On the nexūs between populism and geopolitical rhetorics:

Evidence from the Visegrád Four

Abstract

The article argues that the repeated use of geopolitical rhetoric by populist actors of various breeds is directly connected to the structural and conceptual affinities through which populism and geopolitics present themselves as discourses, thereby demonstrating a shared grammar of self-presentation. It relies on the available evidence from the Visegrád Four countries in order to survey identitary and technocratic populisms and the multiple ways in which they co-opt geopolitical reasoning. While the discussion of the V4 is based on previously published research, the study also zooms in on the post-2023 developments in Slovakia to present a new perspective. Examining the case of the most recent (as of 2025) democratic backsliding tendencies in the region, the paper demonstrates how local identitary populism has become (re)connected to a historically rooted ‘civilizational’ geopolitics of pan-Slavism.