The Structure of Tajikistan's Political Space: the Party Dimension

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to reveal theoretical and methodological approaches and some results of the study of the structure of the multidimensional political space of Tajikistan and its party dimension. Theories and concepts of political space lead researchers to believe that it is much broader than the framework of the political system, more complex than its organization and institutional content, as it consists of a variety of legal, political, social fields and spatial dimensions. The author is sure that the category "political space" has theoretical, methodological and practical significance for understanding the structure of the political system, the specifics of the political process in the country under study. It is determined that the main factors of the post-Soviet transformation of the political space of Tajikistan are the Constitution, the legal field outlined by it and the power elites as the driving forces of this transformation. As a result, a specific party system has emerged, based on the institutions of political pluralism, multiparty system with the secondary influence of parties on the political process. These factors have shaped the structure and boundaries of the modern political space in which illiberal but formally democratic political institutions function. Determining the stability of the institutions of the political system of Tajikistan and the associated political space is an important and urgent task. This Central Asian country, friendly to Russia, is a co-founder of the SCO, a member of the CSTO and has a long border with Afghanistan, a constant source of military-political tension, religious and ethnic contradictions in the region. Therefore, understanding and taking into account the specifics of the institutional and legal organization and functioning of the party-political space is not only a scientific interest, but also a significant aspect of foreign policy and inter-party relations between Russia and Tajikistan.