Mobilization and Representation under Adverse Conditions

Par­ties exist not only in repre­senta­tive de­moc­racies, but also in re­gimes domi­nated by au­thori­tarian in­cum­bents and influ­ential eco­nomic actors ("oli­garchs"). Fo­cusing on au­thori­tarian Rus­sia on the one hand and the hy­brid de­moc­racies of Ukraine and Mol­dova on the other, the junior re­search group inves­ti­gates the condi­tions of exist­ence of par­ties and asks whether they can repre­sent the inter­ests of citi­zens de­spite sys­temic barri­ers.

Even in repre­senta­tive de­moc­racies, the func­tion of par­ties to trans­late the pref­er­ences of citi­zens into poli­cies is some­times im­paired. This is exac­erbat­ed where au­thori­tarian and in­for­mal prac­tices sys­temat­ically dis­tort politi­cal com­peti­tion – or elimi­nate it alto­geth­er. In such con­texts, the exist­ing litera­ture sees par­ties pri­marily as an in­stru­ment of the pow­erful to stabi­lize au­thori­tarian rule or to en­force oli­gar­chic inter­ests. Nev­erthe­less, there are ex­am­ples of suc­cess­ful mobi­liza­tion of voters and activ­ists and even of suc­cess­ful repre­senta­tion of socie­tal de­mands.

On the one hand, the Junior Re­search Group exam­ines par­ties in the pa­tronal de­moc­racies (i.e., de­moc­racies char­acter­ized by a high de­gree of in­for­mali­ty) of Ukraine and the Re­public of Mol­dova. It also exam­ines the con­se­quences of the Rus­sian war of ag­gres­sion for do­mestic poli­tics. Sec­ond, it ex­plores how Rus­sian oppo­sition par­ties have emerged as pillars of the au­thori­tarian re­gime since the 1990s – and asks whether they can never­the­less have a future as in­stru­ments of politi­cal repre­senta­tion.