An Anatomy of Mass Protests: The Orange Revolution and Euromaydan Compared

This article surveys and discusses the latest wave of mass protests in Ukraine, the Euromaydan. This study situates the Euromaydan within the history of the other protests in post-communist Ukraine and makes a comparison to the Orange Revolution (the Orange Revolution). The authors recognize the importance of international factors, but argue that Ukrainian domestic political factors contributed significantly not only to the emergence, but also to escalation of the latest conflict in Ukraine. This study tests a theory about the role of institutional factors versus the role of cultural-historic legacies in the process of mass protest formation and conflict development. We argue that institutional factors, such as: governmental policies; the composition of governmental, opposition, and civil society groups; corruption; and timing of legislative activity on most divisive issues in Ukraine have contributed to the conflict escalation in Ukraine.     

Judicious choices: designing courts in post-communist politics

One area which has been generally overlooked in the literature on institutional choice in post communist politics has been the design of judicial institutions. This paper seeks to evaluate a number of different explanations for judicial systems choice in post communist politics, especially those which emphasize the influence of socio-cultural factors, economic factors, the judicial legacies of the past, and political bargaining. As an empirical test of these explanations, we examine variations in the amount of judicial power that constitution makers granted to the constitutional courts in the countries of the former Soviet Union, Mongolia, and Eastern Europe.     

The Ukrainian Orange Revolution brought more than a new president: What kind of democracy will the institutional changes bring?

The authors discuss the institutional changes proposed in Ukraine's constitutional framework and election laws that could fundamentally alter the separation of powers and the responsiveness of Ukrainian government to the electorate. We analyze the proposed institutional changes from the perspective of what they portend for Ukraine's democratic transition. Building on the most recent vein of democratization studies examining institutional factors affecting democratic stability, we emphasize that it cannot be assumed that Ukraine is “in transition to democracy.” We conclude that comprehending the likelihood of achieving democratic stability must be contextualized in an understanding of intervening factors—political, economic, and historical—that ultimately influence democratic stability. Our analysis reminds government reform advocates that it is necessary to go beyond the basic institutional framework of proposed governmental changes in order to obtain a more comprehensive picture of democratization.     

Memory claims and memory constraints. (Re)negotiating statehood and identities in Serbia

Rather than focusing on often-explored mnemonic practices (memorials, national celebrations, commemorations etc.) the article addresses the role that remembering, as a part of a wider political culture, plays in situations where images of the past are not visible per se, but are implied or even openly invoked to explain and (de)legitimize choices political actors make. By analyzing the interactions of memories and new institutional arrangements related to minority rights in the case of the Bosniak minority in Serbia, the article shows how recollections in political claims and policy-making were used as a medium for negotiations and the contestation of both political interests and competing “group-making projects”.     

Institutionalised Co-production: Unorthodox Public Service Delivery in Challenging Environments

In developing countries in particular, services are often delivered through unorthodox organisational arrangements that cannot simply be dismissed as relics of ‘traditional’ institutions, or as incomplete modern organisations. Some have emerged recently, and represent institutional adaptations to specific political and logistical circumstances. We need to expand the range of organisational categories that are considered worthy of study and develop a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of unorthodox arrangements. The concept of institutionalised co-production provides a useful point of entry. Institutionalised co-production is defined as: the provision of public services (broadly defined, to include regulation) through a regular long-term relationship between state agencies and organised groups of citizens, where both make substantial resource contributions. We explain some varieties of institutionalised co-production arrangements; explore why they appear to be relatively so widespread in poor countries; and relate the concept to broader ideas about public organisation.     

The limits to military power: Institutions and defense budgeting in democratic Argentina

This article examines the reasons behind the dramatic decline in military budgets in Argentina under democratic rule. These trends were unexpected, given the, political power the armed forces of that country have wielded in the past. Here it is argued that within the democratic state, there were institutional arrangements that enabled civilian decision makers to trim defense expenditures, despite opposition from the military. The two key institutional traits were found to be the concentration of authority and the autonomy of decision-makers from outside pressures. Because budgetmaking was centered within a well-insulated civilian-run ministry, fiscal planners working at the behest of the president were able to design and implement budgets they wanted, over and above the objections of military officers, and without interference from other branches of government. David Pion-Berlin is a Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Riverside. He is the author of several books, includingThrough Corridors of Power: Institutions and Civil-Military Relations in Argentina (Penn State University Press, 1997), and numerous articles on the subjects of Latin American civil-military relations, military regimes, political economy, and political repression.     

Coping with financial crises: explaining variety in regional arrangements

Financial regional arrangements vary across countries and change over time. Until recently, most economists and political scientists took the European model of monetary integration as the yardstick to which all other regional financial arrangements had to measure up in this article. It is argued that the Euro crisis provides an opportunity for scholars to adopt a different perspective that does not interpret the variety of financial arrangements merely as economic deficiencies caused by the incapacity or unwillingness of regions to follow the European model. Instead, the comparative study of monetary and financial regionalism has to account for the different factors that shape variations. These go from different levels of economic development, over regional political and economic preferences to historical processes which shape the institutional context and the constellation of interests and social forces. Such an approach, which integrates economic and political science approaches, de-centres the Euro model and opens up a new understanding of the global diversity of regional monetary and financial cooperation, and their potential to cope with financial crises.     

Pacts,Parties and Elite Struggle: Ukraine's Troubled Post-Orange Transition

This article resuscitates some of the theoretical arguments of transition studies to shed light on the complex institutional and political developments in post-Orange Ukraine (2004 – 2007). In December 2004, Ukraine's elite agreed to embark on a complex transition involving power-sharing between the Rada (parliament) and the government on one side, and the presidency on the other. The new electoral law was to be based on a fully proportional system. In the subsequent period of 2005 – 2007, two consecutive proportional elections have been held, Ukraine has had several governments, and the Rada was incapacitated for a longer period. Rival elites engaged in a zero-sum game over reforms, and attempts were made to resolve differences by several pacts. This article analyses the post-Orange transition in terms of three variables: the effectiveness of pacts, the need to abide by the transition scheme, and the effect of elections. It is argued that Ukraine has failed to deliver on pacts and timetables, but has delivered on elections. This means that its political system may be considered a minimalist and electoral based one.     

Ceremonial regionalism,institutions and integration in the Americas

Latin America's recent integrationist proposals have been presented as part of a new commitment to increasing living standards and international competitiveness. However, the frustrating results of integration in the past three decades should caution us against placing excessive emphasis on the technical aspects of trade. The author argues that important lessons can be learned from previous attempts to promote integration in this region while neglecting the political dimensions of integration. Inadequate organizational forms, weak institutional arrangements ruled by technocratic elites, may be more helpful as ceremonial devices in the legitimation of those elites than in advancing the substance of the integration project. Verónica Montecinos is assistant professor of sociology at The Pennsylvania State University, McKeesport Campus. She has researched the consequences of economic reforms on women as well as the growing involvement of professional economists in government and party politics. Her book on the economic bureaucracy in Chile is forthcoming.     

‘Somehow,We Cannot Accept It’: Drivers of Internal Displacement from Crimea and the Forced/Voluntary Migration Binary

Abstract

Overshadowed by their far more numerous counterparts from Donbas, Crimean IDPs have been under-examined and misunderstood. Relying on interviews and focus groups conducted amongst Crimean IDPs, the essay traces the experiences and conditions of Russian occupation that have triggered the migration of Crimeans to mainland Ukraine since 2014. Pointing to how both structural forces and human agency are at play in the political, socio-economic and emotional factors driving their displacement, this essay argues that migration from occupied Crimea to mainland Ukraine—like all migrant flows—is neither exclusively forced nor entirely voluntary.     

Swords into plowshares: The organizational transformation of rebel groups into political parties

How do the features of a rebel group and the external political environment interact to affect the internal dynamics within a rebel group after it transforms into a political party? In this paper we combine literature on organizational change in parties in new democracies with the emerging literature on rebel group-to-party transformation, to develop a framework by which to understand these dynamics. Using the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) as a case study, we find that the legacies of the conflict, the organizational legacies of the rebel group, and the post civil war incentives for electoral gain, create political cleavages within parties that generate considerable organizational centripetal pressures, pressures that will need to be accommodated in new party organizational structures.     

Multilevel governance and problem‐solving: Towards a dynamic theory of multilevel policy‐making?

In this article, we suggest that the governance of problems shapes the institutional dynamics of multilevel governance (MLG) polities. MLG arrangements—processes and institutions that enable policy‐making across different jurisdictional levels wherein both public authorities and non‐state actors are involved—can or cannot succeed in solving policy problems and at the same time they could create new problems. We argue that the problem‐solving capacity and problem‐generating potential of multilevel arrangements can result in further, downwards, upwards or sideways delegation of political authority, which in turn reconfigure the multilevel architecture of the political system following either centripetal or centrifugal tendencies. We illustrate our point with a stylized account of the dynamics of MLG in the European Union (EU) since the early 1990s. We conclude with some remarks about developing a more general theory of multilevel policy‐making.     

The Flypaper Effect Revisited: Intergovernmental Grants and Local Governance

Abstract

Local governance arrangements shape the incentives of local actors, which may in turn influence fiscal choices. By emphasizing the role of local government institutions in local fiscal choices, we seek to bridge between median voter and Leviathan models prevalent in the literature. We then offer some preliminary evidence to support this explanation by empirically testing several propositions regarding the flypaper effect in intergovernmental grants. One limitation of the median voter model is that the model does not consider political institutions and their influences on government expenditures. In this study, we attempt to capture the influence of political dynamics in determining public expenditures by considering institutional variables. Test results show that the political institutional variables could be one of the explanation variables for the flypaper effect.     

Analysing Local Policy Agendas: How Dutch Municipal Executive Coalitions Allocate Attention

Abstract

This article provides an analysis of the allocation of attention to policy problems on the local level, focusing on the executive agenda of six municipalities in the Netherlands over a 25-year period. It reveals that there is specifically a local politics of attention, showing differences between national and local policy agendas in specific policy areas. We did not find evidence that the political composition of the local executive coalitions leads to agenda differences, revealing the more problem-oriented and pragmatic nature of local politics. We did find evidence of an effect of institutional arrangements between national and local government on shifting patterns of attention, such as due to decentralisation. This shows that the local politics of attention is limited in scope and conditioned by the functions of local government and the institutional arrangements of policy making in the Dutch decentralised unitary state and that rearrangements affect these patterns of attention.     

Legacies and Leverage: EU Political Conditionality and Democracy Promotion in Historical Perspective

Previous studies have established strong and robust effects of EU political conditionality on democracy in the neighbouring countries. We test these effects against the claim that historical legacies condition the likelihood of successful democratisation—and possibly the EU's political conditionality as well. Based on a panel study of 36 countries of the Eastern and Mediterranean neighbourhood of the EU between 1988 and 2004, we show that cultural legacies of religious civilisation are indeed conducive to or inhibit democratisation, and reduce the effects of political conditionality, but they do not explain away the EU's role in promoting democratic consolidation.     

Is sextremism the new feminism? Perspectives from Pussy Riot and Femen

As Pussy Riot has changed the face of political protest in Russia, to the south, Ukraine has seen the emergence of Femen, famous for their topless protests against everything from sex tourism and trafficking to hot water shut-offs in Kyiv to sexism in the Ukrainian government to Putin's visits to Ukraine. Their concurrent appearance in the post-Soviet sphere encourages a discussion around the mobilization of sexuality as protest in the region. Both groups appropriate sexual language and imagery as well as physical sexuality in protest of their current regimes. This article engages the question of similarities between the two groups’ efforts and considers what differences structure their political goals and philosophies. What potential does the global visibility of these groups have to influence an emerging women's movement, and, more generally, how can sexuality be harnessed as a unifying force in anti-government activism in post-socialist Russia and Ukraine?     

CONVERGING UNDER PRESSURE? COUNTERTERRORISM POLICY DEVELOPMENTS IN THE EUROPEAN UNION MEMBER STATES

This article analyses counterterrorism policy convergence among the 27 European Union (EU) member states between 2000 and 2006. While considerable academic interest has been devoted to the common European Union policy in response to terrorism after September 11, few studies have compared counterterrorism policy-making at the member state level. This gap raises the question whether the institutional framework of European counterterrorism policy-making has stimulated convergence of national policies. Data on five policy instruments for counterterrorism show that the aggregated implementation rate increased by almost 55 per cent in this period, which indicates a trend towards policy divergence within the EU as a whole. However, the findings also reveal significant variation in the level and pace of policy instrument implementation. One potentially important variable explaining national policy developments is the degree of political pressure from the EU on member states, while EU membership accession and national counterterrorism policy legacies were less important factors.     

Social Capital and Institutional Trust: Evidence from Bolivia's Popular Participation Decentralisation Reforms

This article uses Bolivia's emblematic process of decentralisation (Popular Participation) to explore the elusive relationship between interpersonal and institutional trust, as central components of social capital. The evidence corroborates the notion that basic social interaction and more complex institutional settings are strongly co-related, such as the trust that individuals place in their governments and institutions. The data also shows that social capital has a direct effect on civic activism and political behaviour at the individual level. The notion of social capital is present throughout the analysis as this type of capital allows observing and measuring changes in social structures that affect more complex institutional arrangements.     

Varieties of capitalism in Eastern Europe (with special emphasis on Estonia and Slovenia)

The authors proceed from the assumption that the institutional and economic efficiency of a particular country (or society) depends on its historic legacy or ‘path-dependence’, strategic interactions of the elite and the impact of the international environment. Estonia and Slovenia are both – not only economically, but also institutionally – perceived as relatively successful and prominent post-communist countries and new members of the EU. Yet they have developed completely different – in some aspects even diametrically opposite – regulative settings and socio-political arrangements. The main emphasis is on the connection between the dynamics and ideological preferences of political actors and the pace of reforms as well as institutional regulations. One can argue that the political elite in Estonia encouraged the shaping of the state in a direction close to the liberal-market model, whereas Slovenia is closer to the corporatist social welfare-state model. In both cases, some dysfunctional effects are evident that represent a new challenge to the elites and, at the same time, a test of their credibility and competence.