consisted of indicting the source for misinterpreting the action in question, either accidentally or deliberately.  Frequently these deflections identified the source of the misunderstanding as ‘foreign-ness' in one sense or another.
Criticisms from abroad are the most suited for this technique.  Initially, the coalition sought to deflect foreign criticism by interpreting it in the most favorable light (Zelenayova 1994), minimizing the seriousness of the criticism (Slovenska republika 1995)Cite this, or denying that outsiders truly understood problems in Slovakia (Alner 1996, 9).  Over time, however, the approach shifted, and coalition representatives began to respond to criticisms from abroad by suggesting that the criticisms represented an intentional effort to give Slovakia a poor reputation abroad, to give its government a poor reputation at home and in the process to open Slovakia for economic and political exploitation.  According to HZDS parliamentary deputy Ivan Gasparovic, European forces "admonish and criticize Slovakia, because this government fulfills its electoral program which takes a different path of transformation from other states which sell to foreign interests everything in which their ‘capital' expresses interest"(Siposova 1997b).  On the basis of this reasoning, representatives of HZDS dismiss criticisms of virtually every institutional encroachment discussed above including the car bomb death of a witness in the kidnaping of the president's son (Husar 1996, 3), the expulsion of parliamentary deputy Gaulieder (Zvach 1997), the marring of the 1997 referendum (Siposova 1997a), the 1998 electoral law (Malecova 1998), and numerous others. According the regular pattern of these arguments, a combination foreign greed and self-righteousness lead to criticisms of behaviors which in any other country would be considered normal and democratic.

This explanation, in slightly modified form, also appears with striking frequency in respond to criticism by Slovakia's own opposition parties.  In addition to attributing their criticism to simple envy of power, coalition representatives suggest that opposition criticisms result directly from agreements with the aforementioned international power centers.  HZDS parliamentary deputy offers a reasonably succinct version of this argument in response to criticism of his party for expelling parliamentary deputy Gaulieder:

Many, most of the exaggerated or fabricated attacks of the opposition are directed toward discrediting deputies of the governing coalition, toward discrediting everything that is pro-Slovak and pro-national.  They have only one goal--to win elections and open a space for foreign transnational monopolies to gain a stronger position.  Literally to sell us to foreign capital.  This is not just about the case of "Gaulieder" or the accosting of the nation by the president, [b]ut about a stubborn attempt to remove the government and put Slovakia under complete economic subjection to foreign capital. (Cuper 1997)
 
A whole series of other articles involve variations on this argument in response to specific criticisms, as above, and in general indictment of opposition statements.  By this method, the coalition uses appeals to the national dimension of Slovak politics to allay criticisms of its institutional encroachments and to suggests that they are not encroachments at all.

For those who nevertheless interpreted the coalition's institutional actions as encroachments and viewed them negatively, the coalition offered a final line of argument.  Using national appeals it forced an implicit weighing of priorities.  The alternative to the coalition, they argued, was an opposition with neither the ability nor the desire to maintain Slovakia's independence.  According to HZDS chairman Vladimir Meciar in a speech to a large public meeting, oppositions claims of national feeling reflected only election campaign strategy:

Patriotism ("vlastenectvo") is being appealed to by those who outright act unfriendly toward Slovakia.  It is possible to think that way only in football.  There a "vlastenec" is a goal into your own net.  The opposition so far has demonstrated only antagonism toward its homeland, to the nation and the culture.  You know many of them did not vote in favor of either sovereignty or the independence of Slovakia.  To the world they declare that they are cosmopolitans or Czechoslovaks, but when it concerns [political] posts, they approach the stupefied voter with the world ‘patriotism.'"  (Siposova 1998)
Taking this argument further, HZDS deputy Jan Cuper links electoral victory by the opposition both to Slovakia's place in the world and to the relations between Slovaks and Hungarians.  In the article, entitled "The opposition wants to govern Slovakia with the help of foreign patrons," he argues that an opposition victory would mean cause Slovakia to "fall under the neo-colonial influence of the western countries which so vehemently support the so-called SDK [Slovak Democratic Coalition] through media and finances" and that "SDK could government only with the help of Hungarian political parties, who would compel territorial autonomy"(Malecova 1998).  In short, Cuper argued--an argument repeated in various forms in numerous other HZDS statements--"the coming [1998] election will truly decide whether Slovakia will continue as an independent and sovereign state"(Malecova 1998).  National issues thus become a trump card.  If the arguments of Meciar and Cuper and others are to be believed, criticisms of how the coalition has governed the country must be weighed against the danger that there might be no country at all.
 

A statistical aside

Whether the strategy actually does work--and therefore whether national appeals really do contribute to institutional encroachments--is open to question.  The space that such arguments receive in HZDS speeches and publications suggests that the party, at least, believes in their effectiveness.  An valid test of effectiveness, however, is difficult to assemble from publicly available survey results because it is to determine whether those who will tolerate institutional encroachment do so because they are convinced of the party's arguments or for some other unrelated reason.  In fact it is difficult even to find survey questions which somehow capture either the institutional or national dimensions of the question at hand.
Within these limitations, it is possible to draw certain conclusions from evidence gathered through surveys of public opinion.  Table 1 shows the level of HZDS support among various subsets of the population and provides indications that the party's national positions help to reconcile voters to its authority positions.  Comparing columns 1 and 2 of this table reveals that during the three years for which FOCUS data is available, HZDS supporters were over-represented both among those who supported the split of Czechoslovakia and among those who supported the need for "a firm hand" in politics.  In each case the over-representation on the separation question exceeded the over-representation on the authority question.  This pattern is repeated at a deeper level when responses on the two questions are considered together.  In all three years for which data is available, HZDS was significantly over-represented among those who approved of separation but not a firm hand, and only slightly over-represented or even under-represented among those who approved of a firm hand but not separation.  If this is an accurate reflection of the population, it suggests that a HZDS's national positions attract and/or retain a disproportionate share voters who might otherwise object to its positions on authority questions.  Through its national appeals, HZDS is able to draw people into an acceptance of its authoritarian practices.  Confirmatory evidence is difficult to find, however.  An April 1994 survey by Central University finds that national and authority questions have about equal effect in retaining and keeping voters, and a November 1994 survey by the same organization yields results that slightly reverse the ratios found by FOCUS.

Table 1.  Share of HZDS supporters within population subsets defined by opinions on the nation and the use of authority 
Year
HZDS supporters as a share of all respondents  Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 Column 4 Column 5
HZDS supporters as a share of respondents supporting separation HZDS supporters as a share of respondents supporting a "firm hand" over "patient negotiation"  HZDS supporters as a share of respondents supporting separation and a "firm hand"  HZDS supporters as a share of respondents supporting separation but not a "firm hand"  HZDS supporters as a share of respondents supporting a firm hand but not separation 
1993 .23 .35 .23 .35 .37 .16
1994 .22 .42 .40 .64 .27 .24
1996 .18 .34 .27 .41 .28 .19
Apr. 1994 .25 .32 .30 .35 .24 .26
Nov. 1994 .23 .35 .44 .52 .30 .35
Source:  (FOCUS 1993; FOCUS 1994; FOCUS 1996)

The relationship between national appeals and toleration of institutional encroachment also includes those voters who support both.  As Table 1 shows, HZDS receives a disproportionately high degree of support from this segment of the population.  That these two opinions appear so strongly bound within HZDS may suggest that the two positions are somehow inescapably bound together.  Evidence, however, suggests that the relationship is strongly dependent on circumstances.  According to the FOCUS surveys cited above, correlation between support for "a firm hand" and support for the split of Czechoslovakia was 0.00 in 1993 to 0.06 in 1994 and to 0.09 in 1995.  The numbers suggest that the two positions do not necessarily correlate but that the degree of correlation did increase slightly over time in tandem with the increased connection between the two in the rhetoric of HZDS.  Again the results available here provide no definitive relationship between the coalition's national appeals and public acceptance of its encroachments, but it is clear that HZDS supporters are more likely than others to hold the two positions in common, and that the two positions have become increasingly linked over time in sequence with their increasing linkage within HZDS.
 

Electoral incentives for institutional encroachment

To the extent that Cuper, Hofbauer and other coalition leaders accepted their own claims that the opposition would quickly cost Slovakia it's sovereignty, it then becomes plausible to argue that national goals did play a role in the violations of institutional restraint.  Faced with the prospect of Slovakia's subjection to international organizations, foreign investors, the Hungarian minority, and a government of Slovaks who rejected their own ethnicity, it is conceivable that political leaders might choose to preserve their state's independence by preventing the opposition from misusing accountability mechanisms and by limiting its chances for electoral success.  If such is the case, then the full array of the coalition's national goals did indeed play a role in its efforts against other institutions.
The degree to which coalition leaders believed these claims is, of course, impossible to state with certainty.  Some party officials very likely did believe these arguments to the full extent.Cite this  To claim that fear of opposition treason motivated the entire leadership of the coalition to dismantle basic democratic institutions rings less true.  The apocalyptic tone of claims made by Hofbauer, Cuper and others conflicts rather sharply with the brief but relatively uneventful tenure of the 1994 Moravcik government that consisted of the Democratic Union (DU), the Christian Democratic Movement (KDH), and the Party of the Democratic Left (SDL) with the silent support of the Hungarian parties.  Nor are the motives of the true believers likely to be the only ones that shaped the coalition's institutional behavior.
 

Conclusion

Slovakia's coalition parties--and HZDS in particular--have tied together institutional encroachment and national politics.  Although not simply an opportunistic linkage, the connection is also not an inevitable development.  Conscious choices by party leaders have attempted to increase the degree to which those who accept one of these ways of thinking also accept the other.  The evidence at the elite level and some evidence at the electoral level suggests that it is the national appeals that gain acceptance for institutional encroachments more than the reverse.  Although not an indicator of effectiveness, the amount of time and energy spent by coalition leaders on national appeals and the dangers to the nation from electing other, non-national parties, suggests that they believe the national appeals to be effective in the manner hypothesized above.

From a broader perspective, it is important to note here that this explanation calls into question the more common explanations of the link between authoritarianism and nationalism.  Whether it is national appeals that maintain electoral support for a party that violates institutional boundaries, or it is national fear that causes the party's leaders to violate those institutional boundaries, (and the two are not inconsistent) the underlying dynamic is fear of victory by non-national forces.  It is not because Slovaks as a whole are predisposed to national ways of thinking.  Just the reverse is true, in fact.  If nationally oriented coalition leaders did not fear that a non- or anti-Slovak opposition might win enough votes to take office, it is unlikely that they would risk domestic and foreign criticism by undercutting their own democratic institutions.  Only polarization into national and non-national forces which could explain the hypothesized links between national goals and institutional violations.  A country with uniformly high national feeling would have little to fear from leaders such as Hofbauer and Cuper because they for their part would not fear for their country's safety.  And in a country with uniformly high national feeling, national incentives could not be used to explain away or justify institutional encroachments because other parties could not be accused of disloyalty and because any that could would be unable to pose a real threat of getting elected.  If Slovakia does represent a triumph of nationalist populism, it is a triumph that could only take place in an environment where non-nationalist, non-populists are strong enough to pose a serious challenge to those in power and their supporters.
 

Brief electoral postscript

The dynamics discussed above did not change during the electoral campaign except to intensify in the directions already mentioned.  Even a cursory glance at the statements of HZDS leaders in Slovensko do toho!  and Slovenska republika show the extraordinary prominence of arguments that the opposition parties are not loyal Slovaks who, if elected, would quickly betray Slovakia to its enemies at home and abroad.  While dozens of examples are available, the sentiments are well summarized in a statement by HZDS Vice-chairman Augustin Marian Huska on 12 September 1998 in Slovenska republika:
There are really two Slovakias.  One Slovakia is entranced, provincial, compliant, and submissive to the will of foreign powers, leashed-up lackeys of those abroad.  The other Slovakia is upright, determined but thoughtful.  Meciar and HZDS are on this side toward the future of an open Slovakia.  Let us take that road together.
A similar message appears rather more obliquely in HZDS television commercials, one of which shows a vineyard and vintner and the statement, "A good farmer (hospodar) does not sell off his land.  Nor will we sell off Slovakia"(emphasis in grammatical form of original).
Although these arguments are not used directly to justify institutional encroachment, they are used to impeach sources that would call attention to such encroachments during the electoral period through rejection of certain international election observers (particularly those from the US, UK, Czech Republic and Hungary) and statements by European and North American political leaders concerning the electoral law and conduct of the campaign.  HZDS has similarly impugned domestic election observers and domestic non-profit organizations, and the television station Markiza as subordinate to foreign interests and potentially disloyal to Slovakia.  Furthermore, HZDS leaters cited potential disruptions by these groups as an explanation for the mobilization of police and military units to participate in election security and as a potential reason for the marring or postponement of elections.

As with specific tactics, the broader dynamic remains the same as well.  If the current coalition does disrupt the elections (and by the time this paper is presented, we should know the answer), it will do so out of administrative strength combined with political weakness.  A party firmly in control of its electoral future need not take direct action against opposition parties.  Paradoxically, any triumph of national populism in Slovakia in the 1998 elections will occur not from the abundance of national- and authority-minded voters but from want of them.

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