Twelfth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

The Trump spectacle has overshadowed similar phenomena occurring in many European countries as well as such states as Russia, Turkey, and Brazil. The populist shift to the right (in particular, in regard to such issues as globalization, state sovereignty, immigration, group rights and privileges, and welfare policy) and the emergence of charismatic leaders raise important questions, such as: Are these phenomena indicative of the emergence of a systemic crisis, rooted in the exhaustion of capacity of the political and socio-economic systems formed in the twentieth century? What is the role of immigration and the changing ethnic and religious population structures in the emergence of the current situation? What should be the governmental and societal response to these phenomena? Regardless of the differences among the US, European, and Soviet political and socio-economic systems, some features of the current crisis are similar to those phenomena that took place in the USSR during Perestroika (1987-1991) and led to the collapse of the Soviet system. They are related to the simultaneous crises of the political, economic, and social welfare systems, expressed, in particular, in the growing social divide on the basis of racial, ethno-cultural, and other group-based criteria that turned out to be (quite contrary to the Marxist theory) more important than the socio-economic/class divisions. Relying on the late Soviet experience, the author suggests that significant structural reforms are necessary to prevent systemic destabilization and the advancement of political extremism.