The Outlooks of Using the European Populists Experience in the Development of Political Parties in the Post-Soviet Space

Abstract

The study features prospects for the implementation of European experience in the development of political parties in the post-Soviet states. The methodology of the study is based on a combination of descriptive analysis with case study. The article shed light on the fact that the experience of European populists can be successfully employed in the post-Soviet countries, but to a limited degree. First, a favorable environment for its application is present in states where there is no vertical power structure that help elites to integrate, and establishment groups have a substantial resource potential and can politically challenge respective opponents’ control over key political institutions. Accordingly, it can be employed at the regional level, in depressed areas that are not essential to the stability of the political system and have long been governed ineffectively. Bearing in mind ways and means of the European populists, it can be concluded that in order to avoid sanctions their experience can be successfully applied by those groups within the non-mainstream opposition that are exploited by the factions of the ruling establishment to organize attacks on competitors.