Elections and Democratization in Ukraine

✍ Scribed by Sarah Birch

• Year: 2000
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 225
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Elections and Democratization in Ukraine analyses the role of competitive elections in Ukraine's crucial democratic transition period of 1989 to 1998. The series of four parliamentary elections, two presidential elections and three referendums which punctuated Ukraine's road to democracy provide important insights into the social and political forces shaping the new state's identity. Two specific research questions are addressed: - How do Ukranian voters make vote choices? - Which electoral cleavages are the most important? Contrary to those who claim that the Soviet Union left in its wake an atomized society with weak social divisions, this study argues that the Ukrainian electorate has, from the advent of competitive elections, exhibited relatively stable patterns of voting behaviour which can be explained to a great extent in terms of social divisions that developed in Soviet Ukraine and were made politically salient by the events of the transition period.

✦ Table of Contents

Preliminaries......Page 1
Contents......Page 8
List of Tables and Figures......Page 9
Acknowledgements......Page 11
Note on Transliteration and Abbreviation......Page 12
1 Introduction......Page 14
2 The Emergence of Electoral Cleavages......Page 30
3 The Beginning of Choice......Page 54
4 The Crystallization of Opposition......Page 68
5 Mobilizing for Independence......Page 81
6 Independent Ukraine Votes......Page 94
7 Party System Definition......Page 114
8 Democratization and Electoral Behaviour in Ukraine, 1989-98......Page 136
Conclusion......Page 154
Appendix 1: Description of the Data......Page 158
Appendix 2: Sources of Census Data by Oblast’......Page 178
Appendix 3: Sources of 1989–91 Electoral Data and 1994 Presidential Electoral Data by Oblast’......Page 181
Notes......Page 183
Bibliography......Page 197
Index......Page 218