Abstract
Khodunov analyzes the Orange Revolution in 2004 in Ukraine, events preceding this revolution, its external and internal causes, course and outcomes. The Orange Revolution took place in 2004, when Ukraine simultaneously showed the highest rates of economic growth in the world and was facing numerous problems, such as extreme corruption, favoritism and nepotism, the domination of the economy and politics by oligarchs, a high level of inequality and dissatisfaction, regional and ethnic divisions. The government was rather weak and tried to balance between eastern and western parts of the country. This opposition made the political situation unstable especially because radical Western Ukrainians wanted more nationalist politics in respect of limitation of the Russian language and culture, demanded pro-Western foreign policy and the reduction of the connections with Russia, whereas Eastern Ukrainians were against these ideas. The Orange Revolution was quite similar to other Color Revolutions in that it was triggered by fraudulent elections, the opposition made use of mass demonstrations and street performances to attain its ends, whereas results fell short of expectations. The revolutionary coalition succeeded in overthrowing the regime by means of mass demonstrations that forced the regime to repeat the second round of the presidential elections, bringing victory to the opposition led by Viktor Yushchenko. After the revolution, press freedom increased considerably, but the new government was unable to solve other major problems. After the subsequent election, in which Viktor Yanukovych came to power, corruption became much worse and press freedom suffered. Was the revolution able to unite Ukrainian society and solve its fundamental problems? Khodunov concludes that it was not able to and, of course, it did not bring the West European standards of living to this Eastern European country. As a result, the Orange Revolution became just a prologue to a new revolution in 2013–2014.
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Notes
- 1.
About the general causes of color revolutions see Chapters “The ‘Color’ Revolutions. Successes and Limitations of Non-violent Protest” (Mitchell, 2022) and “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022, in this volume).
- 2.
It is worth noting that Yushchenko’s government was the most successful government under Kuchma: for the first time, Ukraine avoided budget deficits (in 2000 and 2001), and a privatization program for large state enterprises was launched. After the disastrous nineties, the country enjoyed fast economic growth (5.9% in 2000 and 9.2% in 2001). The premier became the most popular Ukrainian politician, irking Kuchma, who dismissed Yushchenko (Gelman, 2007). However, it should be mentioned that GDP growth was also very high under Yanukovych’s premiership: 10% in 2003 and 13% in 2004 (Korotayev, 2014).
- 3.
About demographic trends in the 2000s and 2010s see Libanova (2009), World Bank (2018). As in many other Eastern European countries, including Russia, the alarming demographic trend in Ukraine correlated with tobacco and alcohol use among adult men and, to some extent, adult women (Khaltourina & Korotayev, 2008a, 2008b, 2015; Korotayev & Khaltourina, 2008; Korotayev et al., 2018). The post-revolution government decided to increase alcohol prices (Delo.ua, 2009). After significant increases for vodka starting in July 2009, its production fell by almost two-thirds, with illegal production growing much more slowly (Status Quo, 2017), and the mortality situation gradually improved. By 2013, the adult mortality rate had fallen to 292.1 per thousand adult men and 113.8 per thousand adult women (compared with 108.4 and 52.7 in the EU). Life expectancy increased significantly, though as of 2013 it was still much lower than in the EU [66.3 vs. 77.8 years for men and 76.2 vs. 83.4 years for women (World Bank, 2018)], and there is still much to be done.
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Khodunov, A. (2022). The Orange Revolution in Ukraine. In: Goldstone, J.A., Grinin, L., Korotayev, A. (eds) Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century. Societies and Political Orders in Transition. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_19
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