Anthropology NewsNicolette Makovicky, Jonathan Larson, and Juraj Buzalka
Common Decency in the Populist Era
On June 18, 2020 by Dana JohnsonNicolette Makovicky, Jonathan Larson, and Juraj Buzalka
June 11, 2020
The call for decency in contemporary Slovak politics speaks both to new conservatives and old liberals.
In December 2013, the former secondary schoolteacher Marian Kotleba was elected governor of the Banská Bystrica region in Central Slovakia. Kotleba was the leader of the neo-fascist People’s Party Our Slovakia, which claimed to stand up for the rights of “decent people” (slušní ľudia) in the face of corrupt politicians, “Gypsy criminals,” and the shadowy international forces of global capitalism (Walker 2019). He found his strongest support amongst the region’s first-time voters.