Ideological Solidarity of European Populist Parties with Russia

Russian government has a crucial position among European populist parties and we are going to show that ideological solidarity between these parties and Russian authorities has been the main cause of gaining this position. Populism is a complicated and disputed word and there are numerous definitions of this word. Here, we mention it in three general categories and we define it as a thin ideology. European populist parties have a long history, however they have had an increasingly growth in political arena and the results of general elections and European parliament confirmed how they welcome by the people in Europe. Since the tendency of these parties to Russia is explained in the context of foreign policy, we try to review the main foreign policy issues of left and right European populist parties and their similarities and differences. Finally the hypothesis of research has been tested and the indexes of ideological solidarity among European populist parties and Russia have been introduced. Ideological solidarity of right populist parties with Russia includes social conservative values, defending national sovereignty, centralization of power and rejection of internationalization and liberal involvement, while, in European left populist parties we can refer to resistance to globalization, rejecting capitalist order and nostalgic linkage between these parties and Russia. The resent Ukrainian crisis is explained as a case study to show the solidarity of European populist parties with Russia.