Post-Soviet Communist Parties: Viable Contenders or Remnants of the Past?

• In Event: Violence and Intimidation in Post-Soviet Space

Abstract

What explains the electoral performance of communist parties in post-communist Eurasia? Why are some post-Soviet communist parties competitive and viable in the electoral arena while others have been marginalized or eliminated? This research aims to explain the electoral success or failure of thirteen (13) communist parties in ten (10) post-Soviet countries between 1992 and 2021. Encountering radical political changes such as the disintegration of single-party regimes, introduction of multiparty elections, and transition to democracy, communist parties in post-communist Eurasia demonstrated different outcomes in their electoral bids. For example, the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM) enjoyed tremendous support in the legislative elections from 1998 to 2017, with at least 17% of the vote share or above. Electoral support for communist parties in the Russian Federation (KPRF) and Ukraine (KPU) plummeted since 2000 after a short-term success during the 1990s. Communist parties in Belarus (PKB, KPB) and Kazakhstan (QKP, QKHP) managed to survive the countries’ electoral competition by a small margin for the past three decades. Inspired by these considerable differences in electoral performance, this research intends to test whether existing independent variables in comparative and post-communist politics explain such variations. According to the existing theoretical discussions, this research empirically tests four variables in existing literature considered explanatory to the success of authoritarian and communist successor parties – party institutionalization, the presence of “big-tent parties of power,” the quality of elections, and economic privatization and dispersion.

Author

• Junseok Lee, Seoul National University