The state of political culture in Slovakia is adequate to the current state of democracy in the country. In future, political debates need to be held on the real problems.
The challenges for political culture in Slovakia were identified during a seminar held in May and June at the Slovak Academy of Sciences and the Bratislava International School of Liberal Studies. The organizers were the Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, the Bratislava International School of Liberal Studies and the Philosophical Seminar of the University of Zurich. The event was also actively supported by the Ambassador of the Swiss Federation to Slovakia, Josef Aregger, with an introductory contribution on the Swiss perception of political culture in the form of “Gemeinsinn” (sense of society).
The aim of the meetings was to confront the opinions of political scientists, sociologists and philosophers on the state and perspectives of political culture in Slovakia in an informal discussion. Among the participants were František Novosád and Martin Muránsky (Faculty of Philosophy SAS), Samuel Abrahám (BISLA), Viliam Figusch (Council of Europe), Oľga Gyarfášová (Institute for Public Affairs), Marián Gula (Institute of National Remembrance), Kalmán Petöcz (Forum Institute for Minority Research) and Viliam Vaškovič (Liberal Society).
The seminar was the first part of a larger research project on political culture in Slovakia, which is ongoing as part of Karin Bachmann’s doctoral thesis until the end of 2011. Bachmann, who also works as a correspondent for German-speaking media in Slovakia and Hungary, examines the state and perspectives of political culture in Europe based on personal knowledge of four countries (Hungary, Germany, Switzerland, Slovakia).
Scholars offer a number of definitions of “political culture”. The participants of the meetings agreed that they will understand political culture as a certain form of behavior of participants in political life towards each other. According to Josef Aregger, every Swiss has a sense of society instilled in them by their upbringing and thus understands the village as the core of political culture. The sense of society is also expressed in the fact that the Swiss understand politics as a hobby and a political mandate as an honorable task. Swiss politicians carry out their activities as an addition to their “regular profession”.
Oľga Gyarfášová drew attention to the fact that Slovaks understand democracy as a spectrum of possibilities to live their lives according to private needs (and not according to state needs, as before 1989). They lack a sense of individual responsibility for political events. According to František Novosad, society is also developing in this direction because people are disgusted when politics and politics are debated only in schemes of good and evil, i.e. in moral schemes, which often leads to debates about fictitious scandals. According to such thinking, a good politician is the one who does not commit the worst. That is why it is necessary to free political culture from this kind of morality.
The participants of the meetings discussed specific areas of political culture suitable for discussion. For example- Do different generations have different ideas about political culture? How to motivate citizens in the regions to engage in the political culture of the region and the whole country? According to Kalmán Petöcz, a standardized dialogue between the majority and minorities is essential for the harmonious coexistence of nationalities in Slovakia. Other important areas are corruption and transparency, coming to terms with history and the fact that many citizens have similar views on political culture as before the fall of the Iron Curtain.
Text: Karin Bachmann