Orange Revolution Research Articles

The Influence of ‘Censorship by Money’ on Freedom of Speech in Ukraine

This article will discuss the importance and direction of the media transformation processes in Ukraine in the light of freedom of speech, and will address recent developments in journalism and their consequences for politics. Media processes are analyzed based on the transformation theory. The analysis particularly targets weak and strong points of changes, concentrates on predictions of further freedom of speech development in Ukraine and advocates further research on the similar processes across Eurasia. Generally, this study shows unsatisfactory coverage (partial coverage, selective attention, high prejudice, etc.) of elections in the last years and analyzes the probability of similar actions during the forthcoming Ukrainian presidential election. This study also strives to understand how freedom of speech is influenced by ‘censorship by money’. Further research is needed to determine how to maintain freedom of speech in light of the failure of ‘Orange Revolution’ ideas to be fully implemented.

Rethinking the ‘Orange Revolution’

A national representative survey in November–December 2007 suggests that there was little consensus about the nature of the ‘Orange revolution’, and that perceptions varied considerably by region and age-group. The main reason for participation was to ‘protest against the authorities’, but here too there were considerable regional differences. Eight focus groups conducted in different parts of the country allowed participants to articulate their distinctive interpretations of the events: an ‘Orange’ narrative that saw the events of late 2004 as an authentic popular uprising, and a ‘Blue’ narrative that saw them as a Western-funded coup. After the event, increasing numbers felt they had lost rather than gained, with the gains clearest in respect of freedom of speech and losses most marked in relations with Russia. Different views of the revolutionary events in turn were closely associated with voting choices in the September 2007 parliamentary election.

Ukraine 2004: Informal Networks, Transformation of Social Capital and Coloured Revolutions

Since 2003, the phenomenon of ‘coloured revolutions’ has caused significant changes in post-soviet spaces, but a similar strategy – challenging an existing regime through mass protests – pursued in different countries has led to both successful and unsuccessful results. The success of the Orange revolution in Ukraine suggests that the outcome of a coloured revolution is directly correlated with the development of a country's social capital, whether formal or informal. The case of the civic campaign ‘PORA’ and its genesis and deployment indicates that the development of social capital before the events, although largely unnoticed and only informally organized, was decisive to the outcome of the events of November 2004. In turn, the Orange revolution has transformed the country, prompting a conversion of informal into formal social capital that is now active at the social and political levels.

Strident, Ambiguous and Duplicitous

Russia's August 2008 invasion of Georgia and de facto annexation of South Ossetia and Abkhazia will undoubtedly have repercussions for Ukaine's security. Although Ukraine had high hopes--following the Orange Revolution and election of the pro-Western Viktor Yushchenko--of quickly integrating into Euro-Atlantic structures, only NATO opened its door in 2005-06 but closed it in 2007-08 due to low public support within Ukraine and the growing appeasement of Russia by key Western European NATO members. The EU continues not to view Ukraine as a future member. Ukraine's security vacuum is coupled with instability, preventing the adoption of a unified position on Russia's aggression in Georgia, which has plagued the entire Yushchenko administration and assertiveness in the region. Russian-Ukrainian relations have deteriorated to their lowest point since the disintegration of the USSR. This poor state of affairs, combined with Russia's willingness and legal justification for defending Russian citizens abroad, opens up the possibility that localized conflict in the Crimea and Sevastopol can no longer be ruled out. (1) This article is divided into five sections. In the first section, I analyze Ukrainian security policies and security dilemmas in the aftermath of the August 2008 invasion of Georgia, (2) taking into consideration that NATO and EU membership are not likely for Ukraine in the foreseeable future. In the second section, I analyze Ukrainian-Georgian relations and the close ideological, personal, and security bonds between Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko and Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili. Although these particular connections emerged after the 2003 Rose Revolution and 2004 Orange Revolution, Ukraine and Georgia had a well-established security relationship under President Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine and President Edward Shevardnadze of Georgia until 2003-04. In the third and fourth sections of the article, I discuss the likelihood of the Crimea becoming the next target for territorial assertiveness in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Ukraine's security responses to what Kyiv sees as growing nationalism. opinion polls also show that the United States, Georgia, and Ukraine are the three most disliked countries in Russia. In these sections, I discuss Russia's inability to come to terms with Ukrainian sovereignty, independence, and territorial control over the Crimea, as well as Ukraine's fight to have different national interests from Russia. In the final section, I discuss how the Russia-Georgia war affected Ukrainian domestic politics (for a breakdown by leader and party, see the appendix). This section argues that existing divisions within the Orange Coalition prevented a unified response to the war, although both Our Ukraine (3) and the Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko (BYuT), as the coalition's two key political forces, feuded, leading to the collapse of the coalition on September 3. (4) Both wings of the democratic (i.e. Orange) coalition supported Georgia's territorial integrity. The oppositional Party of Regions' official stance, in support of the recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, split the party in the Ukrainian parliament. The party's resolution in support of independence for South Ossetia and Abkhazia was supported by the Communist Party, but failed to win sufficient votes to be adopted. A similar resolution passed in the Crimean parliament. Ukraine's Security Dilemmas Russia's invasion of Georgia has reshaped the geopolitical region and its domestic politics. Ukraine and other states in Eurasia believe that Russia has effectively annexed two Georgian territories without any major repercussions. From Ukraine's vantage point, this usurpation was compounded by the perception that the EU gave its seal of approval to a flawed peace plan beneficial to Russia. By the winter of 2008-09, the EU and NATO had rushed to repair their relations with Russia in the wake of their previous support for Georgia. …

Class Voting and the Orange Revolution: A Cultural Political Economy Perspective on Ukraine's Electoral Geography

The coloured revolutions in the post-communist countries are widely regarded as bourgeois democratic breakthroughs in a classical liberal tradition. Statistical analysis of the structural side of the Orange electoral success in Ukraine – examining in a range of regions the effect on electoral support for an anti-regime candidate of a district's class composition, the activity of non-governmental organizations, ethic-linguistic characteristics, the prevailing mode of human settlement, the church influence, and economic links with Europe – shows the class composition of an electoral district to be the single most important factor behind Viktor Yushchenko's electoral success. However, the Orange victory in 2004 was achieved with support from the least bourgeois areas rather than those where the urban capitalist class had been the most developed.

Democracy promotion before and after the ‘colour revolutions’

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes Tucker, ‘Post-Communist Colored Revolutions’, 536; see also Fairbanks, ‘Revolution Reconsidered’. Cevallos, ‘Whither the Bulldozer?’. Explicit comparisons of the influence of external actors in the various ‘colour revolutions’ are still rare, although some serious research on this has begun. For one contribution with a focus on the role of the US, see Chaulia, ‘Democratization, NGOs, and “colour revolutions”’. For an excellent discussion of the role of diffusion in these processes, see the reactions by various scholars to the July 2008 article by Lucan Way (‘The Real Causes of the Color Revolutions’) and in Journal of Democracy 20, no. 1 (2009): 69–97. See Ambrosio, ‘Insulating Russia’; Silitski, ‘Preempting Democracy’. See in particular O'Donnell and Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule. On this role see Pridham et al., Building Democracy?; Whitehead, ‘The International Dimensions of Democratization’. Michael McFaul has been perhaps most explicit about conditions which facilitate a ‘colour revolution’. He states: ‘The factors for success include (1) a semi-autocratic rather than fully autocratic regime; (2) an unpopular incumbent; (3) a united and organized opposition; (4) an ability quickly to drive home the point that voting results were falsified; (5) enough independent media to inform citizens about the falsified vote; (6) a political opposition capable of mobilizing tens of thousands or more demonstrators to protest electoral fraud; and (7) divisions among the regime's coercive forces.’ See McFaul, ‘Transitions from Postcommunism’, 7. With regard to conditions relevant to democratization, it is useful to point to the five interacting ‘arenas’ posited by Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan to be associated with democracy: the rule of law, economic society, political society, the state apparatus, and civil society. See Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition, 7–15. Burnell, ‘Democracy Assistance’, 9. See especially Carothers, Aiding Democracy Abroad. Börzel and Risse, ‘EU Policies’. Burnell, ‘Democracy Promotion’, 114. Emphasis in original. Schmitter and Brouwer, ‘Democracy Promotion and Protection’, 11. Carothers, ‘Fallacy’, 23. Diamond, ‘Advancing Democratic Governance’, 31. Carothers, ‘Fallacy’; see also Carothers, Aiding Democracy Abroad. Youngs, ‘What Has Europe Been Doing?’. Fukuyama and McFaul, ‘Should Democracy Be Promoted’, 36. Finkel et al., ‘The Effects of U.S. Foreign Assistance’. Crawford, ‘Promoting Democracy. Part I and II’. The remaining literature on evaluation processes is largely of a technical nature and takes the form of reports produced by governmental agencies and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Carothers, ‘The Backlash’; Gershman and Allen, ‘The Assault’; Silitski, ‘Preempting Democracy’. Carothers, ‘Fallacy’, 114. Ibid. Ambrosio, ‘Insulating Russia’. See e.g. Aslund and McFaul, Revolution in Orange, as well as the literature mentioned in endnotes 25–28. McFaul, ‘Transitions from Postcommunism’; Kuzio, ‘Democratic Breakthroughs’. McFaul, ‘Ukraine Imports Democracy’. Beissinger, ‘Modular Political Phenomena’; Bunce and Wolchik, ‘Electoral Revolutions’; Cheterian, ‘Georgia's Rose Revolution’. Laverty, ‘Colored Revolutions’; Tucker, ‘Post-Communist Colored Revolutions’. Way, ‘Real Causes’. Cevallos, ‘Whither the Bulldozer?’; Edmunds, ‘Continuity and Change in Serbia’; Ramet and Pavlaković, Serbia Since 1989. D'Anieri, ‘Ukrainian Politics’; Flikke, ‘Ukraine's Post-Orange Transition’; Katchanovski, ‘The Orange Evolution’; Motyl, ‘Reflections on Ukraine's Orange Revolution’. Jawad, ‘Democratic Consolidation in Georgia’; Mitchell, ‘Democracy in Georgia’.

Towards Effective Anti-Corruption Strategies in Ukraine: Removing the Cornerstone Without Toppling the Building

The work presents a theoretical framework, and offers a tentative analytical framework for building strategies for combating systemic corruption of the kind that is observed in Ukraine. It argues that, as in some other countries undergoing the process of modernization, corruption in Ukraine plays an important social role by filling gaps between formal (often impracticable) rules, and informal ones. At the same time, it creates incentives and provides the means for maintaining and widening these gaps, as in the critically important case of 'capture' of the state by extorting officials endowed with abnormal administrative discretion and affiliated with crony businesses. Systemic factors of such kind make corruption so persistent and anti-corruption so necessary for development. Effective strategies should primarily address the real sources of corruption, and take into account the possible side effects. Otherwise anticorruption efforts can bring only limited success, and may even become counterproductive, as demonstrated in the examples of previous anti-corruption attempts in Ukraine. Meanwhile, prior to the Orange Revolution, systemic factors prevented the implementation of effective anticorruption strategies. In order to facilitate the creation of anti-corruption constituencies, it is proposed to classify the corrupt deals as embezzlement, collusion, overtimes, and extortion based on the interests of involved and suffering parties. Implications from this theoretical analysis are combined with some standard political economic recommendations in the tentative analytical framework for policy making and public advocacy. As examples of its application, tentative anti-corruption strategies are suggested for some forms of corruption in Ukraine, such as capture in setting up legislation and extortion in its enforcement; embezzlement in budget execution, collusion in procurement and regulation, and asset stripping in state-owned firms; collusion and extortion in public services; and extortion in the public administration.

The ‘True’ Democracy and the ‘True’ Self-Organization: Regulative Ideas or Reasons for Doubtful Estimations?

The way from theoretical principles to the estimation of real events is often affected by personal preferences. This problem is typical for the post-non-classical situation in science in which authors are not indifferent toward their topics. The article uses the example of Ukrainian ‘Orange revolution’ in its consideration of how to avoid the classical position of high judgment from the point of view of pure ideas.

How Ukraine became a market economy and democracy

Chapter 1: Ukraine: Nation, History, and Soviet Reforms Chapter 2: Kravchuk: Nation Building and Hyperinflation, 1991-94 Chapter 3: Kuchma's Market Economic Reforms, 1994-96 Chapter 4: Kuchma's Stagnation, 1996-99 Chapter 5: Yushchenko's Reforms, 2000 Chapter 6: Competitive Oligarchy with High Growth, 2001-2004 Chapter 7: The Orange Revolution, 2004 Chapter 8: The Aftermath of the Orange Revolution, 2005-2008 Chapter 9: Conclusions Chronology.

Ukraine. Von der Roten zur Orangenen Revolution by Katrin Boeckh , Ekkehard Völkl (review)

reviews 579 'warforvalues'overKosovo. Ifyouwishto read thelegalreflection ofthat political victory inthearbitrary procedures ofthead hoctribunal oftheICTY and the corruption of international law, Laughland'sbook is a shocking, depressing, yetwonderfully enlightening place to start. Centre forthe Study ofDemocracy D. Chandler University ofWestminster Boeckh, Katrin and Völkl, Ekkehard. Ukraine.Von derRotenzur Orangerien Revolution. Ost- und SüdosteuropaGeschichte der Länder und Völker. Friedrich Pustet,Regensburg, 2007. 295 pp. Tables. Maps. Appendix. Bibliography. Index.€26.90(paperback). The stated aim of Ukraine.VonderRotenzur Orangerien Revolution by Katrin Boeckh and EkkehardVölkl is to place the Orange Revolution,which erupted inUkraineinresponse to allegations ofelectoral fraudin 2004,inits historical context. It isa generalhistory covering theperiod19172006aimed at thosereadingaboutthecountry forthefirst time. The workis dividedintoninesections. It openswitha useful portrayal of the geographyand demographicalstructure of Ukraine written by Ines Häusler.After thiscomesa shortoverview ofUkrainianhistory before1917 by Boeckh.As is commonpractice,she followsthe schemeof Ukrainian history as laid down by the nationally conscioushistoriography, tracinga narrative fromKievan Rus' to the rise of the nationalmovement in the nineteenth century. At the same time,she carefully avoids discussing the controversial question of the extentto which one can call these eras 'Ukrainian'. The nextthreesections covertheperiodfrom 1917to 1945and arewritten by Völkl.He givesa clear accountofthechaos whichreignedin Ukraine duringthe revolutionary periodand the different regimeswhichsoughtto establish themselves in thecountry. However,he does nottryto analysethe reasons forthefailure oftheUkrainian national governments createdafter the falloftheTsar. The chapteron interwar Ukraineconcentrates on theSoviet Ukrainian Republicat theexpenseoftheUkrainian landswhichcameunder Polish,Czechoslovakand Romanian rule. Völkl rejectsthe idea thatthe Ukrainians as a nationweresingledoutforvictimhood underStalinism; he follows StephenMeriinarguing thattheUkrainian famine wascausedbythe unrealistic delivery figures setfortraditional areas ofgrainproduction, like Ukraine,ratherthana plannedattempt to annihilate theUkrainianpeople through starvation. The sectionon the Second WorldWar investigates the Nazi and SovietpoliciesinUkraineduring thewar,buthaslesstosayon the activity oftheUkrainians themselves. There are some curiousomissions in VölkPscontributions whichhave been compensatedforby includingthe relevant information out of historical sequencein otherpartsof thebook: forexample,thepoliticalemigration oftheinterwar yearsis onlydealtwith 580 SEER, 87, 3, JULY 2OO9 in a sectionon theUkrainiandiasporatackedon to theend ofthechapter on Khrushchev. The significance of thesetopicswould have been better conveyed iftheyhad beenincludedin their chronological order. Boeckhwritesthe foursectionscovering post-war Ukraine,the collapse of the Sovietsystem in Ukraine,and independent Ukraine.Above all, she underlineshow the experienceof Soviet rule shaped the particularities of Ukrainianpoliticallifetoday.The dominanceof the Communist Party createda culture ofobedienceand placed barriers in thewayoftheemergenceofa pluralist democracy. WhiletheSovietpromotion ofRussification weakenedUkrainian culture, theUSSR also laid thefoundations fortoday's independent Ukraine- forexample,achievingtheunification of Ukraine through theincorporation of thewestUkrainianterritories intothe Soviet UkrainianRepublic.Boeckh also sees contradictions after1991.Although Leonid Kuchma, Ukraine'spresidentfrom1994 to 2004, establishedan autocratic system, he couldnotsuppress civilsociety or theopposition completely . The outbreak oftheOrangeRevolution underlined thispoint.Boeckh describes theOrangeRevolution as a genuinemovement from belowwhich succeededbecausetherewerethoseamongtheruling elitewhowerewilling to support it.Thoughshe highlights thefailure ofthenew Orange governmenttointroduce thepromised domestic reforms, shestresses thattherevolutionnevertheless had thepositive effect ofinstilling in Ukrainiansociety the idea thatitcouldbe an actorin,and nottheobjectof,politics. Manygeneralhistories ofUkrainehavefocusedon thetwenty-eight years between the1917Revolution and endoftheSecondWorldWar,treating the periodafter1945almostas an afterthought. Boeckhand Völklreversethis trend, devoting moreoftheirbook to thelaterperiodthantheearlierone. This meansthatthechapters on 1917-45feelslightly incomplete; thereare alreadya number ofgeneral histories inbothEnglish and Germanwhichgive a better accountoftheseyears.Boeckh,however, providesa morecomprehensiveportrait of post-warUkraineand successfully places the Orange Revolution initsbroaderhistorical context. Moreover, theexcellent biographical portraits, glossary and noteson places and place namesmake it very accessibleto newstudents ofUkraine. Department ofHistory C. R. Gilley University ofHamburg Marples,David R. TheLukashenka Phenomenon: Elections, Propaganda and the Foundations ofPolitical Authority in Belarus. TrondheimStudieson East EuropeanCulturesand Societies,21. NorwegianUniversity of Science and Technology, Trondheim, 2007. 120pp. Notes.Bibliography. NOK 78.00(paperback). There havebeenfewkindwordsforBelarusian President Aliaksandr Lukashenka in Westernacademia, but Marples is concernedto refutesome of ...

Ukraine's Geopolitical Choice, 2009

A noted specialist in international affairs and former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine reviews and analyzes the history of independent Ukraine's relations with Russia and the West following the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The author proceeds to examine the multifaceted Western position toward Kyiv as it has evolved through June 2009, paying due attention to the European Union and NATO. He then discusses the factors contributing to the volatility of Ukrainian-Russian relations following the Orange Revolution of 2004, including a range of specific concerns as well as more general Russian desires for a compliant government that would pay deference to key Russian interests. Concluding sections focus on Ukraine's future geopolitical trajectory in the run-up to the country's presidential elections in early 2010 and on internal problems (constitutional, market, and energy reform) that will command urgent attention once the political situation stabilizes and the outlines of a constructive engagement that could be pursued by the West are at hand. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F500, F520, P200. 1 figure, 1 table, 39 references.

The Lukashenka Phenomenon: Elections, Propaganda and the Foundations of Political Authority in Belarus. Trondheim Studies on East European Cultures and Societies, 21 by David R. Marples (review)

580 SEER, 87, 3, JULY 2OO9 in a sectionon theUkrainiandiasporatackedon to theend ofthechapter on Khrushchev. The significance of thesetopicswould have been better conveyed iftheyhad beenincludedin their chronological order. Boeckhwritesthe foursectionscovering post-war Ukraine,the collapse of the Sovietsystem in Ukraine,and independent Ukraine.Above all, she underlineshow the experienceof Soviet rule shaped the particularities of Ukrainianpoliticallifetoday.The dominanceof the Communist Party createda culture ofobedienceand placed barriers in thewayoftheemergenceofa pluralist democracy. WhiletheSovietpromotion ofRussification weakenedUkrainian culture, theUSSR also laid thefoundations fortoday's independent Ukraine- forexample,achievingtheunification of Ukraine through theincorporation of thewestUkrainianterritories intothe Soviet UkrainianRepublic.Boeckh also sees contradictions after1991.Although Leonid Kuchma, Ukraine'spresidentfrom1994 to 2004, establishedan autocratic system, he couldnotsuppress civilsociety or theopposition completely . The outbreak oftheOrangeRevolution underlined thispoint.Boeckh describes theOrangeRevolution as a genuinemovement from belowwhich succeededbecausetherewerethoseamongtheruling elitewhowerewilling to support it.Thoughshe highlights thefailure ofthenew Orange governmenttointroduce thepromised domestic reforms, shestresses thattherevolutionnevertheless had thepositive effect ofinstilling in Ukrainiansociety the idea thatitcouldbe an actorin,and nottheobjectof,politics. Manygeneralhistories ofUkrainehavefocusedon thetwenty-eight years between the1917Revolution and endoftheSecondWorldWar,treating the periodafter1945almostas an afterthought. Boeckhand Völklreversethis trend, devoting moreoftheirbook to thelaterperiodthantheearlierone. This meansthatthechapters on 1917-45feelslightly incomplete; thereare alreadya number ofgeneral histories inbothEnglish and Germanwhichgive a better accountoftheseyears.Boeckh,however, providesa morecomprehensiveportrait of post-warUkraineand successfully places the Orange Revolution initsbroaderhistorical context. Moreover, theexcellent biographical portraits, glossary and noteson places and place namesmake it very accessibleto newstudents ofUkraine. Department ofHistory C. R. Gilley University ofHamburg Marples,David R. TheLukashenka Phenomenon: Elections, Propaganda and the Foundations ofPolitical Authority in Belarus. TrondheimStudieson East EuropeanCulturesand Societies,21. NorwegianUniversity of Science and Technology, Trondheim, 2007. 120pp. Notes.Bibliography. NOK 78.00(paperback). There havebeenfewkindwordsforBelarusian President Aliaksandr Lukashenka in Westernacademia, but Marples is concernedto refutesome of REVIEWS 581 therevisionist tolerance thathe seesas developing inrecent years.His verdict istherefore damning: 'thepolitical careerofLukashenka hasbeenfocused on expanding hisown personalpowerwithout a realistic visionofthestatehe runsor a clearperception ofthepast thatgoes beyondtheconfines ofthe Sovietperiodand theSecondWorldWar' (p. 11). The authormakes his point witha book-endstudyof two elections: Lukashenka'sfirst victory in 1994 and his mostrecentin 2006. Marples regardsLukashenkain 1994as utterly opportunistic. His 'allegedpopulism [.. .] could be definedmoreprecisely as a willingness to amend his beliefs - suchas they wereand are' (p. 23).Lukashenka first hittheheadlines inlate 1993as chairoftheparliamentary commission on corruption, and Marples clearlyregardshis scatter-gun accusationsas cynical,inconsequential and without much real foundation. Nor was Lukashenkamuch of an original Russophile.In orderto be elected,'Lukashenka purloinedtheKebich platform ' ofintegration withRussia(p. 23).Once inoffice, he delivered theparts thathelpedbuildup hispersonal powerbase,and neverseriously pursuedthe rest. Marples then skipsmost of the intervening period in order to argue thatlittle has changed.He describes thepoliticalmachinations thatsecured Lukashenka's reelection in2006as equallycynical: 'after twelve yearsinoffice, he had nothing to offer, no conceptionof a 21stcentury state.His public pronouncements wereinvariably negative: abouttheinterference oftheWest, thedangersofa colorrevolution, and thelike'(p. 105). Finally,Marples arguesthatthe self-interest of the Lukashenkaregime ensures thatitcan changebutitcannotdevelop:'Lukashenka cannotinitiate reforms because theywillweakenhispowerbaser.Nor can he democratize thecountry forthesamereason'(p. 115). The keyto Marples'sargument is a paradox.Although 'Lukashenka comprehends theoutlookoftheelectorate better thantheopposition', he argues, 'the chiefcharacteristic of the Lukashenkaregimecan be characterised as negativism ornihilism' (pp. 114-15).Butiftheopposition isweakand divided, evenwhen'uniting' behindAliaksandr Milinkevich in 2006,and theregime has somesolidsupport in Belarusiansociety, thoughithas ofcoursegrossly exaggerated thatsupport atan inflationary rateinailelections since1994,can theparadoxhold? Marplesdevotesless space to thepossibility thattheregimealso reflects society, orto thepossibility Lukashenka couldbe becominga typeofnationalistmalgr é soi,as a resultof his structural positionratherthanhis natural inclination. A moreinward-looking regime willneedmoreresources, either of cultural 'creolic'nationalism or state-centred patriotism, to survive. This short bookis highly recommended, however. The authorhas a keen senseofwhatmakesBelarusdifferent: as towhyithad a Kebichrather than a Kravchukin the early1990s,whyhe was succeededby a Lukashenka rather thana Kuchmaora El'tsinin 1994,andwhythere wasno carbon-copy 'colouredrevolution' in 2006. UCL SSEES AndrewWilson ...

‘A door neither closed nor open’: EU policy towards Ukraine during and since the Orange Revolution

Ukraine provides evidence of very different Common Foreign and Security Policy negotiating dynamics. In the run up to the country's Orange Revolution, significant differences persisted between member states over how the European Union (EU) should support Ukraine's democratic transition. A combination of normative entrapment and co-operative bargaining ensured that ‘maximalist’ and ‘minimalist’ member states united around a common position in support of the Orange Revolution. In subsequent debates over whether the EU should offer Ukraine a membership prospect, however, lowest common denominator dynamics prevailed. This case additionally demonstrates that both before and after Ukraine's democratic transition very specific external geostrategic factors played an important role in conditioning EU policy outcomes.

David and Goliath: Georgia and Russia’s Coercive Diplomacy

The military conflict between Georgia and Russia over the separatist region of South Ossetia in August 2008 surprised many within the international community and reinforced growing concerns about a...

Problems of post-post-communism: Ukraine after the Orange Revolution

Although Ukrainian democracy has made some progress since the 2004 Orange Revolution, significant problems remain. This article compares the difficulties facing post-Orange Revolution Ukraine to those encountered in East Central Europe in the early 1990s and maintains that Ukraine will have a harder time overcoming its challenges because its starting point and inheritances are different. That is, Ukrainian democracy must overcome many of the infirmities created during its initial decade of post-communism, and that these make establishing effective democratic governance in today's post-post-communist period arduous. Among the difficulties are designing effective institutions, managing the post-Orange Revolution coalition, removing entrenched corruption and weak respect for the rule of law, and coping with a less hospitable external environment. Events since the Orange Revolution bear out the argument that the events of 2004, while getting rid of a leadership with dubious democratic credentials, are merely the beginning of a process to bring a successful democratic government to Ukraine.

The Orange Revolution: Children’s Self-Expressions through their Artworks

The Orange Revolution: Children’s Self-Expressions through their Artworks

Rybalski’s Son (review)

Reviewed by: Rybalski’s Son Lindy Ledohowski Orest Talpash. Rybalski’s Son. Victoria, B.C.: Trafford Publishing, 2008. 322 pp. $22.95 hc. Rybalski’s Son is the first novel by retired Alberta physician Orest S. Talpash. It spans over one hundred years of fictional Rybalski family history. The story follows various family members both in Ukraine and in Canada. The novel is multi-perspectival, and each chapter takes place ten years after the previous one. Thus, characters we first meet as babies in one section may appear as grown men in others. While the characters and events are fictional, the places, transnational immigrant and diaspora experiences, and political realities are all based in fact. Because of its factual basis in various particular moments of a one hundred and twelve year span of history (1896 to 2008), the novel reads as a fictionalized tour through the main points of Ukrainian Canadian history. Through the Rybalski family’s experiences, the reader is guided through the vagaries of Ukrainian experiences in Canada. Some of the Rybalskis form part of the 170,000 first wave of immigrants [End Page 253] from Ukrainian provinces of the Austro-Hungarian empire between 1896 and 1914. Their experiences with homesteading on poor soil and grappling to maintain links to their culture, while facing increased pressure to learn English and assimilate into mainstream society, are typical of Ukrainian immigrant experiences of this era. Similarly, the branch of the family that immigrates with the 32,000 post-World War II Ukrainians who came to Canada, rather than be repatriated to Soviet Ukraine after the upheavals of war, face a different set of integration problems. Not only do these characters struggle to make their new life in Canada, but the distinctions between Ukrainians of the first wave and these latter post-War Ukrainian immigrants are narrativized in a way that draws out the differences between the two groups. As well, the novel sets one of its excerpts in 1976, which provides Talpash with the opportunity to dramatize the Ukrainian Canadians’ involvement with the institution of federal multiculturalism. Further, Talpash portrays Ukrainian Canadians travelling “back” to Ukraine in the latter part of the twentieth century and even after the 2005 Orange Revolution in Ukraine. By touching on these key issues both in Ukraine and in Canada, the novel offers a sensitive survey of many of the dynamics that inform Ukrainian Canadian experiences over the last hundred odd years. Not only does the novel offer a survey through the social realities of over a century of Ukrainian Canadian-ness in its many guises, but it also touches on many of the key themes raised in over fifty years of Ukrainian Canadian English-language literature. For instance, Stefan Rybalski’s name is spelled as Rybolski, Rybofski, Rybalsky, and Rybofti in various contexts (66), recalling Andrew Suknaski’s poetry that evokes the original spelling of his father’s surname, Suknnatskyj, or George Ryga’s play A Letter to My Son (first performed in 1978), in which the Ukrainian Canadian protagonist laments the wholesale change of immigrant names upon arrival in Halifax. Similarly, the history of horse trading in nineteenth-century Ukraine that forms the backdrop of the first installment of Talpash’s story could be taken right from Yuri Kupchenko’s 1989 novel The Horseman of Shandro Crossing that transplants a Ukrainian horsemaster to the Canadian prairie. The e-mail that Mark Rybalski sends back to Canada in 2008 on his first visit “home” to Kyiv echoes parts of Janice Kulyk Keefer’s 1996 novel The Green Library. Mark writes to his parents that he visited Babyn Yar and that “[e]veryone knows that before the Germans withdrew from Kyiv[sic] from 1941 to 1943, [sic] they had executed 100,000 people there. 30,000 [sic] were Jews, but who were the other 70,000?” In Kulyk Keefer’s novel one of the characters makes this very same point. As well, as the awkward adolescent, Jason Rybalski, sits uncomfortably at a 1996 family wedding, not only does his character recall Colleen Lutzak from Lisa Grekul’s debut novel Kalyna’s Song (2003), but the girl with crutches sitting next to Jason is an injured...

Alcohol use and addiction services in Ukraine

Ukraine, with a population of 46.2 million, is the second largest country in Europe, with an area of 603 700 km2. It is still recovering from the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, following the Soviet stagnation era (since the mid-1960s) and perestroika (from 1986), as well as the 1998 Russian financial crisis and Ukraine's 2004 Orange Revolution. These events have resulted in high levels of socio-economic disparity, political instability and a degraded healthcare infrastructure. These issues, in addition to traditionally high levels of alcohol consumption, have made binge drinking and alcoholism, among other addictions, major problems in Ukrainian society (Voloshin et al, 2003).

Ethnic Conflict and Minority Refugee Flight from Post-Soviet Ukraine, 1991–2001

Until the tumultuous events of the ‘Orange Revolution’ surrounding the presidential elections in Ukraine in late 2004, western experts almost without exception had celebrated the Ukrainian post-Soviet transition as a huge success, lauding its apparent political stability and ethnic amity. This article challenges those assumptions, and offers a new look at the first decade of Ukrainian independence. Drawing from demographic data and witness affidavits from refugees who left Ukraine and requested asylum in the United States, Canada, Australia, Great Britain, and the European Union, the author argues that the first decade of Ukrainian independence from the Soviet Union corresponded with widespread and serious harassment of Ukraine's religious and ethnic minorities. Economic crisis in post-Soviet Ukraine bred scapegoating and marginalisation of Ukraine's minorities, driving hundreds of thousands to seek sanctuary in the West.

Bottom‐up or top‐down: what drives the convergence of Ukraine’s institutions towards European standards?

This paper argues that in the absence of a strong membership incentive within the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), a top‐down institutional convergence of CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries towards European standards is unlikely to be successful. However, due to enlargement fatigue within the EU, the membership incentive is off the agenda for the CIS. The ENP must therefore either initiate or hasten a bottom‐up institutional convergence by identifying bottom‐up domestic forces that are willing and able to drive the convergence in a particular country. Ukraine, whose oligarchic clans are the main bottom‐up forces behind institution‐building, is a case in point. Having supported the first wave of institutional reforms during the Orange Revolution, these bottom‐up forces are now facing great difficulties in forming sustainable coalitions for further institutional reforms. The paper shows that the EU, by providing economic incentives rather than the membership incentive, could exploit the strong business interests of the oligarchic clans in the EU markets and EU investment to motivate them to jointly drive institutional convergence from the bottom up.