Ukraine and the Orange Revolution: Democracy or a 'Velvet Restoration'? (original) (raw)
Related papers
Maidan Past and Present (comparing the 2004 Orange Revolution and 2013/14 EuroMaidan in Ukraine)
2015
At first the EuroMaidan, seemed like something we have seen before: the ‘Orange Revolution’. We were brought back to 23 November 2004, when observers of Ukrainian politics were shocked when they witnessed a sea of ‘ordinary’ Ukrainians, joined activists and opposition party members in a moment of mass mobilization. While Ukraine had previously experienced several smaller protest events, such as the 1986 Chornobyl disaster protests, the 1991 Revolution on the Granite, and the 2001 Ukraine Without Kuchma protests, the sheer size of the 2004 protests and the fact that participation quickly shifted to a majority made of ‘ordinary’ Ukrainians was unprecedented (Onuch 2014a). First heralded as a democratic awakening and the first step to Europeanization, but after the election of Viktor Yanukovych (the villain of the ‘Orange Revolution’) as president in 2010, academics agreed that for a variety of reasons, including protest fatigue, Ukraine would not see another mass-‐‑mobilization any time soon (Meirowitz and Tucker 2013). Thus, when the November 2013 protests grew to 800,000, political scientists had to go back to the drawing board. It was happening again, and again they did not see it coming. While it seemed like déjà vu, it was very different and not least because it was happening with the events of 2004 as the precedent. This chapter’s aim is to analyse and contextualizes the EuroMaidan as a critical case of mass protest, by placing it in comparative reference to the ‘Orange Revolution’. First, the chapter will briefly outline the data used. Second, the chapter will highlight some key writing on mobilization and activism in Ukraine and identify potential contributions of this analysis to the literature. The majority of the text will assess the EuroMaidan mobilization. Employing interview and focus groups data collected by the author, we will be able to contrast and compare the parameters and trajectories of two protest waves (duration, location, and geographical diffusion); the central actors involved in the mobilization process and their main claims. At each step highlighting the convergence and divergence between the 2004 and 2013/14 mass mobilizations. Finally, once the main boundaries of the mobilization have been mapped out, the chapter will address the recent focus among the media and social scientists alike on: the rise of the right, the rise of violence, and the ‘new’ role of social media in the EuroMaidan mobilizations. This initial analysis seeks to provide a blue print for larger studies of the EuroMaidan mobilizations and in the conclusion will highlight key hypotheses for future testing.
Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society , 2007
The third volume of Aspects of the Orange Revolution complements the essays of the first two collections providing further historical background on, and analytical insight into, the events at Kyiv in late 2004. Its seven contributions by both established and younger specialists range from electoral statistics to musicology, and deal with, among other issues, such questions as: Why had blatant election fraud not generated mass protest before 2004, but, in that year, did? How was Viktor Yushchenko able to collect enough votes to defeat the establishment candidate Viktor Yanukovych, and become the new President of a socially, geographically and culturally divided country? How was it possible to prevent large-scale violence, and which role did the judiciary play during the quasi-revolutionary events in autumn-winter 2004? What legal foundations and court decisions made the repetition of the second round of the presidential elections possible? Which campaign instruments, and political 'technologies' were applied by various domestic and foreign actors to activate the Ukrainian population? How did the internet and music become factors in the emergence of mass protests involving hundreds of thousands of people? To which degree and how did external influences affect the Orange Revolution? Erik S. Herron, Paul E. Johnson, Dominique Arel, Ivan Katchanovski, Ralph S. Clem, Peter R. Craumer, Hartmut Rank, Stephan Heidenhain, Adriana Helbig and Andrew Wilson present a multifarious panorama of the origins and dynamics of the processes that changed the nature of political and civic life during and between the three rounds of Ukraine's fateful 2004 presidential elections. CONTENTS: "Approaches to a 'Watershed' in Ukrainian Politics" by Ingmar Bredies, Andreas Umland and Valentin Yakushik; "Fraud before the 'Revolution': Special Precincts in Ukraine's 2002 Parliamentary Election" by Erik S. Herron and Paul E. Johnson; "Orange Ukraine Chooses the West, but Without the East" by Dominique Arel; "Regional Political Cleavages, Electoral Behavior, and Historical Legacies in Post-Communist Ukraine" by Ivan Katchanovski; "Shades of Orange: The Electoral Geography of Ukraine's 2004 Presidential Elections" by Ralph S. Clem and Peter R. Craumer; "The Legal Evolution behind the Orange Revolution" by Hartmut Rank and Stephan Heidenhain; "The Cyberpolitics of Music in Ukraine's 2004 Orange Revolution" by Adriana Helbig; "Foreign Intervention in the 2004 Elections: 'Political Technology' versus NGOs" by Andrew Wilson.
The Orange Revolution: A case study of democratic transition in Ukraine
2006
Thesis explores the factors contributing to the occurrence of the Orange revolution of 2004 in Ukraine, as well factors leading to its success. This study looks at numerous factors such as demographic structure change; civil society growth; awareness of corruption & excessive coercion; formation of alternative leadership & elite fragmentation; transformation of the economic system; technological advance; nationalism; affective response; and finally foreign influence. Overview of transitology literature provides a theoretical framework for the analysis and the discussion of pre-revolutionary Ukraine provides the necessary supporting socio-historical context. The analysis of contributing factors to the revolution is followed by a layout of possible implications based on the case study. The thesis estimates the relative weight of various factors of the Orange revolution. Among the primary factors are alternative leadership, civil society activism, economic structure transformation, and...
Ukraine's Orange Revolution: Great Promise, Untimely Demise
The article discusses Ukraine's "orange revolution" of 2004 as an unsuccessful attempt at democratization. Ukraine's ethnic politics, political corruption and institutional path dependency are being singled out as primary factors responsible for the failure of democratic reforms.
Using the political process model of social movements (Tilly, Tarrow, McAdam), paper analyzes the origins, dynamics and outcome of the protest movement in Ukraine (December, 2000 – March, 2001). Among structural preconditions of the protest, the paper points to increasingly authoritarian nature of Ukraine’s political system and the absence of an organized democratic opposition to the regime. Transitory opportunities for popular mobilization included division within Ukraine’s ruling elite and the emergence of an influential political actor allied with protesters. Finally, the murder of an independent journalist and public release of evidence implicating top Ukrainian officials in this crime provided emotional impetus for the nationwide protest. Development of the protest movement is viewed as a function of the tactical interaction between protesters, authorities and other political and social actors. Thus, authors differentiate between three stages of the protest cycle in Ukraine. In the incipient stage (1) all the main political actors experienced uncertainty regarding their interests and strategies, which provided protesters with considerable power leverage. During the reactive stage (2), protest diffused to the regions, the authorities tried various techniques to neutralize the protesters, while other political actors looked for ways to use the protest action to advance their interests. The escalation stage (3) of the protest was marked by high public mobilization, effective counters on the part of the authorities, and co-optation of the protest movement by emerging political opposition. Demobilization of Ukraine’s protest movement came as a result of a combination of internal and external factors, including lack of new protest forms, use of violence by protesters, renewed unity within the ruling elite and altered political context of insurgency. Paper traces the movement’s impact by focusing on changed societal attitudes, elite opinion and patterns of the political process in Ukraine in the aftermath of protest actions.