Author(s): Urtak HAMITI / Language(s): English
/ Issue: 1/2021
Populist parties, movements, and leaders have been an object of increased public attention during the last couple of decades worldwide. By opting for more issue-guided actions rather than traditional political ones, based on programs and ideologically close to the center identities, these political actors have grown in stature and are no longer on the fringes of decision-making processes. While right-wing populism has a close relationship with nationalism, conservatism, left-wing populism uses social issues and what it calls "class divide" and the promise of fighting “old orders” towards an equal society. Both strands of populism use the actual dissatisfaction of the people and presumed lack of responses of mainstream politics to new challenges in recent years (economic decline, migrant crises, COVID 19, EU post BREXIT). Populists rely heavily on the energy of their movement, protests and gatherings, and social media campaigns in their efforts to change what they often call a prevailing “unstable and unsuitable social order". Central and Eastern Europe has become a testing ground for the growing trend – predominant populist parties in power. What makes populism so popular? How did the parties and movements with ever-changing agendas managed to gain popular support, and move form fringes to the center of decision-making in politics and society? The latest such occurrence is the emergence of the "Self-Determination Movement” (Lëvizja Vetëvendosje, LVV, in Albanian) as the main overwhelming political force in Kosovo. This paper discusses populism, right and left-wing, as well as a syncretic and/or synthetic version of it, an eclectic character, resulting in potential to influence decision-making processes, and in the case of SelfDetermination (LVV) and Kosovo specifically how a political party, created initially as a social and nationalist movement managed to gain over 50% of the vote by using both right and left-wing agendas and transforming its political positions to suit the ultimate goal - political power.
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