Borisov Nikolai

INSTITUTION OF PRESIDENCY IN UKRAINE: POWER SHIFT OR MODEL TRANSFORMATION?

The article discusses political and legal aspects of the presidential power transfer in Ukraine in February 2014 from the perspective of the development of this institution. Identifying the established system in Ukraine as patronal presidentialism, N.Borisov shows that in Ukraine, contrary to the promises of the new authorities, the model of presidency based on patron-client relations, informal institutions and a scenario “winner takes all” is reproduced. According to his assessment, the real steps towards democratization of the Ukrainian political system have not been undertaken, and it is yet premature to talk about the beginning of the transition to “good” or “good enough” institutions in Ukraine.

DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2014-75-4-118-128

Institutionalization of Presidency and Prospects for Consolidation of Political Regimes in Post-Soviet Space

In this article the author undertakes an attempt to classify regimes of the Post-Soviet countries (excluding Baltic states) according to such criteria as the degree of institutionalization of presidency, the degree of political regime consolidation, the level of democratization and the level of statehood. The methodological basis of the work is new institutionalism that interprets institutions as both formal and informal “rules of game” that are created by rational individuals in order to facilitate interaction with each other. The research methods home in on indexes of statehood and institutional bases of democracy elaborated by the authors of the project “Political Atlas of Modernity” as well as “Freedom House” indexes of democratization and author’s version of the index of institutionalization of presidency.

DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2011-63-4-93-103

Characteristics of political systems’ transformation in Central Asian states (examples of Uzbekistan and Kirghizia).

The article conducts a comparative analysis of post-soviet development of Uzbekistan and Kirghizia, and forecasts the dynamics of political processes in these countries in the foreseeable perspective. The author pays in this regard a special attention to the role of political traditions that had their own, very different from each other, characteristics in each of the given states. N.Borisov takes as well into consideration such factors as the structure of the economy, presence or absence of private property, level of urbanization of the title nation, cultural and value aspects. The article explains the reasons why Uzbekistan witnessed a return to the tradition of a strong despotic power with closed access, and its legitimization’s path lies through nationalism and Islam. The author considers just as natural for Kirghizia the presence of a limited pluralism in the form of a hidden, and sometimes obvious, confrontation between the elites of main families, with a semi-closed access to power and its legitimization mainly through national and cultural values.

DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2006-42-3-96-111

Pages: 96-111