Untangling movement-party relationships in Ukraine: is there a space for movement parties?

Movement parties can be a consequence of massive social change and social movement organizational activism, but what movement parties are, when they emerge, and why they emerge -- or do not emerge -- is debatable. Movement parties come in a variety of forms and definitions with characteristics and functions conditioned by the national context, most notably the institutional features of the domestic party system, political experiences, and broader civil society characteristics. The context of Central and Eastern Europe, with its shallow rootedness of party systems and few “established” political parties, highlights the ambiguity of “movement party.” In this paper, I examine the formation of political parties as a consequence of massive social change, that of the 2013-2014 Euromaidan movement in Ukraine. After the movement, several political parties effectively dissolved and new party projects emerged. In the 2014 snap elections, four new parties gained a considerable share of seats in parliament. However, it is debatable whether any of the newly formed parties are a movement party. To examine this debate, I summarize the key features of Euromaidan in terms of its stages of development, key demands, and its constituency, as well as its links to previous contentious action in Ukraine (e.g. Orange Revolution). I also examine Ukraine’s dynamic electoral field (including participation rates, electoral volatility, and institutional trust level) and fluid party system (including organizational structures, membership rates, state financing, and the ideological spectrum and action repertoire of political parties, as well as information on party lists composition and party-switching). To capture the resonance of frames of the Euromaidan movement and the main political parties, I analyzed 20 official documents of both the Maidan movement (issued in 2013-2014) and parliamentary parties (issued at 2012 and 2014 elections). Finally, to understand the role of agency in movement-party relationships, I held 15 interviews with movements’ activists and parties’ spokespersons to get insights into if, when, and how movement-party links developed, and to capture potential overlapping movement-party memberships. The case of Ukraine invites a broader debate on the movement-party relationships outside the West. This research is a part of the project “The Relationship between Social Movements and Political Parties for the Democratic Representation of Social Groups in Europe” funded by the National Science Centre, Poland (UMO-2021/40/C/HS6/00229).