A Wolf without Teeth: Electoral Manifestos of the Populist Radical Right Party SPD in the Czech Local Elections
No.1(2026)
Populist radical right parties often position themselves at the edges of the political spectrum, particularly at the national level, where they adopt strong nationalist, anti-immigration, and anti-elitist stances. However, these positions often lose relevance at the local level. Local governments have limited power over migration, local elites are embedded within their communities, and broader political frameworks remain unchangeable. This article examines how the Czech radical right party Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) operates locally in the 2018 and 2022 municipal elections. By manually coding 188 electoral manifestos from 141 municipalities, it shows considerable variation in the party’s local strategies. In some municipalities, manifestos contain no signs of populism or radical stances on immigration and nativism. In others, the SPD constructs “the people” and “the elite” in a populist way and adopts clear anti-immigration and nationalist positions, illustrating the diverse nature of its local-level strategies.
Radical right populist party, Local politics, electoral manifesto, Qualitative
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