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Ukraine made headlines around the world during the winter of 2004-05 as the colorful banners of the Orange Revolution unfurled against the snowy backdrop of Kyiv, signaling the bright promise of democratic rebirth. But is that what is really happening in Ukraine? In the early post-Soviet period, Ukraine appeared to be firmly on the path to democracy. The peaceful transfer of power from Leonid Kravchuk to Leonid Kuchma in the election of 1994, followed by the adoption of a western-style democratic constitution in 1996, seemed to complete the picture. But the Kuchma presidency was soon clouded b

Of Ukraine's six presidential transitions, only those in 2010 and 2019 proceeded entirely as envisioned in the constitution. In several cases, elections and transitions resulted from ad hoc arrangements made to address political crises. In one case, street protests forced the rerunning of elections seen as rigged, and in another street protests led to the departure of a president whose election had been seen as free and fair. In some cases, procedures that were entirely improvised were widely seen as legitimate, while in other cases established formal procedures were insufficient to legitimize a leader's rule. This raises the question of how elections and legitimacy interact. Under what conditions are elections sufficient to legitimate rule, and in what cases are they insufficient? Under what circumstances do non-legal means of changing rulers gain popular legitimacy? By reviewing Ukraine's seven presidential elections and six transitions of power, this article explores variation in the power of elections as a legitimating force.

The occupation of Crimea and part of the Donbas will prevent roughly 12 percent of Ukrainian voters from participating in elections. These voters voted disproportionately for candidates and parties that supported closer ties with Russia. This article quantifies the changes to the electorate and projects the likely partisan impact. The changes decisively tip the Ukrainian electorate away from the east and south. Candidates and parties can no longer expect to build a national majority primarily in eastern and southern Ukraine, as Viktor Yanukovych did in 2010 and the Party of Regions did in 2012. Anticipating these effects, Ukraine's government could seek to prolong these voters' exclusion, while Russia could actually seek to end the occupation to get them re-included. The implication is that various actors could try to "gerrymander" the entire Ukrainian state, a phenomenon that previously has only been explored at the district level, within states. This raises the broader question of how electoral effects shape the many territorial disputes around the world.

The occupation of Crimea and part of the Donbas will prevent roughly 12 percent of Ukrainian voters from participating in elections. These voters voted disproportionately for candidates and parties that supported closer ties with Russia. This article quantifies the changes to the electorate and projects the likely partisan impact. The changes decisively tip the Ukrainian electorate away from the east and south. Candidates and parties can no longer expect to build a national majority primarily in eastern and southern Ukraine, as Viktor Yanukovych did in 2010 and the Party of Regions did in 2012. Anticipating these effects, Ukraine's government could seek to prolong these voters' exclusion, while Russia could actually seek to end the occupation to get them re-included. The implication is that various actors could try to "gerrymander" the entire Ukrainian state, a phenomenon that previously has only been explored at the district level, within states. This raises the broader question of how electoral effects shape the many territorial disputes around the world.

The occupation of Crimea and part of the Donbas will prevent roughly 12 percent of Ukrainian voters from participating in elections. These voters voted disproportionately for candidates and parties that supported closer ties with Russia. This article quantifies the changes to the electorate and projects the likely partisan impact. The changes decisively tip the Ukrainian electorate away from the east and south. Candidates and parties can no longer expect to build a national majority primarily in eastern and southern Ukraine, as Viktor Yanukovych did in 2010 and the Party of Regions did in 2012. Anticipating these effects, Ukraine's government could seek to prolong these voters' exclusion, while Russia could actually seek to end the occupation to get them re-included. The implication is that various actors could try to "gerrymander" the entire Ukrainian state, a phenomenon that previously has only been explored at the district level, within states. This raises the broader question of how electoral effects shape the many territorial disputes around the world.

All the authors in this collection of essays on Ukrainian politics stress the lack of improvement in the political situation in recent years. The authors identify a range of reasons including pre-Soviet history, the Soviet legacy, national identity, and political gridlock. While the authors disagree slightly on the extent to which change is impossible or merely difficulty, none is hopeful. The challenge for scholars is to avoid moving from objective analysis to assigning political blame. Some authors identify specific political actors on whom they fix blame, while others focus on less personal structural factors. The relative weight of structure-based and agent-based explanations is important in assessing the prospects for change in the future, and the possible paths to it.

In the early years of independence, Ukraine's crucial accomplishment was the establishment a degree of sovereignty and independence that few thought possible. Since that time, Ukrainian foreign policy has largely stagnated. Despite attempts of various internal leaders to adopt decisive policies, and despite significant external pressure, Ukraine has done very little. This paper reviews the first 20 years of Ukrainian foreign policy and accounts for the inertia that has developed. Ukraine's foreign policy passivity results from three uneasy balances: an external balance between the pulls of Russia and the West; an internal balance between Ukraine's regions, and an internal balance between forces of democracy and authoritarianism. These balances mean that while few are happy with Ukraine's policy, no one has been able to decisively change it. While Ukraine's domestic regional division is unlikely to change, change in the balance between domestic political forces or that between international forces could reduce the inertia in Ukrainian foreign politics, most likely leading to a drift toward Russia.

All the authors in this collection of essays on Ukrainian politics stress the lack of improvement in the political situation in recent years. The authors identify a range of reasons including pre-Soviet history, the Soviet legacy, national identity, and political gridlock. While the authors disagree slightly on the extent to which change is impossible or merely difficulty, none is hopeful. The challenge for scholars is to avoid moving from objective analysis to assigning political blame. Some authors identify specific political actors on whom they fix blame, while others focus on less personal structural factors. The relative weight of structure-based and agent-based explanations is important in assessing the prospects for change in the future, and the possible paths to it. [Copyright The Regents of the University of California; published by Elsevier Ltd.]

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.