ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the dynamics of competitive authoritarianism in post-Soviet Ukraine—focusing on the extent of incumbent power over elections, the legislature and the media. The failure of democracy and the emergence of hybrid rule in Ukraine cannot simply be reduced to poor elite decision-making, and it has little relationship to institutional design. Instead, Ukraine’s competitive authoritarian regime has been the outgrowth of structural legacies of the Soviet era that have facilitated incumbent abuses of civil and political liberties. Numerous conceptions of hybrid regimes have emerged, each drawing attention to different democratic deficits. The core distinction between competitive authoritarian regimes and fully authoritarian ones is the presence of effective electoral competition for the top executive position. An alternative supply-side structural approach focuses on the existence or absence of opportunities for leaders to use extra-legal means to stay in power rather than the demand for authoritarianism per se.
