Crises of political development in Ukraine: causes and content

Abstract

Crises of political development are inherent in countries transitioning from an authoritarian to a democratic regime. In contrast to political crises, crises of political development are inherent in transit societies. Usually they have much deeper and more fundamental reasons related to the quality of the authoritarian political regime, the nature of the transformational changes and are much longer lasting. Іn this article author analyzes the crises of political development that are manifested in Ukraine during the transformation of the political regime. The crises of political development include the crisis of identity, distribution, participation, penetration and legitimacy. The crisis of identity characterizes the disintegration of ideals and values that dominated in political culture of the previous period; the crisis of distribution lies in the inability of the ruling elite to ensure socially acceptable growth of material well-being and its distribution, which causes social stratification and is a constant source of socio-political conflicts; the crisis of penetration is conditioned in the reduced ability of public authorities to perform the functions inherent in the state, which complicates the implementation of reforms and governance; the crisis of participation is conditioned through the creation of artificial barriers by the ruling class for the inclusion in political life of groups claiming power or passivity of society, as a result of which unconventional forms of political participation begin to prevail; the crisis of legitimacy is conditioned in the low efficiency of the constitutional model of power organization and arises as a result of inconsistency of goals and values of the ruling regime with the ideas of the majority of citizens about the rules of just government. The combination of these crises creates a crisis syndrome of modernization and hinders the development of the state in general. In conclusions the author formulates the institutional tools which can reduce the negative effects of crises of political development. Key words: crisis of political development, crisis of identity, crisis of distribution, crisis of participation, crisis of penetration, crisis of legitimacy, financial-industrial groups, political institutionalization, political regime.