GARSZTECKI Belarus and Ukraine. Between Authoritarian Rule and Democracy

2/SR9, Mi 15.30-17.00

The seminar will start with theoretical considerations about regime types, features of authoritarian rule and democracy. Against this background the transformation after 1991, the institutional design and the political culture of both countries are analyzed and compared to each other. Reasons for authoritarianism, for the weakness of democracy and the perspectives for ongoing democratization are discussed. What are differences and what are similarities of the open Lukashenko dictatorship and the remodeled presidential democracy led by Yanukovych in Ukraine? Of special interest is in this context the question, if Belarus and Ukraine stand for a special, post-Soviet model of transformation, maybe a so called sovereign democracy, developed by Putin in the last decade.

Lit.:

• Gerd Meyer (Ed.), Formal Institutions and Informal Politics in Central and Eastern Europe. Hungary, Poland, Russia and Ukraine, 2007.
• Nelly Bekus, Struggle over identity: the official and the alternative “Belarusianness, Budapest 2010.
• Valerie Bunce (Ed.), Democracy and authoritarianism in the post-communist world, Cambridge 2010.