PARTICIPATION IN THE INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE ON POLITICAL PARTIES AND PARTY SYSTEMS
On April 24–25, 2025, at the Collegium Polonicum of Poznań University and Viadrina University, an international scientific conference titled “Political Parties and Party Systems: Evolution in the Countries of Central and Eastern Europe” was held. The event was organized by the Polish Association of Political Science in cooperation with the International Political Science Association, and gathered leading scholars from Poland, Germany, Portugal, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Greece, Italy, Moldova, and the Baltic States.
The Institute of Political and Ethnonational Studies was represented by Galyna Zelenko, Head of the Department of Political Institutions and Processes, Corresponding Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. In her presentation, “How the Party System Affects the Institutional Capacity of the State (the Ukrainian Case),” Prof. Zelenko highlighted the results of her research on the institutional capacity of Ukraine’s state authorities during wartime. Her analysis focused on the evolution of Ukraine’s party system, the influence of the post-communist legacy, the effects of voucher privatization on the institutionalization of political parties, and the role of electoral systems and constitutional arrangements in shaping the specific features of political party development.
Special attention was devoted to the impact of European integration on Central and Eastern European countries and Ukraine (after 2014), as well as to reforms in decentralization, anti-corruption policy, and shifts in societal values.
The report also discussed non-electoral mechanisms of legitimizing power under martial law conditions, when elections cannot be held due to territorial occupation and ongoing security threats.
Despite the challenges posed by the full-scale war, Prof. Zelenko emphasized that the level of support for democracy in Ukraine remains high. The growing institutional trust and civil society activism point to the strong potential for democratic transformation in the post-war period.
