Paul D'Anieri

What Has Changed in Ukrainian Politics?: Assessing the Implications of the Orange Revolution

The Orange Revolution did not solve all of Ukraine’s political problems. Changing leaders is not the same as changing institutions. It remains to be seen whether modifications made to Ukraine’s constitution will be sufficient to ensure liberal democracy.

Structural Constraints in Ukrainian Politics

The 2010 Ukrainian presidential election points to a certain consistency in Ukrainian electoral politics, especially in regional dynamics. These enduring constraints limit the options of political leaders and channel outcomes into a narrower range than would be expected from a focus on the personal preferences of leaders or the political views of the forces they represent. This article seeks to identify these constraints and the prospects that the current government or a future one might escape them. Starting with the common assumption that all leaders (even in democracies) seek to retain office as long as possible, the article examines what has made consolidation of power more difficult in Ukraine than other post-Soviet societies. Important factors include regional divisions, the absence of a natural-resource-based economy, and the relative weakness of the post-communist security services. It then considers factors that favor the consolidation of political power and the erosion of meaningful competition, such as weak institutions, weak norms, and increasing facility with the methods used elsewhere in the region to weaken competitors. The article concludes by proposing that both authoritarian consolidation and democratic consolidation present challenges in Ukraine and that we need to focus more on the barriers to the concentration of power in new democracies.

Nationalism and international politics: Identity and sovereignty in the Russian‐Ukrainian conflict

International politics in the former Soviet Union are difficult to understand in terms of contemporary international relations theories, because these theories accord little role to nationalism, one of the most important factors in the region. This article uses a constructivist approach to examine the effects of national identity disputes on international politics. In the case of Ukraine and Russia, dispute over the two states’ distinctiveness leads to a Ukrainian fixation on sovereignty, the main marker of identity in the international realm. The focus on sovereignty leads to policies unexplainable by conventional international relations theories.