REVOLUTION IN KYRGYZSTAN OF 2020 AND THE SADYR JAPAROV’s POPULIST PROJECT

There are two tendencies in populism studies that this paper addresses. The first can be defined as empirical Western-centrism manifested as the dominance of the European and American agenda in mainstream works on populism. Although, some researchers emphasize the global significance of the phenomenon, the proportion of studies related to the populist parties, movements, and leaders in the rest of the world is significantly inferior to the number of works on the Western agenda. The second trend is the tradition to approach populism, mainly, as a manifestation of some kind of crisis of democratic ‘normality’ in the context of electoral processes and party competition in liberal democratic political systems. If so, does it mean that populism is an indistinctive phenomenon beyond democratic party systems or the Western world? Moreover, what should be done with cases discovered in the non-democratic or non-liberal context, do they have the potential to develop the theory of populism. Therefore, my intention in this paper is to broaden the understanding of populism with the case of the revolution in Kyrgyzstan of October 2020 and the new Kyrgyz president Sadyr Japarov elected in January 2021. I believe that populism can be found beyond the Western left-right ideological opposition as well as to draw its strength and distinct symbolic content from alternative sources. Therefore, I am going to argue within the framework of Laclauian that Japarov’s political logic is essentially populist, although the Kyrgyz political system cannot be described as liberal or democratic. Moreover, I am convinced that the Kyrgyz case can contribute to the development of populism studies, while the theory of populism can suggest the further development of the situation in Kyrgyzstan.