Posted by CIUS Press on December 03, 2002 at 16:53:57:
A FUNDAMENTAL STUDY OF CONTEMPORARY UKRAINE
Bohdan Harasymiw
Post-Communist Ukraine
(Toronto and Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press, 2002)
xiv, 469 pp.
Cloth: $49.99 ISBN: 1-895571-43-X
Paper: $29.99 ISBN: 1-895571-44-8
Plus GST and shipping.
Outside Canada the price is in U.S. dollars.
Post-Communist Ukraine by Bohdan Harasymiw, published recently by the CIUS Press, is one of the most comprehensive and penetrating studies of the political and social realities of independent Ukraine. The masterfully written, multi-faceted analysis presented in this 480-page book attempts to document and explain that country's successes and its more frequent failures during its transition from authoritarianism to democracy.
Taking a comparative approach, Bohdan Harasymiw breaks free of the usual historical-cultural mode of dealing with Ukrainian politics by other scholars. Step by step, he examines the primary elements of a modern, democratic state and the degree to which these are in place: an agreed-on set of rules of the game in the form of an accepted constitution; a state capable of governing and claiming the loyalty of its people; a Parliament representative of the public and able to legislate; a bureaucracy skilled at fashioning and implementing public policies, and not just following orders; a nation of fellow citizens living as a community; political parties channelling the interests of, and responsive to, their followers; elections that reflect the preferences of the voters; and policies ensuring the security and well-being of both state and society. These are analyzed in view of other countries' experience with these institutions and processes. As a result, a comprehensive portrait of Ukraine's politics, which can be characterized as "post-Communist" but not yet "post-Soviet," emerges.
Post-Communist Ukraine will be an indispensable guide for students and scholars of comparative, East European, and post-Soviet politics. It will also be of great value to anyone interested in learning about contemporary Ukraine from a social-science perspective.
Bohdan Harasymiw is a professor of political science at the University of Calgary. Trained as a Sovietologist, his publications have concentrated on political elites, but he has now shifted his focus to studying democratic transitions, primarily in Eastern Europe, Russia, and Ukraine.
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