¿Populismo híbrido? análisis del SMER-SD en Eslovaquia

Populism in Europe has concentrated mainly in the East and has manifested itself through right-wing parties. However, studies on this part of the continent in comparison with the West are scarce. In order to gain insight into populism in this zone, an exceptional case of a left-wing populist party in Slovakia, the SMER-SD, is analyzed. The results show how, since inception in 2014, the Slovak party becomes a «hybrid populist», left-wing on economic policy grounds and culturally conservative, shifting closer to more common populist parties in the region, like the PiS in Poland. Furthermore, the voters of the SMER-SD already had populist attitudes before, which allows us to infer that this ideological shift helped the party to prevent its total decline and to maintain a good part of its electoral support in subsequent elections.