New Populist Parties Survival in East-Central Europe: From Populism to Mainstream?

Populism has proved to be a successful mobilization strategy in recent decades. Useful as a strategy for electoral breakthrough, populism becomes a burden and less persuasive after the entrance into the system and into government in particular. This becomes even more challenging for "centrist populist" parties whose discourse is based solely on populism (without another full or thin ideology). Using data defining policy positions of political parties, the paper examines electoral fortune of centrist populist parties in East-Central Europe (Simeon II movement in Bulgary, Res Publica in Estonia, SOP and Smer in Slovakia, Public Affairs in the Czech Republic) after their entrance into government and assesses the importance of discourse change ("mainstreamization") for the survival of populist political parties in the region. while controlling for other variables related to organizational structure of populist parties, patterns of party competition, conditions of economy etc.