How Political Radicalization Speaks : Comparative Case Study of the Czech SPD Party

Sammanfattning

The thesis analyzes the discourse of the Czech right-wing populist party Freedom and Direct democracy (SPD, Svoboda a Přímá Demokracie) across two 2024 election campaigns, the Czech regional and the European Parliamentary elections. The thesis explores the level of radicalization of this discourse through a comparative case study. Combining the methods of content analysis and critical discourse analysis, it investigates how the discourse of the electoral programs aligns with transnational radical right-wing populist ideologies. The theoretical framework is grounded in concepts of political radicalization, Europeanization, and the radical right theory. The findings reveal that while the SPD maintains consistent ideological themes of anti-immigration, nationalism, and Euroscepticism, the radicalization of the discourse intensifies in the program for the European Parliamentary elections. The thesis demonstrates how discourse functions as a tool of political mobilization, while also aligning with transnational far-right ideological trends.