MUP and FSV UK Successful in the Czech Science Foundation Grant Competition

4. 12. 2025 Author: Michal Kolmaš How do populist leaders and their followers think about time? Do populists possess long-term visions, or are they truly driven only by short-term pragmatic gain, as much of the populism literature suggests? A new three-year research project led by Prof. Ondřej Císař (FSV UK) and Assoc. Prof. Michal Kolmaš (MUP) will seek answers to these questions.

The project is theoretically grounded at the intersection of Cas Mudde’s concept of “thin ideology” and Ernesto Laclau’s post-foundational discursive understanding of populism. It aims to understand how populists work with temporality and what visions of the future can be detected in their thinking. It focuses on the interpretation of several fundamental concepts, including family, the environment, gender, migration, the economy, and the world order. Methodologically, it plans to build on ethnographic research conducted among populist politicians as well as their followers/voters, similar to the recent work of Arlie Hochschild.

The project received funding from the Czech Science Foundation, and in addition to the two principal investigators, it brings together researchers from MUP and FSV UK — Eva Hejzlarová, Karel Čada, Veronika Frantová, Martin Páv, Linda Coufal, and Eva Soares Moura. For MUP, securing this project is a significant achievement, as due to budget cuts the success rate in this year’s call was among the lowest in history — only 14 percent of applicants received support.