Ingmar Bredies

Andreas Umland

Valentin Yakushik

Reports by international governmental and non-governmental organizations on the 2004 presidential elections in Ukraine constituted a significant factor in generating, facilitating, and completing the Orange Revolution. Ukrainian civil society, mass media, courts, and political parties were the main driving force behind the popular uprising that returned Ukraine to the path of democratization it had embarked on in 1991. Yet, the unambiguous stance and political weight of such institutions as the EU, PACE, NATO, and, above all, OSCE played their role too. The democratic movement benefited from the menace of international isolation and stigmatization of the Ukrainian state, which was expected in case President Leonid Kuchma had decided to prevent a repetition of the second round of the voting.The volume collects not all, but some of the most widely discussed reports, including English translations of selected sections of the three reports produced by the CIS International Observers Mission. The latter as well as a report by an Israeli institute depart from the assessments of the other organizations represented here, allowing for comparison of diverging evaluations of the same events. The volume assembles full or excerpted official reports of the International Republican Institute, the Tel Aviv Institute for the Countries of Eastern Europe and CIS, the European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Contributions by Yevgen Shapoval and Roman Kupchinsky introduce and conclude the collection.

Institutional Observation Reports on the 2004 Ukrainian Presidential Elections

Aspects of the Orange Revolution V

Die Orange Revolution hat in der Ukraine einen umfassenden Prozeß gesellschaftlicher Reorganisation in Gang gesetzt. Im vorliegenden Band wird dieses folgenreiche Ereignis vor allem aus institutionentheoretischer Perspektive als Übergang vom Superpräsidentialismus zu einem stärker parlamentarisch orientierten Regierungssystem gekennzeichnet. Dabei geht es insbesondere um die gesellschaftlichen und politischen Bestimmungsfaktoren des Volksaufstandes vom Herbst 2004. Volodymyr Yevtukh untersucht in der Einleitung Antriebskräfte, Motivationen und Erwartungshaltungen der Revolutionsteilnehmer. Kyrylo Galushko hinterfragt die Kompatibilität von politischer Tradition und Kultur in Hinblick auf die schrittweise Errichtung einer parlamentarischen Demokratie. Inwieweit läßt sich dieses Ordnungsprinzip aus bisherigen Erfahrungswerten der Ukraine herleiten? Der Beitrag von Sarah Whitmore widmet sich der internen Entwicklung und Organisationsstruktur des ukrainischen Parlaments seit der Unabhängigkeit, worin die Ursachen der bisherigen Marginalisierung der Verchovna Rada im Institutionensystem der Ukraine vermutet werden. Abschließend diskutiert Ingmar Bredies die Frage nach einer neuen Parlamentskultur unter den Abgeordneten der Verchovna Rada als Bedingungsfaktor der Orange Revolution.

Zur Anatomie der Orange Revolution in der Ukraine: Wechsel des Elitenregimes oder Triumph des Parlamentarismus?

Valentyn Mykhaĭlovych I︠A︡kushyk

Ukraine's 2004 presidential election was falsified, spurring the Orange Revolution. To many observers, the Orange Revolution was a shock, and the stolen election a recent development. However, both the election fraud and the effort to topple the government of Leonid Kuchma emerged from political dynamics that had appeared in earlier Ukrainian elections.In this path breaking volume, leading scholars place Ukraine's 2004 Orange Revolution in the longer perspective of Ukraine's post-Soviet electoral politics. Covering both presidential and parliamentary elections over the entire post-Soviet period, the chapters clarify the manner in which earlier elections had emerged as part of the battle for power in Ukraine well before 2004. The opposition that came to power in 2004 had also won the 2002 elections and had developed its strategies during opposition protests that had been catalyzed by the Kuchmagate crisis in 2000. The evolution of the dynamics that led to the fraudulent 2004 election reveals that the events of 2004 represented continuity as well as change. By placing the 2004 elections within a longer trajectory, the volume enriches our understanding of the Orange Revolution and helps us to understand the difficulties faced in consolidating Ukraine's democratic breakthrough following the Orange Revolution.The volume contains an introduction to "Aspects of the Orange Revolution I-VI" by Andreas Umland, followed by eight chapters by Robert K. Christensen, Edward R. Rakhimkulov and Charles Wise, Paul D'Anieri, Robert Kravchuk and Victor Chudowsky, Paul Kubicek, Taras Kuzio, Lucan Way, and Anna Makhorkina. These authors bring complex and varied perspectives that situate Ukraine's post-Soviet elections in economic reforms, constitutional law, foreign policy objectives of integrating into Europe, as well as in the broader context of the rough and tumble competition for political control of Ukraine.

Ingmar Bredies

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