Political parties in Ukraine

Abstract

LIKE MOST POST-COMMUNIST STATES, Ukraine appears to have an anarchic and ineffective party system. A large number of small, ill organised and fractious political parties seemingly promote instability rather than stability, and hinder rather than help the tasks of building a stable civil society and market economy. In the interregnum between the collapse of the old regime and the formation of a new stable political order, the fear must be that if such parties cannot exercise much influence on the development of society, they are helping to create a political vacuum that may well be filled by some kind of revived authoritarianism. This article seeks first to examine the evidence for this proposition, second, to explain the main reasons for the weakness of Ukrainian parties, third, to analyse the trends towards greater structuralisation of the party system, and finally to outline the methods by which the Ukrainian authorities are hoping to strengthen the role of political parties in the future.