Abstract
When studying Western democratic governance, one cannot leave out processes of depoliticization in their various forms. Our analysis based on approaches engaged with interpretive policy and critical discourse analyses focuses on different forms of depoliticization that we identified in relation to the crisis in the Czech politics.
First, we explore a construction of the 'crisis' which, as we assume, determines the choice of anti-crisis measures and political practices used to enact them. In addition, we study political and societal actors and the language they speak.
Since its outbreak, Czech governments have used the crisis discursively and applied a range of discursive practices and simplified narratives such as trivialization ("Don't panic! There will be no depression in the Czech Republic.") or urgent 'no alternative' narrative ("Otherwise, we will end up in Athens!"). Second, we examine 'non-political' expert actors involved in the post-crisis policy-making and their role in discourse framing and in delegitimization of alternatives which denied the anti-crisis austerity measures.
Third, we study a rise of one of the richest Czech entrepreneurs and his populist 'non-political'movement with a vague programme based on managerial and business-like steering of the state. In the Czech Republic, the crisis resulted in an aversion towards traditional political parties and politics per se.
Instead of democratisation, this alternative brought imposition of technocratic forms of governance. Our analysis shows the multidimensionality and variability of the depoliticization in the Czech Republic and we identify a range of forms of discursive, societal as well as governmental depoliticization.