Orange Revolution (Ukraine)

Pavlo ARTYMYSHYN . ORANGE REVOLUTION IN UKRAINE AND RUSSIA
(ON THE PROBLEM OF THE RUSSIAN FACTOR’S AVAILABILITY IN
THE UKRAINE’S 2004 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS ).


This paper presents the study of Russian influence on the course of the 2004 presidential elections in Ukraine as well as of the reaction to it of the Ukrainian political and civil society. It is alleged that this factor took place both during the election campaign of presidential candidates and during the Orange Revolution, including the official visits of Russian politicians to Ukraine and informal speeches at rallies. It is observed that when one of candidates V. Yanukovych was supported by the Russian government, which considered him as the prospective adherent of the pro-Russian policy, at the same time as when V. Yushchenko was supported by representatives of the Russian democratic opposition, in particular by B. Nemtsov and I. Khakamada. It is noticed that when part of Ukrainians, which supported V. Yanukovych, perceived Russia as a potential ally and so-called “defender” of the West in these events, Orange Maidan activists were abused by such both open and hidden Kremlin’s support of one of the candidates and they considered a direct
interference in the internal affairs of Ukraine in these incidents.

Keywords: The Ukraine’s 2004 presidential elections, The Orange Revolution, Viktor Yushchenko, Viktor Yanukovych, Volodymyr Putin, the Russian opposition, the Russian factor, the Ukrainian politicians, public opinion, Ukraine, Russia.

Abstract
The Orange Revolution and the Rose Revolution in Georgia are designed to determine whether the United States is effective or not. All the events that started in 2004 with the Rose Revolution in Georgia and then continued in 2005 with the Orange Revolution in Ukraine were called the colourful revolution. These Colourful revolutions, which started in Georgia and Ukraine, have been influential in the Caucasus. The Colourful revolutions in the former Soviet geography in a row strengthened their claims that NATO and the EU were a product of the expansionism.

The Orange Revolution and the Rose Revolution in Georgia are designed to determine whether the United States is effective or not. All the events that started in 2004 with the Rose Revolution in Georgia and then continued in 2005 with the Orange Revolution in Ukraine were called the colourful revolution. These Colourful revolutions, which started in Georgia and Ukraine, have been influential in the Caucasus. The Colourful revolutions in the former Soviet geography in a row strengthened their claims that NATO and the EU were a product of the expansionism.

Moments of mass mobilization astound us. As a sea of protesters fills the streets, observers scramble to understand this extraordinary political act by 'ordinary' citizens. This study presents a paired comparison of two 'moments' of mass mobilization, in Ukraine and Argentina. The two cases are compared and analyzed on a cross-temporal and an inter- regional basis, thereby offering two critical cases in response to assumptions that the processes and patterns of mobilization, and democratization politics more broadly, are region specific. This study challenges political science's focus on elites and structural factors in the study of political participation during democratization.

The conclusion applies the model of mass-mobilization developed from the two cases to the Arab Spring (Egypt) and EuroZone Sovereign Debt Crisis (Greece) protests. The epilogue assesses the EuroMaidan Revolution in Ukraine in comparative context.

Contents:

PART I

1. Introduction: The Shock and Awe of Moments of Mass Mobilization

2. Theoretical Framework for Comparative Analysis of Mass Mobilization


PART II

3. Mapping Moments and Movements in Ukraine and Eastern Europe 1920-2004

4. Mapping Moments and Movements in Argentina and Latin America 1920-2001

PART III

5. Setting Precedents: Medium-term Structural Factors in the Mobilization Process

6. Context is Only Part of the Puzzle: Short-term Structural Factors in the Mass Mobilization Process

PART IV

7. The Activist and Elite Interaction and Information Exchange Game

8. The Duty to Protest: Participation of 'Ordinary' People in Mass Mobilization

9. Conclusions: Understanding Revolutionary Moments and Movements

Epilogue: It Happened Again: The 2014 EuroMaidan Mass Mobilization in Ukraine

This experiment explored relationships between individuals' levels of political knowledge and ability to spot manipulated media information about international affairs as well as susceptibility to influence by such information. The context of the study was the "Orange Revolution " in Ukraine. A convenience sample of 146 students at a large American university was randomly assigned to read one of three simulated New York Times news reports, experimentally manipulated to favor either the Ukrainian government, the opposition, or a balance of political views. Analysis revealed few signifi cant relationships between level of political knowledge and spotting manipulation in news reports. Instead, trust in the New York Times explained a majority of the variance. Also, political knowledge wasn't associated with susceptibility to manipulation. Interestingly, a majority of participants who spotted manipulation nevertheless accepted standpoints the manipulated articles promoted.

The criminalisation of dissent and the production of legal uncertainty are mainstays of authoritarian political figurations.  Compared with most cases in this volume, this chapter on Russian politics of radicalisation constitutes an extreme case (Gerring, 2006: 101). As such, it offers a better understanding of the logics of state surveillance practices and state responses to dissent.

I make both a general and a specific argument in this chapter. My general argument concerns an altered usage of the concept of radicalisation. With the increase in large-scale violent attacks in Euro-American societies, counter-radicalisation strategies, including surveillance, have multiplied. These strategies draw on specific conceptualisations of radicalisation (Busher and Macklin, 2015). Most literature reads radicalisation as a process which pertains to non-state actors. Hence, the actors who are assumed to become radicalised are individuals and groups. Although the relative nature of radicalisation is widely acknowledged (Sedgwick, 2010), the state jurisdiction has remained a static benchmark to trace radicalisation pathways. Instead, radicalisation will be understood here as a process through which a state radicalises. I define the state as a relation between a polity and a people, not as a discrete entity. Therefore, the actions and narratives of civil society actors and academic experts are co-constitutive of state radicalisation and surveillance practices. Radicalisation thus means the gradual increase in surveillance and control practices within a polity. As a working definition, actually granted personal freedoms, due process, and legal certainty serve as benchmarks to assess state radicalisation. When state actors declare narratives and actions to be extremist, they portray them as being above political contestation (Buzan et al., 1998: 24). This often means that acts of surveillance, i.e. practices of identification, monitoring and analysis which the state can use to enforce social control, are presented as inevitable to guarantee national and personal security (Monahan, 2010: 10 & 102). When states radicalise, the spectrum of sanctioned political debate and civic engagement narrows.

My specific argument is that state youth politics and anti-extremist policies in Russia, both of which have considerably expanded since the early 2000s, share a common ideological core. To date, scholars of state youth politics (Lassila, 2014; Hemment, 2015) and students of anti-extremist policies (Epshtein and Vasil’ev, 2011; Kravchenko, 2015; Gaufman, 2017) have taken little note of the ideological overlaps between the two policy fields. Firstly, both are informed by the organic nationalist axiom that criticism of the government either results from foreign insinuation, or indicates an immature national consciousness. The two policy fields can thus be understood as complementary in safe-guarding a particular image of the nation and state. While anti-extremist policies are designed to ward off putative pestilent external influences from the body politic, youth policies aim to strengthen the body politic from within by fostering government-loyal identifications. Thus, both policy fields attempt to watch over "the young generation" with the stated aim to surveil, protect and guide it (Lyon, 2009).

Secondly, both policy fields feed on the background beliefs that youthfulness is a transition state from immaturity to maturity and that "the young generation" constitutes a risk group, inclined to extreme views. Consequently, young adults are understood as vulnerable to so-called extremist influences and as needing guidance by experts and the state (Omel’chenko, 2006: 156). Finally, circulating threat scenarios which have the demise of the state and nation as their telos lend the two policy fields urgency. These threat scenarios depend on the public framing of particular phenomena as national threats. Youth politics and anti-extremist policies can thus be understood as different answers to the same threat scenarios.

In the following, I will first elaborate on the notion of "threat frame" as a way to study alleged threats to national security. Then, I will analyse two threat frames that were crucial to the radicalisation of the Russian state. I call them the Orange and the Pink Threat. While the 'Orange Threat' legitimised youth political and anti-extremist measures that would hamper dissent in the aftermath of the Ukrainian Orange Revolution, the 'Pink Threat' classified LGBT and feminist social activities as "extremist", i.e. as jeopardising the Russian state and nation. In both cases, youth political and anti-extremist measures complemented each other in obstructing dissent and intensifying state surveillance.

Conventional wisdom in new institutional economics suggests that property rights become more secure following sovereign commitment. The article tests this axiom in the crucial case of the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine. I show that despite the wide-ranging constraints imposed after the Revolution on the upper executive, the security of property rights declined. Theoretically, the article argues that the link between sovereign commitment and secure ownership hinges on vertical accountability in the state apparatus. While institutionalizing commitment by the presidency, the Revolution simultaneously exacerbated principal-agent dilemmas within the bureaucracy. Methodologically, the article contributes by triangulating available historical narratives and cross-national quantitative studies. Instead, the focus on one contemporary developing country and the use of qualitative process tracing dissects sovereign commitment and shows the mechanisms through which it can be subverted at lower administrative levels. Sixty-four semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurs and government officials from six Ukrainian regions, as well as analysis of the local media, provide the data.

This essay proposes the notion that there are many similarities between the 2008 war in Georgia and the 2014 conflict in Ukraine yet there are obviously cosmetic differences too. The Russian motivations for aggression remain constant, and both conflicts are similar in that Russia succeeds in annexing territory. The west's response to both conflicts have been different however, and the essay shall further examine the volatility that surrounds the west's decision making. The disputed territories of Crimea, Abkhazia and South Ossetia fall within Russia's supposed 'sphere of influence' which has diminished after the Rose Revolution of Georgia and the Orange Revolution of Ukraine. The pro-Western orientation of these two countries became a major issue for Russia yet for Georgia and the Ukraine, maintaining territorial integrity is the major issue.

Conventional wisdom in new institutional economics suggests that property rights become more secure following sovereign commitment. The article tests this axiom in the crucial case of the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine. I show that despite the wide-ranging constraints imposed after the Revolution on the upper executive, the security of property rights declined. Theoretically, the article argues that the link between sovereign commitment and secure ownership hinges on vertical accountability in the state apparatus. While institutionalizing commitment by the presidency, the Revolution simultaneously exacerbated principal-agent dilemmas within the bureaucracy. Methodologically, the article contributes by triangulating available historical narratives and cross-national quantitative studies. Instead, the focus on one contemporary developing country and the use of qualitative process tracing dissects sovereign commitment and shows the mechanisms through which it can be subverted at lower administrative levels. Sixty-four semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurs and government officials from six Ukrainian regions, as well as analysis of the local media, provide the data.

Mitte 2016 erscheint Poroschenko als ein – wie auch Juschtschenko – von einer Massenbewegung ins höchste politische Amt gespülter Kleingeist, der die historische Chance, die sich ihm bietet, nicht begreifen kann oder will. Poroschenko hatte (und hat womöglich immer noch) die Möglichkeit, als ein Reformer in die Geschichte seines Landes einzugehen. Scheinbar wird er jedoch bestenfalls als eine ambivalente Übergangsfigur in politisch schwierigen Zeiten betrachtet werden. Schlimmstenfalls könnte weiteres Ungeschick in seiner verbleibenden Amtszeit Poroschenko zwingen, sein Amt in Unehren aufzugeben.

Moments of mass mobilization astound us. As a sea of protesters fills the streets, observers scramble to understand this extraordinary political act by 'ordinary' citizens. This study presents a paired comparison of two 'moments' of mass mobilization, in Ukraine and Argentina. The two cases are compared and analyzed on a cross-temporal and an inter- regional basis, thereby offering two critical cases in response to assumptions that the processes and patterns of mobilization, and democratization politics more broadly, are region specific. This study challenges political science's focus on elites and structural factors in the study of political participation during democratization.

The conclusion applies the model of mass-mobilization developed from the two cases to the Arab Spring (Egypt) and EuroZone Sovereign Debt Crisis (Greece) protests. The epilogue assesses the EuroMaidan Revolution in Ukraine in comparative context.

Contents:

PART I

1. Introduction: The Shock and Awe of Moments of Mass Mobilization

2. Theoretical Framework for Comparative Analysis of Mass Mobilization


PART II

3. Mapping Moments and Movements in Ukraine and Eastern Europe 1920-2004

4. Mapping Moments and Movements in Argentina and Latin America 1920-2001

PART III

5. Setting Precedents: Medium-term Structural Factors in the Mobilization Process

6. Context is Only Part of the Puzzle: Short-term Structural Factors in the Mass Mobilization Process

PART IV

7. The Activist and Elite Interaction and Information Exchange Game

8. The Duty to Protest: Participation of 'Ordinary' People in Mass Mobilization

9. Conclusions: Understanding Revolutionary Moments and Movements

Epilogue: It Happened Again: The 2014 EuroMaidan Mass Mobilization in Ukraine

Trwające od listopada 2013 r. protesty na Majdanie doprowadziły do usunięcia dotychczasowej władzy i powołania nowego rządu. Sprowokowały również bezprecedensową reakcję Rosji. Warto zadać pytanie, czy obecne protesty na Ukrainie doprowadzą do rozmontowania oligarchicznego systemu, czy też odwrotnie – zakończą się jedynie kosmetycznymi zmianami?