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Ukraine has repeatedly shifted between the two sub-types of semi-presidentialism, i.e. between premier-presidentialism and president-parliamentarism. The aim of this article is to discuss to what extent theoretical arguments against premier-presidential and president-parliamentary systems are relevant for understanding the shifting directions of the Ukrainian regime. As a point of departure, I formulate three main claims from the literature: 1) "President-parliamentarism is less conducive to democratization than premier-presidentialism."; 2) "Semi-presidentialism in both its variants have built-in incitements for intra-executive conflict between the president and the prime minister."; 3) "Semi-presidentialism in general, and president-parliamentarism in particular, encourages presidentialization of political parties." I conclude from the study's empirical overview that the president-parliamentary system– the constitutional arrangement with the most dismal record of democratization – has been instrumental in strengthening presidential dominance and authoritarian tendencies. The premier-presidential period 2006–2010 was by no means smooth and stable, but the presidential dominance weakened and the survival of the government was firmly anchored in the parliament. During this period, there were also indications of a gradual strengthening of institutional capacity among the main political parties and the parliament began to emerge as a significant political arena.

While authoritarian presidents prevail under heavily president-oriented constitutions throughout the post-Soviet region, democracy along parliamentary lines triumphs in Central Europe. This article discusses the constitutional pattern among the post-communist countries on the basis of two general questions: First, how can we explain why strong presidential constitutions dominate throughout the post-Soviet region whereas constrained presidencies and governments anchored in parliament have become the prevailing option in Central Europe? Second, and interlinked with the first question, why have so many post-communist countries (in the post-Soviet region as well as in Central Europe) chosen neither parliamentarism nor presidentialism, but instead semi-presidential arrangements whereby a directly elected president is provided with considerable powers and coexists with a prime minister? The analysis indicates that both historical-institutional and actor-oriented factors are relevant here. Key factors have been regime transition, pre-communist era constitutions and leaders, as well as short-term economic and political considerations. With differing strengths and in partly different ways, these factors seem to have affected the actors' preferences and final constitutional compromises.

Electoral autocracies have become the world's most common form of non-democratic rule. In hegemonic autocracies in particular, where the president, or his party, always wins by more than 70 percent of the vote, the electoral process comes across as mere window-dressing. Still, both the regime and the opposition take elections seriously. Why? What role do elections play? The article deals with this question while focusing on the Azerbaijani 2013 presidential election, and consists of three parts. The first is a theoretical introduction dedicated to electoral autocracies and authoritarian stability. The next summarizes the election, stressing its purpose for the opposition. The third part analyses whether and how the election contributed to strengthening the authoritarian regime. The study concludes that developments during and after the election year are an illustration of what in previous research is sometimes referred to as the politics of insecurity. Even though the opposition "lost", the relative success of their campaign indicated that change might, after all, be possible. The regime, depending on regular multi-party elections for its democratic alibi, did not appreciate the uncertainty and tried to minimize it by using the "three pillars" on which authoritarian states' stability can be said to rest: legitimacy, repression and cooptation.