What Contributes to the Rise of the Right-Wing Populist Parties in Central and Eastern Europe in the Context of the Migration Crisis of 2011-2017

The paper attempts to identify factors that influence the level of support provided to right-wing populist parties in 9 countries of the Central and Eastern Europe region - Bulgaria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Romania, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia - in the context of the crisis of migrants and refugees, which began in 2011 with the beginning of the Arab spring events. The features of the context of the political field in which right-wing populists operated in selected countries, from 2011 to 2017, are considered. After reviewing the theoretical work on the success of right-wing populists among the electorate, factors that can lead to an improvement in the outcome of such parties in elections to national parliaments are highlighted. The empirical part of the work is a statistical study using the linear regression method to identify the relationship between the findings in the literature review which are operationalized, and the support provided to the right-wing populist parties in the elections to the national parliament of the country. It is concluded that the context of the influx of migrants and refugees increases support for right-wing populists. Also, the factor of GDP per capita and the percentage of the employed population of the total population of the country are significant.