SSRC Dissertation Development Fellow Alina Polyakova

Organizing Radicalism in Civil Society: Why Radical Right Parties Succeed or Fail in Post-Communist New Democracies

Sociology, University of California - Berkeley

Project Description
My dissertation examines the relationship between support for radical right parties and civil society to answer why contemporary radical right parties are more electorally successful in some places than others. The empirical puzzle driving this research is the failure of radical right parties in Central Eastern Europe in general and Ukraine in particular. Taking a broad comparative perspective, it shows that economic and political factors can neither adequately explain cross-national differences in electoral support between Central Eastern European (CEE) countries nor intra-national differences between regions in Ukraine. In Ukraine, radical right parties have failed to enter parliament despite seemingly facilitating economic, political, and historical pre-conditions. The study compares two similar western Ukrainian regions: Galicia, where the current radical right party has received a controlling majority at the local level, and Volyn where it has failed to do so. Using extensive interviews with members of the radical right “Freedom Party,” the case study examines how the party organizes and mobilizes support in between and during elections. The findings show that the party implements a civil society focused strategy for building organizational capacity, which accounts for its success in Galicia and failure in Volyn. Organizational practices are interwoven with social connections through which new members are recruited and by which political ideas travel. This strategy, which provides a space and place for political participation across social strata, allows the party to politicize non-political individuals and groups, thus gaining a support base in civil society. Social networks, embedded in civil society, thus facilitate radicalization.

Bio:
Alina Polyakova is a PhD candidate in sociology at the University of California- Berkeley. Her dissertation explores the relationship between support for radical right parties and civil society development, with a focus on how political parties’ organizational capacity to recruit and mobilize support through networks in civil society. Alina conducted fieldwork in Ukraine, where she interviewed members of radical right groups, political parties, and civic organizations. Her work has received funding from the Social Science Research Council, IREX, and the National Science Foundation. Her other research interests include European identity formation and EU integration of post-socialist republics. Prior to entering the PhD program at Berkeley, Alina was a Fulbright Scholar in Germany. She graduated summa cum laude from Emory University with a double major in economics and sociology.

Photo from the field - Alina Polyakova