Slovakia’s 2023 Elections: Framing of Foreign Policy Preferences by Populists

In the Slovak 2023 general election, foreign policy was of importance, as parties were divided along the pro-Western and pro-Russian fault line. Our paper analyses how the parties Smer-SD and SNS, major critics of the previous government and then current coalition members, framed foreign policy issues and events during the election campaign. We employ a framework analysis method to identify the main foreign policy related themes of Smer-SD and SNS and how they framed them. Our dataset consists of 145 posts published online by the parties. Our analysis reveals that the main pre-election topics were: the orientation of Slovak foreign policy, attitudes towards the West, and relations with Russia and Ukraine. The parties’ populism was manifested in the framing of their visions of Slovak foreign policy. Smer-SD and SNS shared with other European populists anti-Westernism, the call for multipolarity and a sovereign foreign policy. However, the historical context of both parties reveals that in spite of the populist framing of foreign relations, their government will probably not lead to a turnaround in Slovak foreign policy.