Populist orientations of Ukraine's population over the course of social transformations
The head of the Department of Social and Political Processes of the Institute of Sociology of the NAS of Ukraine, Doctor of Sociological Sciences Oleksandr Reznik, has published the article «Populist orientations of Ukraine's population over the course of social transformations».
In Ukraine the prolonged social transformations of the post-communist period led to total distrust of and a negative attitude towards state institutions. Because the political establishment did not change, stable anti-elitist attitudes took shape in mass consciousness. For decades the population's political preferences rested on dividing politicians by their geopolitical orientations and ethnocultural preferences. This prevented populists from fully emerging as a real anti-establishment force. Only after this polarisation weakened considerably did populist orientations translate into the electoral phenomenon of 2019, when politicians from outside the system came to power. During the full-scale Russian-Ukrainian war a radical reappraisal of one's own state and of state institutions took place, so the antagonism between the population and the elite became temporarily irrelevant. The high level of Ukrainians' support for populist ideas even under war conditions, however, carries risks for the post-war restoration of competitive political life, when the current political establishment will be regarded as «traditional» and «corrupt».
What is positive is that certain populist ideas no longer enjoy support among Ukrainians. In particular, most of the population no longer approve of breaking the law in order to achieve a result. It is also important that, despite a heightened level of support for populism in society, it is not reproduced by regional or ethno-linguistic divisions. That is, the phenomenon of populism as a potential problem for the democratisation of society will not be reinforced by social divisions of that kind. As in the developed democratic countries, support for populism in Ukraine is concentrated above all among the economically insecure strata of the population — that is, among people living in small settlements, less educated, older and with financial problems.
Source: the website of the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation:
Institute of Sociology of the NAS of Ukraine
National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. The country's leading sociology research institution, founded in 1990.