Foreign Policy Blogs

Tag Archives: Ukraine elections

Should Ukraine Conduct Local Elections along the Donbas Contact Line?

Should Ukraine Conduct Local Elections along the Donbas Contact Line?

Current military-civil administration in eastern Ukrainian frontline districts need to be kept in place and partially reformed. Should the Donets Basin return to Ukrainian control, they could provide institutional templates for a temporary special regime within the currently occupied territories. On October 25th this year, Ukraine will hold its first nation-wide local and regional elections […]

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Opportunities and Risks in Zelenskyy’s New Ukraine

Opportunities and Risks in Zelenskyy’s New Ukraine

What to make of the new political realities in Ukraine? Both, the presidential and parliamentary Ukrainian elections of 2019 delivered historic results. Ukraine never had a President with so much electoral support (73%), and so little connection to the country’s old political class. Moreover, independent Ukraine never had a parliament with as dominant a party […]

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Voting Advice Applications in Pre-Electoral Ukraine

Voting Advice Applications in Pre-Electoral Ukraine

PROвибір and other electronic instruments are helping Ukrainians to distinguish parties according to their political, socio-economic and cultural agendas Which party to vote for in an election? In Ukraine, like in countries around the world, people are making their political decisions based on a range of factors from emotional attraction to rational calculation. In the […]

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How Distrust toward Voting Advice Applications May Lower the Quality of Ukraine’s Parliamentary Elections

How Distrust toward Voting Advice Applications May Lower the Quality of Ukraine’s Parliamentary Elections

Kyiv’s main media outlets keep ignoring Ukraine’s new voting advice applications So far, Ukraine’s major newspapers and electronic media have largely ignored the freely available novel Ukrainian voting advice applications (VAAs) designed to help voters to make more informed and rational decisions on 21 July. VAAs are computerized instruments that summarize in circa 15 to 40 statements […]

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Critical Questions for Ukraine’s New President: A List of Issues for this Year’s Reform Agenda and Kyiv’s Relations to the West

Critical Questions for Ukraine’s New President: A List of Issues for this Year’s Reform Agenda and Kyiv’s Relations to the West

On 20 May 2019, Ukraine’s new President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was inaugurated. Later this year, the European Parliamentary elections will lead to the formation of new EU leadership in Brussels. Finally, Ukraine’s upcoming parliamentary elections this summer or autumn will likely reconfigure much of the – if not the entire – Ukrainian governmental elite, and lead […]

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Call for manuscripts for the new book series “Ukrainian Voices” published by ibidem-Verlag & distributed by Columbia University Press

Call for manuscripts for the new book series “Ukrainian Voices” published by ibidem-Verlag & distributed by Columbia University Press

https://www.ibidem.eu/en/reihen/gesellschaft-politik/ukrainian-voices.html The book series “Ukrainian Voices” publishes English- and German-language monographs, edited volumes, document collections and anthologies of articles authored and composed by Ukrainian politicians, intellectuals, activists, officials, researchers, entrepreneurs, artists, and diplomats. The series’ aim is to introduce Western and other audiences to Ukrainian explorations and interpretations of historic and current domestic as well […]

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Will Ukraine’s Far Right Parties Fail Again in 2019?

Will Ukraine’s Far Right Parties Fail Again in 2019?

Ever since the beginning of its armed struggle against Moscow during World War II, the Ukrainian far right has been used by the Kremlin as a bogeyman. The political radicalism, war-time mass crimes, fascist leanings, and manifest militancy of historic Ukrainian ultra-nationalism has been employed by Soviet and post-Soviet Russian agitation among Russian and Western […]

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Ukraine’s 2019 Presidential Elections: The Yuri Tymoshenko Risk

Ukraine’s 2019 Presidential Elections: The Yuri Tymoshenko Risk

In a worst-case scenario, political-technological trickery could, after the first round of Ukraine’s upcoming presidential elections, unsettle social stability in Ukraine. Cynical puppet masters are prepared to risk the outbreak of a major domestic civil conflict for the sake of securing re-election of Ukraine’s incumbent president. The relatively pluralistic political competition that emerged after the […]

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Secondary literature list for my seminar “Ukraine between the European and Eurasian Unions” @UniJena, in April-June 2019 (books, journals, websites)

Secondary literature list for my seminar “Ukraine between the European and Eurasian Unions” @UniJena, in April-June 2019 (books, journals, websites)

“Ukraine between the European and Eurasian Unions: Revolution, War, Reform” The seminar aims to introduce Master-students into one of Europe’s critical conflicts today, and to illustrate, using the example of Ukraine, inter-relation between Europeanization, post-Soviet transformation and security politics. We will touch upon general themes of European studies, like democracy promotion, neighborhood policies, transposition of […]

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Will Ukraine’s Euromaidan Democrats Eventually Prevail?

Will Ukraine’s Euromaidan Democrats Eventually Prevail?

A recent Forum of Democratic Forces may have finally started the process of formation of a broad pro-reform coalition of largely untainted anti-corruption fighters. On 11th January 2019, Kyiv hosted a congress of various pro-reformist grouping that together announced their support for the presidential candidacy of former Minister of Defense Anatoliy Hrytsenko. In fact, the […]

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Ukraine’s Upcoming Presidential Elections: The Ambivalence of the Zelens’kyy Candidacy

Ukraine’s Upcoming Presidential Elections: The Ambivalence of the Zelens’kyy Candidacy

Most political experts in and outside Ukraine have reacted negatively or very negatively to the announcement, on New Year’s eve, of Ukrainian comedian Volodymyr Zelens’kyy that he will become a candidate in Ukraine’s presidential elections scheduled for 31 March (first round) and 21 April 2019 (second round of the two front-runners). Indeed, Zelens’kyy’s submission is […]

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How to Talk about Ukrainian Politics in the West?

How to Talk about Ukrainian Politics in the West?

Hyperbolic warnings about allegedly disastrous consequences of a Tymoshenko presidency are demobilizing Western support for Ukrainian reforms and defense My recent article “What Would a Tymoshenko Presidency Mean?” for the Ukraine Alert of Washington’s Atlantic Council has caused indignation among numerous Ukrainian experts and journalists – some of them hitherto close colleagues and professional friends. […]

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As Good as It Gets: Why the West Should Start Preparing Itself to a Ukraine under President Tymoshenko

As Good as It Gets: Why the West Should Start Preparing Itself to a Ukraine under President Tymoshenko

The prominent Western commentator of post-Soviet affairs Taras Kuzio has recently come forward with a barrel of English-language attacks on Ukrainian opposition politician Yulia Tymoshenko – so far, the clear front-runner in Ukraine’s upcoming presidential elections in March 2019. Kuzio has placed several critical and partly denigrating texts about Tymoshenko in reputed analytical outlets, such […]

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Summary of Large October-November 2018 Political Poll in Ukraine: Tymoshenko and Her Fatherland Party Are, so far, Clear Front-Runners for the 2019 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections

Summary of Large October-November 2018 Political Poll in Ukraine: Tymoshenko and Her Fatherland Party Are, so far, Clear Front-Runners for the 2019 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections

Summary of especially comprehensive poll (ca. 10,000 respondents) jointly conducted by Ukraine’s three leading sociological services KIIS, Razumkov Centre and Rating Group, in October-November 2018: (1) Prominent presidential candidates’ rating among citizens who have made up their minds and plan to vote: Tymoshenko (Fatherland) –   21%, Zelenskyi (comedian) –           11%, Poroshenko […]

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From capitalism to oligarchy: What Piketty tells us about Ukraine.

From capitalism to oligarchy: What Piketty tells us about Ukraine.

From humble economist to international rock star: this has been the fate of Thomas Piketty, a French economist that has almost become a household name after publishing the modestly named Capitalism in the Twenty First Century. The 696-page book quickly shot up to the top of bestseller lists around the world (becoming Harvard University Press’ best […]

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