The Populist Left and the Populist Right in the Contemporary Post-Yugoslav space: Socio-economic Programmes of Mainstream Parties in Serbia and Croatia

The lack of a clear economic policy and profiling is the common denominator of many populist options in Europe. Populists use economic deliberations in their "combat" against the "corrupt elite" and therefore little room is left for a deeper and wider analysis of socioeconomic measures and the policies for which they stand. This aspect of populism is an interesting meeting point of right- and left-wing populists who are becoming ever more alike. The authors have examined this hypothesis about the homogenising potential of populism by analysing the main legal documents of four parties in Serbia and Croatia. The authors' aim is to examine whether the hypotheses constructed for Western European countries can be heuristically applied to former socialist countries.