How far does nationalism go? An overview of populist parties in Central and Eastern Europe

This chapter aims to provide an overview of populist parties across Central and Eastern Europe with a focus on six countries (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia) between 1990 and 2016. The most recent elections taken into consideration are those in Slovakia in March 2016. The chapter starts with a theoretical section about the ambivalent framing of populism in the region. This section also includes details about the varieties of populist actors, and presents their electoral fortunes and general features of development. A caveat has to be mentioned. The vast majority of post-communist parties that correspond to the criteria identified in our theoretical part are classified as radical right forms of populism. Among the most well-known cases of inclusionary populism in post-communist Europe are the Socialist Labour Party (PSM) in Romania and Self-Defence in Poland. Still, in order to provide an in-depth, although succinct, analysis of the features of post-communist populism, sections one and two focus exclusively on its radical right forms.