Political culture and democracy: Ukraine as an immobile state

East European Politics and Societies

Volumn 25, Issue 1, 2011, Pages 88-113

  Kuzio, Taras ^a  

^a JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Corruption; Immobility; Reforms; Viktor Yushchenko

Indexed keywords

EID: 78651372499     PISSN: 08883254     EISSN: 15338371     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0888325410388410     Document Type: Article

References (106)

1. With the exception of surveys conducted in Ukraine, few scholarly studies have probed this question. For an early analysis, see Paul Kubicek, "Post-Soviet Ukraine: In Search of a Constituency for Reform," Journal of Communist Studies & Transition Politics 13:3(1997): 103-26.
2. Alexander Motyl, "Making Sense of Ukraine," Harriman Review 10:3(1997): 1-7.
3. Dominique Arel, "The Muddle Way," Current History 97:621(1998): 342-46.
4. Marta Dyczok, Ukraine: Movement without Change, Change without Movement (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic, 2000).
5. Andrew Lushnycky and Mykola Riabchuk, eds., Ukraine on Its Meandering Path between East and West (Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang, 2009).
6. T. Kuzio, "Virtual Reform in a Virtual State," Kyiv Post, 8 May 2003.
7. Askold Krushelnycky wrote that Yushchenko promised a lot "while delivering little or nothing." He "was a petty person of little vision, full of hot air and unwilling to take any hard decisions." See A. Krushelnycky, "Yanukovych Lives Up to Low Expectations," Kyiv Post, 16 Apr. 2010.
8. Andrew Wilson, "Ukraine-From Orange Revolution to Failed State?" (Talk given at briefing in Washington, DC, 29 May 2009), http://ecfr.eu/content/profile/C33.
9. See M. Riabchuk, "What's Left of Orange Ukraine?" www.opendemocracy.net, 22 Apr. 2010.
10. Leonid Kravchuk, www.pravda.com.ua, blog, 6 Apr. 2010.
11. Remarks made by Paul D'Anieri at the "Ukraine 2010-2020: Politics, Geopolitics and Future Trajectories" (Symposium, Kyiv, 18 Dec. 2009).
12. Francis Fukuyama, "Transitions to the Rule of Law," Journal of Democracy 21:1(2010): 138.
13. Adrian Karatnycky, "Reintroducing Viktor Yanukovych," Wall Street Journal, 8 Feb. 2010.
14. See Anders Aslund, How Ukraine Became a Market Economy and Democracy (Washington, DC: Petersen Institute of International Economics, March 2009).
15. See Ostap Kryvdyk, "Chy ye zhyttia pislia Yanukovycha?" Ukrayinska Pravda, 10 Feb. 2010.
16. T. Kuzio, "Ukraine's Oligarchs and Democratic Regression: Why Are They Silent?", Eurasia Daily Monitor, 22 Sept. 2010.
17. Susan Stewart, "Ukraine's Greatest Challenge," www.europeanvoice.com, 13 Jan. 2010.
18. Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way, "International Linkage and Democratization," Journal of Democracy 16:3(2005): 20-34.
19. The first four months of 2000 "saw the greatest reform drive that Ukraine had seen since the fall of 1994. It was broader and more comprehensive, and it would put the market economy right." Quoted from Aslund, How Ukraine Became a Market Economy and Democracy, 133.
20. Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko said that Yushchenko was never an ardent supporter of undertaking protests in the 2004 elections and preferred "back room negotiations." Y. Lutsenko cited in Ukrayinska Pravda, 21 Nov. 2008.
21. Eric Gordy, "Serbia after Djindjic. War Crimes, Organized Crime, and Trust in Public Institutions," Problems of Post-Communism 51:3(2004): 10-17.
22. Aslund, How Ukraine Became a Market Economy and Democracy, 179.
23. See http://www.cvk.gov.ua/pls/vp2004/wp0011.
24. Aslund, How Ukraine Became a Market Economy and Democracy, 202, 205-207.
25. Yushchenko, presenting his candidacy for the 2004 elections, said, The authorities will work for the people, corruption will be ended, all will be equal before the law, and bandits will go to jail(UNIAN, 1 July 2004).
26. See T. Kuzio, "Populism in Ukraine in Comparative European Context," Problems of Post-Communism, 45: 6 (2010), IN PRESS.
27. Introduction to special issue on political corruption of Natsionalna Bezpeka i Oborona 7 (2009), http://www.uceps.org/ukr/journal.php and http://www.uceps.org/eng/journal.php?
28. Interview with GRECO head Drago Kos in Zerkalo Nedeli, 16-22 October 2010.
29. Interview with Oleksandr Medvedko in Zerkalo Nedeli, 24-30 Jan. 2009.
30. Natsionalna Bezpeka i Oborona 7(2009).
31. Lutsenko cited by Ukrayinska Pravda, 15 Apr. 2009.
32. Serhiy Leshchenko, "Yulia Tymoshenko povtoruye 'kadrov' karuseli Viktora Yanukovycha," Ukrayinska Pravda, 15 Apr. 2009.
33. Deputy Prime Minister Volodymyr Sivkovych cited by Ukrayinska Pravda, 11 May 2010.
34. Valeriy Honcharuk and Yaroslav Pavlovsky, "Yanukovych hotuye adminresurs pid vybory," Ukrayinska Pravda, 5 May 2010
35. P. Byrne and S. Tuchynska, "Police Move to Dampen Protest Turnout," Kyiv Post, 11 May 2010.
36. Tymoshenko claimed that bribes of up to $5 million were being offered to opposition deputies to defect to the Stability and Reforms coalition. Tymoshenko cited in Ukrayinska Pravda, 16 Apr. 2010.
37. The biggest example was Tymoshenko's legal adviser Andriy Portnov, who defected after agreeing to become deputy head of the presidential administration (Ukrayinska Pravda, 12 Apr. 2010).
38. See Viktor Chyvokin, "Yanukovych doukomplektovuye svoyu administratsiu," Ukrayinska Pravda, 5 May 2010.
39. A Dnipropetrovsk-based company organized the sale of votes and also offered to rent "protestors" to political parties. See Ukrayinska Pravda, Zhyttia, 4 Apr. 2010.
40. See T. Kuzio, "'Political Tourism' and Managed Civil Society in Ukraine," Eurasian Daily Monitor 4:100(22 May 2007).
41. M. Riabchuk, "Kompleks Lioventalia," www.zgroup.com.ua, 7 Apr. 2010.
42. Charles H. Fairbanks, "Georgia's Soviet Legacy," Journal of Democracy 21:1(2010): 144.
43. Yuriy Butusov, Inna Bedernykov, and others, "My sami otkryly vorota, my sami," Zerkalo Nedeli, 24-29 Apr. 2010.
44. Leonid Kuchma's independence day speech published in Uriadovyi Kurier, 27 Aug. 2003.
45. Natsionalna Bezpeka i Oborona 7(2009), 6.
46. Natsionalna Bezpeka i Oborona 7(2009), 53.
47. Jan Neutze and Adrian Karatnycky, Corruption, Democracy and Investment in Ukraine (Washington, DC: Atlantic Council of the United States, 2007), 28.
48. Tymoshenko's comments are cited in Ukrayinska Pravda, 8 Apr. 2010.
49. See Svitlana Tuchynska, "Ukrayinska Pravda exposes president's Mezhygirya deal," Kyiv Post, 6 May 2010.
50. L. Kravchuk, Ukrayinska Pravda, blog, 6 Apr. 2010.
51. Natsionalna Bezpeka i Oborona 7(2009), 39.
52. See S. Leshchenko, "Blysk ta ubohist 'opozytsionera' Yushchenka," Ukrayinska Pravda, 31 Mar. 2010.Yushchenko and Our Ukraine-Peoples Self Defence have been at the centre of protests against the appointment of Dmytro Tabachnyk as education and science minister in the Azarov cabinet, proposing a no-confidence resolution in parliament on 30 March 2010 for his dismissal. At the same time, Our Ukraine party leader and former chief of staff Vera Uliancheko's husband agreed to become deputy education and science minister.
53. S. Leshchenko, "Faktor Herman' yak vstup do klanoznavtsva ukrayinskoii polityka," Ukrayinska Pravda, 24 Mar. 2010.
54. Andreas Umland, "Is Europe Losing Ukraine?" Foreign Policy Journal, 12 Apr. 2010, http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2010/04/12/is-europe-losing-ukraine/ .
55. Kuchma cited by Reuters, 12 Dec. 1994.
56. See the comments by the spouse of a wealthy Russian oligarch in Mark Hollingsworth and Stewart Lansley, Londongrad. From Russia with Cash. The Inside Story of the Oligarchs (London: Fourth Estate, 2009), 183.
57. Leslie Holmes, "Crime, Organized Crime and Corruption in Post-Communist Europe and the CIS," Communist and Post-Communist Studies 42: 2(2009): 285.
58. Lutsenko cited by Ukrayinska Pravda, 21 Apr. 2008.
59. Natsionalna Bezpeka i Oborona 7(2009), 53.
60. See "Positive and Negative Impressions of Ukrainian Politicians," in Public Opinion in Ukraine 2009. Findings from an IFES Survey (Washington, DC: International Foundation for Electoral Systems, December 2009), http://www.ifes.org/pubsearch_results.html?type_group_0=®ion_name_0=Ukraine&keyword=ukraine&t=sp.
61. Serhiy Soroka, "ZAT 'Ukrayina,' kerovane uriadom oligarkhiv," Ukrayinska Pravda, 13 Apr. 2010.
62. Interview with Medvedko in Zerkalo Nedeli, 24-30 Jan. 2009.
63. See interview with Prosecutor-General O. Medvedko in Komsomolskaya Pravda v Ukrayini, 20 Apr. 2010.
64. See also Peter Byrne, "Once Criminal Suspects, VIP Exiles Now Return Home as Cases Dropped," Kyiv Post, 24 Apr. 2010.
65. Yushchenko cited by Ukrayinska Pravda, 21 Jan. 2009.
66. See T. Kuzio, "Ukraine's Virtual Struggle against Corruption and Organised Crime," RFERL Crime, Corruption and Terrorism Watch, 6 Sept. 2002.
67. T. Kuzio, "Inferiority Complexes of Baloha, Yushchenko Led Them to Each Other," Kyiv Post, 5 Feb. 2009.
68. Opinion poll cited from Den, 25 Jan. 2000.
69. For background see T. Kuzio, "Comparative Perspectives on Communist Successor Parties in Central-Eastern Europe and Eurasia," Communist and Post-Communist Studies 41:4(2008): 1-23.
70. See "Running Man," which lists the top ten defectors in parliament, with the prize going to Mykhailo Zubets who has changed factions a record seven times. Ukrayinsky Tyzhden, 19-25 Feb. 2010, pp. 20-21.
71. Adrian Lyttelton, "The National Question in Italy," in Mikulas Teich and Roy Porter, eds., The National Question in Europe in Historical Context (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 63-105.
72. "Italian Politics. Centrifugal Forces," The Economist, 13 May 2010.
73. John Dickie, Cosa Nostra. A History of the Sicilian Mafia (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2004), 281.
74. Dickie writes that this saved Italy from Chile's fate. Ibid., 350.
75. Ibid., 386.
76. Ibid., 385.
77. The Guardian, 28 Mar. 2009.
78. Dickie, Cosa Nostra.
79. Il Divo, a 2008 film, tells the story of Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, who was elected to parliament seven times after 1946, and his relationship to the mafia and to DC leader Aldo Moro, who was assassinated in 1978 by the Red Brigades terrorist group.
80. Kersten Zimmer, "The Comparative Failure of Machine Politics, Administrative Resources and Fraud," Canadian Slavonic Papers 47:1-2(2005): 361-34.
81. T. Kuzio, "Ukraine's Virtual Struggle."
82. Whit Mason, "Trouble in Tbilisi," The National Interest (Spring 2005): 140.
83. See T. Kuzio, "Gas Lobby Takes Control of Ukraine's Security Service," Jamestown Foundation, Eurasia Daily Monitor 7:53(18 Mar. 2010).
84. See http://www.doingbusiness.org/EconomyRankings/.
85. Natsionalna Bezpeka i Oborona 7(2009), 45.
86. http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=17
87. See http://www.transparency.org/news_room/in_focus/2008/cpi2008/cpi_2008_tab le.
88. See http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/gcb/2009.
89. C. H. Fairbanks, "Georgia's Rose Revolution," Journal of Democracy 15:2(2004): 110-124
90. Fairbanks calls the Georgian reforms a "hyper-presidential" constitution. Ibid., 118.
91. Michael McFaul, "Conclusion: The Orange Revolution in a Comparative Perspective," in A. Aslund and M.McFaul, eds., Revolution in Orange (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment, 2006), 193.
92. Henry Hale reaches similar conclusions in "Democracy and Revolution in the Post-Communist World: From Chasing Events to Building Theory," World Politics 58 (October 2005): 133-165
93. See interview with Yevhen Chervonenko in Ukrayinska Pravda, 8 Aug. 2008.Kuchma, who was then leaving office, was opposed to taking responsibility for bloodshed.
94. See Heorhiy Kasianov, Ukrayina 1991-2007. Narysy novitnoii istorii (Kyiv: Nash Chas, 2008), 337. The 27 November 2004 parliamentary resolution denouncing election fraud in the second round was not supported by two hard-line factions: the Party of Regions and Social Democratic united Party.
95. See "The Mariinsky Palace Negotiations: Maintaining Peace throughout Ukraine's Orange Revolution" (Cambridge, MA: Program on Negotiations, Harvard University Law School, 2006), http:// www.pon.harvard.edu/.
96. Steven Pifer, "European Mediators and Ukraine's Orange Revolution," Problems of Post-Communism 54:6(2007): 28-42.
97. See http://www.uceps.org/ukr/poll.php?poll_id=89.
98. Alexander J. Motyl, "Ukraine's Democracy in Danger," Wall Street Journal Europe, 30 Mar. 2010.
99. T. Kuzio, "Russia and State-Sponsored Terrorism in Ukraine. Parts 1 and 2," Eurasian Daily Monitor 1:90-91(22-23 Sept. 2004)
100. "Yushchenko Poisoning Investigation Nearing Climax," Eurasian Daily Monitor 2:35(18 Feb. 2005).
101. On the attempt to blow up the headquarters, see the interview with Yushchenko's bodyguard Y. Chervonenko in Ukrayinska Pravda, 8 Aug. 2008.
102. Although Tymoshenko is usually defined as a "populist" in Ukrainian politics, all Ukrainian politicians are "populist" to varying degrees, especially during election campaigns. During the 2010 elections, Yanukovych and Yushchenko outdid Tymoshenko in their populist election promises (personal observation during fieldwork in Ukraine in August 2009 to February 2010). See T. Kuzio, "Who's Populist in Ukrainian Politics," Kyiv Post, 4 July 2007
103. for a more extensive treatment, Kuzio, "Populism in Ukraine in Comparative European Context," Problems of Post-Communism.
104. Stephen F. Jones, "The Rose Revolution: A Revolution Without Revolutionaries?" Cambridge Review of International Affairs 19:1(2006): 43.
105. See Alexandra Hrycak, "Gender Biases Are a Factor in Yulia's Defeat," Kyiv Post, 16 Mar. 2010
106. T. Kuzio, "Gender Bias, Anti-Semitism Contributed to Yanukovych's Victory," Kyiv Post, 19 Mar. 2010.