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Do external factors in-
ºuence democratization? Strangely, students of both international relations
and comparative politics have devoted little effort into answering this ques-
tion. Thirty years ago, Peter Gourevitch outlined a set of arguments for why
and how to study the international causes of domestic outcomes.1His frame-
work had a profound effect on several literatures, but only a minor ripple in
the study of regime change.2In Transitions from Authoritarian Rule, Philippe
Schmitter asserted: “[O]ne of the ªrmest conclusions that emerged...wasthat
transitions from authoritarian rule and immediate prospects for political de-
mocracy were largely to be explained in terms of national forces and calcula-
tions. External actors tended to play an indirect and usually marginal role.”3
UkraineImports Democracy
Ukraine Imports
Democracy
Michael McFaul
External Inºuences on
the Orange Revolution
Michael McFaul is the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution; Director of the Center
on Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law; and Professor of Political Science, all at Stanford University.
He is also a nonresident associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
For helpful comments and criticism, the author wishes to thank Petro Koshukov, Amichai Magen,
Dmytro Potekhin, Kathryn Stoner-Weiss, Richard Youngs, and the anonymous reviewers at Inter-
national Security. For invaluable research assistance, the author thanks Tram Dinh, Daria
Khabarova, and Tatyana Krasnopevtseva. Some initial research for this article was conducted as
part of an evaluation of U.S. Agency for International Development programs in Ukraine. This ar-
ticle is part of a larger, collaborative project at the Center on Democracy, Development, and Rule of
Law examining the external dimensions of democratization, which is supported by the Smith
Richardson Foundation.
1. Peter Gourevitch, “The Second Image Reversed: The International Sources of Domestic Politics,”
International Organization, Vol. 32, No. 4 (Autumn 1978), pp. 881–912.
2. Exceptions include Thomas Carothers, Aiding Democracy Abroad: The Learning Curve (Washing-
ton, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1999); Thomas Carothers, In the Name of
Democracy: U.S. Policy toward Latin America in the Reagan Years (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1991); Tony Smith, America’s Mission: The United States and the Worldwide Struggle for Democ-
racy in the Twentieth Century (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994); Richard Youngs, In-
ternational Democracy and the West: The Role of Governments, Civil Society, and Multinational Business
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); Michael Cox, G. John Ikenberry, and Takashi Inoguchi,
eds., American Democracy Promotion: Impulses, Strategies, and Impacts (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2000); Francis Fukuyama, State-Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2004); John M. Owen IV, “The Foreign Imposition of Do-
mestic Institutions,” International Organization, Vol. 56, No. 2 (Spring 2002), pp. 375–409; Jon C.
Pevehouse, “Democracy from the Outside-In? International Organizations and Democratization,”
International Organization, Vol. 56, No. 3 (Summer 2002), pp. 515–549; Laurence Whitehead, “Inter-
national Aspects of Democratization,” in Guillermo O’Donnell and Philippe C. Schmitter, eds.,
Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Comparative Perspectives (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins Univer-
sity Press, 1986), pp. 3–46; Peter Burnell, ed., Democracy Assistance: International Cooperation for De-
mocratization (London: Frank Cass, 2000); and Jeroen de Zeeuw and Krishna Kumar, eds.,
Promoting Democracy and Postconºict Societies (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2006).
3. Philippe C. Schmitter, “An Introduction to Southern European Transitions from Authoritarian
International Security, Vol. 32, No. 2 (Fall 2007), pp. 45–83
© 2007 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
45
As late as the early 1990s, the role of international actors was correctly de-
scribed as “the forgotten dimension in the study of democratic transition.”4
Few studies try to measure international effects on democratic change at the
national level.5Instead, the limited literature on evaluating democracy promo-
tion usually begins by focusing on some component of democracy assistance
from a single Western country, such as political party assistance, rule of law
programs, or civil society development.6This strategy has severe limitations
because tracing the causal effect of one kind of foreign assistance on one di-
mension of democratic development in isolation from all other variables
inºuencing democratization is extremely difªcult, while making impossible
evaluations of progress toward democracy at the national level.7
The relatively underdeveloped academic literature on external dimensions
of internal political change contrasts sharply with U.S. and European policy-
makers’ focus on democracy promotion, especially in the last decade as more
and more leaders have embraced the moral and security beneªts of democracy
as a system of government.8Rhetorically, President George W. Bush elevated
the promotion of freedom around the world to one of his top foreign policy ob-
jectives.9The European Union has published numerous statements of princi-
International Security 32:2 46
Rule: Italy, Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Turkey,” in Guillermo O’Donnell, Schmitter, and Laurence
Whitehead, eds., Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Southern Europe (Baltimore, Md.: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1986), p. 5.
4. Geoffrey Pridham, “International Inºuences and Democratic Transition: Problems of Theory
and Practice in Linkage Politics,” in Pridham, ed., Encouraging Democracy: The International Context
of Regime Transition in Southern Europe (Leicester, U.K.: Leicester University Press, 1991), p. 18.
5. For the ªrst comprehensive quantitative study of the impact of U.S. Agency for International
Development democracy assistance programs, for example, see Steven E. Finkel, Aníbal Pérez-
Liñán, and Mitchell A. Seligson, “Effects of U.S. Foreign Assistance on Democracy Building: Re-
sults of a Cross-National Quantitative Study,” Final Report (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Agency for In-
ternational Development, January 2006), ver. 34.
6. See Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom, Funding Civil Society: Foreign Assistance and NGO Development in
Russia (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2006); Sarah L. Henderson, Building Democracy
in Contemporary Russia: Western Support for Grassroots Organizations (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univer-
sity Press, 2003); Sarah E. Mendelson and John K. Glenn, eds., The Power and Limits of NGOs (New
York: Columbia University Press, 2002); and Marina Ottaway and Thomas Carothers, eds.,
Funding Virtue: Civil Society Aid and Democracy Promotion (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace, 2000). Assessments of rule of law assistance are fewer. See Erik Jensen and
Thomas Heller, eds., Beyond Common Knowledge: Empirical Approaches to the Rule of Law (Stanford,
Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2004); and Thomas Carothers, ed., Promoting Rule of Law Abroad:
In Search of Knowledge (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006). The
only book on political party assistance is Thomas Carothers, Confronting the Weakest Link: Aiding
Political Parties in New Democracies (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, 2006).
7. National-level, aggregate assessments include Carothers, Aiding Democracy Abroad; and Thomas
Carothers, Assessing Democracy Assistance: The Case of Romania (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie En-
dowment for International Peace, 1996).
8. See Michael McFaul, “Democracy Promotion as a World Value,” Washington Quarterly, Vol. 28,
No. 1 (Winter 2004–05), pp. 147–163.
9. See especially George W. Bush, “President Sworn-In to Second Term,” January 2, 2005, http://
www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/01/20050120-1.html.
ples that highlight the promotion of human rights, democracy, and good
governance as strategic priorities.10 Both the United States and the European
Union spend roughly $1.5 billion a year on democracy promotion. The United
Nations, the Organization of American States, the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO), and the African Union all claim to promote democracy and have pro-
grams designated to pursue that objective. While using a different discourse,
the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
also try to leverage their resources to promote good governance. Denmark,
Germany, Great Britain, Slovakia, Sweden, and Taiwan have extensive democ-
racy promoting programs, while almost every European aid agency devotes
resources to the effort. The purposive promotion of democracy in other coun-
tries has become a major activity of states, multilateral institutions, and
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), yet explanations or assessments of
these efforts remain a topic still underdeveloped in academia.
Through the examination of the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine, this ar-
ticle offers a unique method for generating answers to this important theoreti-
cal and policy question. Rather than starting the analysis from the perspective
of donors, this article begins ªrst with a theory of democratization. The ana-
lytic innovation is simple: start with a theory of regime change ªrst—that is,
identify the set of independent variables that produces democratization (or
not)—and then look for how external factors inºuence the value of these
independent variables. The analytic starting point is the exact opposite of most
democracy promotion studies. This approach also assumes that domestic ac-
tors seek to pull in external resources as much as external actors seek to push
resources to local actors. Domestic efforts to import ideas and resources to
advance democracy (or impede it) are just as central to the analysis as for-
eign attempts to export democracy. Obviously, importers can bring in ideas
and resources only if exporters are willing to supply them, but because of for-
eign policy decisions in London and Brussels, congressional earmarks in
Washington, and the inertia of the worldwide democracy promotion indus-
try, attempts to export democracy march on with or without consumers of the
promoters’ products. Tracing the impact of all of these democracy promotion
efforts by focusing ªrst on the suppliers and not the consumers is methodolog-
ically ºawed. With rare exception, domestic actors dominate the drama of re-
gime change; external actors can inºuence outcomes only by working with
and through these domestic actors.11
Ukraine Imports Democracy 47
10. See especially Council of the European Union, A Secure Europe in a Better World: European Secu-
rity Strategy (Brussels: European Union, December 12, 2003).
11. Obviously, cases of military intervention introduce foreign actors into the drama directly. As
After these internal factors have been assessed, the analysis zooms out to
measure to what extent external factors inºuenced either the strength of
Ukraine’s autocratic regime or the democratic challengers. Domestic fac-
tors accounted for most of the drama of the Orange Revolution, but external
factors did play a direct, causal role in constraining some dimensions of auto-
cratic power and enhancing some dimensions of the opposition’s power. Inter-
national assistance in the form of ideas and ªnancial resources was crucial
regarding one dimension of the Orange Revolution—exposing fraud. Yet sig-
niªcant international inputs also can be identiªed regarding the preservation
of semi-autocracy, the fostering of an effective political opposition, the devel-
opment of independent media, and the nurturing of capacity to mobilize pro-
test after the vote.
Ukrainian democracy did not consolidate after the Orange Revolution. The
causes of the revolution can be measured independent from the longer-term
consequences of this dramatic event on democratic consolidation.12 Even if
Ukrainian democracy does slide back toward autocracy over the long run, the
Orange Revolution will still remain a dramatic case of democratic break-
through, and maybe the most important instance of democratic breakthrough
in this decade.13
The Orange Revolution is also a critical case for measuring democracy pro-
motion. Although the U.S. government never targeted its ªnancial resources at
fomenting revolution, it spent more than $18 million in election-related assis-
tance efforts in Ukraine in the two years leading up to the 2004 presidential
vote.14 Some observers praised U.S. assistance; others lambasted the interven-
tion; but both critics and supporters claimed to identify a causal role for exter-
nal actors.15 Likewise, assessments assigned a major antidemocratic role for
International Security 32:2 48
the contemporary cases of Iraq and Afghanistan illustrate, however, even foreign agents with
armed forces are severely constrained in shaping local political change when they lack powerful
domestic allies.
12. Distinguishing between the causes of transition from the causes of consolidation is common in
the literatures on democratization and revolution.
13. Democracy, in other words, develops in ªts and starts, and not always on a gradual path.
14. These were ofªcial ªgures provided to the author by staff members in the Ofªce of the Coordi-
nator for U.S. Assistance to Europe and Eurasia, U.S. Department of State.
15. For a positive assessment of Western intervention, see Jeffrey Clark, “Elections, Revolution,
and Democracy in Ukraine: Reºections on a Country’s Turn to Democracy, Free Elections, and the
Modern World” (Washington, D.C.: Development Associates, October 2005). For critics of the
Western, and especially U.S., intervention, see Patrick J. Buchanan, “Who’s in Charge of Russia
Policy?” Antiwar.com, December 29, 2004, http://antiwar.com; Sergei Markov, “Oranzhevaya
Revolutsiya—primer revolutsii global’nogo soobshchestva XXI veka,” in Mikhail Pogrebinskii,
Oranzhevaya Revolutsiya: Versii, Khronika, Dokumenty (Kiev: Optima, 2005), pp. 52–75; Jonathan
Steele, “Ukraine’s Postmodern Coup d’Etat,” Guardian, November 26, 2004; Anatol Lieven,
“Ukraine and Europe: A Shotgun Wedding Is Bound to Fail,” International Tribune, December 21,
2004; and “Congressman [Ron Paul] accuses U.S. Government of Supporting Viktor Yushchenko,”
ICPS Newsletter, No. 258 (December 20, 2004).
Russia. If scholars cannot identify a causal impact of external inºuences in the
Orange Revolution, they are unlikely to ªnd it in other cases.
The analysis proceeds as follows. The ªrst section provides an analytical
framework for explaining the Orange Revolution. This framework is derived
from a theory of democratization that focuses analysis on the conºict and the
distribution of power between autocratic elites and democratic challengers.
The second section disaggregates the macro variables described in the ªrst sec-
tion to develop a more precise understanding of the proximate causes of the
Orange Revolution. The third section examines the factors that weakened
the ancien régime, including (1) competitive authoritarianism, (2) an unpopu-
lar leader, and (3) division among the armed forces. The fourth section details
the factors that strengthened the democratic opposition, including (1) a suc-
cessful opposition campaign, (2) the ability to expose fraud, (3) the means to
communicate information about the falsiªed vote, and (4) the capability to mo-
bilize masses to protest the fraudulent election. The ªfth section examines the
external dimensions that weakened the ancien régime. The sixth similarly ana-
lyzes the external variables that strengthened the democratic opposition. The
seventh section concludes by offering a road map for future research about the
inºuence of external factors on domestic regime change.
The Orange Revolution as a Case of Democratic Breakthrough
The fall 2004 presidential election triggered one of the pivotal moments in
Ukrainian history. Initially, the election resembled other fraudulent votes
in semi-authoritarian regimes.16 The incumbent president, Leonid Kuchma,
and his chosen successor, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, deployed state
resources, national media, and private funding from both Ukrainians and
Russians to defeat the opposition candidate, Viktor Yushchenko. When this ef-
fort to win the vote fell short, Kuchma’s government tried to steal the election
by adding votes to Yanukovych’s tally in the second round.17 In response to
this fraud, Yushchenko called on his supporters to come to Independence
Square (or Maidan Square) in Kiev, and protest the stolen election. Eventually
hundreds of thousands answered his call. They remained in the square, with
some living in a tent city on Khreshchatyk, Kiev’s main thoroughfare, until the
Supreme Court annulled the second-round results on December 3, 2004, and
set a date for the rerunning of the second round for December 26, 2004. In this
Ukraine Imports Democracy 49
16. On these regimes, see Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way, “The Rise of Competitive Authori-
tarianism,” Journal of Democracy, Vol. 13, No. 2 (April 2002), pp. 51–65.
17. See Andrew Wilson, Ukraine’s Orange Revolution (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press,
2005), chap. 6.
round, Yushchenko won 52 percent of the vote, compared with 44 percent for
Yanukovych. The victors memorialized this set of events by calling it the
Orange Revolution.18
The Orange Revolution was a unique event in Ukrainian history, but the
outcome followed a pattern of democratic breakthroughs or “electoral revolu-
tions” observed earlier in Georgia in 2003, Serbia in 2000, and some would ar-
gue Slovakia in 1998 and Kyrgyzstan in 2005.19 These cases shared several
features: (1) the spark for regime change was a fraudulent national election;
(2) the challengers to the incumbents deployed extraconstitutional means to
ensure that the formal rules of the political game in the constitution were fol-
lowed; (3) incumbents and challengers both claimed to possess sovereign au-
thority over the same territory; (4) all of these revolutionary situations ended
without the massive use of violence by either the state or the opposition; and
(5) the conclusion of these electoral revolutions triggered a signiªcant jump in
the degree of democracy.20
Scholars have many theories of democratization.21 Seymour Martin Lipset’s
ideas about modernization as the driver of democratization still command se-
rious attention, while other structuralist analyses have focused on related but
distinct variables such as culture, economic inequality, geography, and re-
source endowments.22 Doing battle with these deterministic explanations of
democratization are the actor-centric theorists, who focus on the actions and
interactions of individuals—and elites in particular—as the driver of democra-
tization or its absence. The transitologists divide on two issues: whether coop-
eration between parts of the old regime and the democratic challengers is
necessary for democratic change and whether democratization should be
viewed as a game between elites, or if societal and mass actors should be in-
cluded in the analysis.23
International Security 32:2 50
18. On the symbolic codiªcation of the Orange Revolution, see Laura Arzhakovska, Revolyutsiya
Duxa (Lviv: Ukrainian Catholic University, 2005); and the movie Ukraiha: proriv do demokratii (Kiev:
O. Dovzhnko, Fond Rozvitku Ukrains’kogo Kino/Pro TV, 2005).
19. Mark K. Beissinger, “Structure and Example in Modular Political Phenomena: The Diffusion of
Bulldozer/Rose/Orange/Tulip Revolutions,” Perspective on Politics, Vol. 5, No. 2 (June 2007),
pp. 259–276; Valerie J. Bunce and Sharon L. Wolchik, “Favorable Conditions and Electoral Revolu-
tions,” Journal of Democracy, Vol. 17, No. 4 (October 2006), pp. 5–18; Michael McFaul, “Transitions
from Postcommunism,” Journal of Democracy, Vol. 16, No. 3 (July 2005), pp. 5–19; and Joshua
Tucker, “Enough! Electoral Fraud, Collective Action Problems, and Post-Communist Colored Rev-
olutions,” Perspective on Politics (forthcoming).
20. Ukraine’s Freedom House scores jumped from partially free in 2004 to free in 2005.
21. Barbara Geddes, “What Do We Know about Democratization after Twenty Years?” Annual Re-
view of Political Science, Vol. 2, No. 1 (June 1999), pp. 115–144.
22. Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man: The Social Basis of Politics (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday,
1960).
23. Those emphasizing elites and the beneªts of pacts include Guillermo O’Donnell and Philippe
The Orange Revolution offers conªrming evidence for those who emphasize
conºict as a driver of democratic change and those who assign a central role to
coordinated mass action in pressing for democratic change.24 According to this
theory, democratization occurs not when the distribution of power is relatively
equal and both sides are forced to negotiate, but when societal forces acquire
enough power to either demand democracy or defend it against autocratic en-
croachments. The critical set of independent variables for explaining democra-
tization, therefore, is the distribution of power between the autocratic elements
within the state and the pro-democratic elements within society. To measure
this balance of power, analysts must evaluate the unity among elites in the
state or their ability to control the state, the coercive capabilities of the regime,
and the costs of continued autocratic rule. Analysts also must gauge demo-
cratic power, including the unity of the opposition and the opposition’s capac-
ity to resist coercion or make autocracy costly, especially the society’s ability
“[to] coordinate their reactions to prevent violations of democratic rights.”25
This framework offers a simple, powerful lens for analyzing the Orange
Revolution. Ukraine’s levels of economic development, literacy, and urbaniza-
tion, as well as its cultural proclivities for democratic rule, geographic proxim-
ity to Europe, and dearth of oil, gas, and diamonds may all have been
necessary preconditions for the Orange Revolution to occur. But in the fall of
2004, it was real people, motivated by real ideas and empowered by real re-
sources, who struggled with each other to produce the Orange Revolution. A
shift in the distribution of power between autocratic incumbents and demo-
cratic challengers produced democratic breakthrough. Those seeking to hold
on to power through antidemocratic means were weaker in 2004 relative to
earlier periods when they had the resources to retain power in the face of dem-
ocratic challengers, while the democrats were stronger in 2004 than in earlier
periods. The 2004 presidential election and attempts by the ancien régime to
Ukraine Imports Democracy 51
C. Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies,
Vol. 4 (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986); and Terry Lynn Karl, “Dilemmas of
Democratization in Latin America,” Comparative Politics, Vol. 23, No. 1 (October 1990), pp. 1–21.
Those downplaying pacts and giving greater attention to masses include Nancy Bermeo, “Myths
of Moderation: Confrontation and Conºict during the Democratic Transitions,” Comparative Poli-
tics, Vol. 29, No. 3 (April 1997), pp. 305–322; Ruth Collier, Paths towards Democracy: The Working
Class and Elites in Western Europe and South America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999);
Elisabeth Jean Wood, Forging Democracy from Below: Insurgent Transitions in South Africa and El Sal-
vador (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000); and Michael McFaul, “The Fourth Wave of
Democracy and Dictatorship: Noncooperative Transitions in the Postcommunist World,” World
Politics, Vol. 54, No. 2 (January 2002), pp. 212–244.
24. Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
25. Barry R. Weingast, “The Political Foundations of Democracy and the Rule of Law,” American
Political Science Review, Vol. 91, No. 2 (June 1997), pp. 245–263, at p. 246.
falsify its results gave the opposition a crucial “galvanizing event” to coordi-
nate their behavior and demonstrate their power.26 The absence of either this
election date or the regime’s attempt to steal the election would have severely
hindered the opposition’s ability to demonstrate its power or make a credible
“threat of social disorder,” perhaps the critical factor in other cases of dem-
ocratization.27 In response, Kuchma and his supporters, including those in
Moscow, did contemplate using coercion to stay in power. Measuring the dis-
tribution of power between state and society, however, was not an abstract ex-
ercise during the Orange Revolution; calculations about power could be made
based on concrete assessments of crowd sizes and uniªed will among those in
the state wielding coercive power. Democratic society was simply too power-
ful to repress.
This level of aggregation—the autocratic state versus the democratic
society—is useful for generating comparative theory, but it constrains the
search for causal mechanisms that could have been inºuenced by external ac-
tors. The next two sections break down these variables into the more speciªc
components that interacted to cause the Orange Revolution.
The Components of Weakened Autocratic Power
Measuring a ruler’s capacity to stay in power through antidemocratic means is
extremely difªcult. Before regime collapse, autocratic rulers almost always
look powerful. After collapse, they almost always look weak. Autocratic
power also must be measured in relation to the power of challengers. Some au-
tocrats hang on for decades with very little coercive capacity and very low ap-
proval ratings because the opposition is even weaker. Nonetheless, the
trajectory of some disaggregated measures of power—degree of autocracy,
popularity of the regime, and unity among the coercive forces in the regime—
can be captured to give some approximation of the strength of the regime as a
whole.
compettitive authoritarianism
All autocratic regimes are vulnerable to collapse at some point, but which
kinds of autocracies are the most vulnerable? Some observers posit that com-
petitive authoritarian regimes better facilitate democratization than full-blown
International Security 32:2 52
26. The idea of a galvanizing event as a necessary condition for societal coordination is presented
in ibid., p. 251.
27. Acemoglu and Robinson, Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, p. 4.
dictatorships.28 Others argue that semi-autocracies or partial democracies im-
pede genuine democratization to a greater degree than more rigid autocra-
cies, because liberalized autocracies can partially diffuse societal pressures
for change and thereby avoid regime collapse more effectively than rigid
dictatorships.29
Ukraine offers conªrming evidence that competitive autocracies can be
conducive to democratic breakthroughs.30 These are regimes in which the
formal rules of democracy were never suspended and competition still mat-
tered to some degree. They are also regimes in which some political institu-
tions and organizations had some autonomy from the autocratic regime.31
President Kuchma aspired to construct a system of “managed democracy”—
formal democratic practices, but informal control of all political institutions—
similar to President Vladimir Putin’s model of government in Russia.32 But
the Ukrainian president never achieved as much success as his Russian
counterpart.
Most important, Ukraine’s oligarchs never united in support of the ancien
régime.33 Ukraine’s three largest oligarchic groups did back Kuchma and
wielded their media and ªnancial resources on behalf of his candidate in the
2004 election, but signiªcant if lesser oligarchs backed Yushchenko, as did tens
of thousands of smaller businesspeople. Ukraine’s economic elites were di-
vided, not united, in the fall of 2004.
Kuchma’s inept and blunt attempts to squelch opposition voices—be it his
apparent collusion in the murder of journalist Georgy Gongadze, his jailing of
former Energy Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko, or his dismissal of popular Prime
Minister Yushchenko—also served to further weaken the state and mobilize
Ukraine Imports Democracy 53
28. Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Eu-
rope, South America, and Post-Communist Eastern Europe (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1996).
29. Daniel Brumberg, “Liberalization versus Democracy,” in Thomas Carothers and Marina
Ottaway, eds., Uncharted Journey: Promoting Democracy in the Middle East (Washington, D.C.: Carne-
gie Endowment for International Peace, 2005), pp. 15–36; and Eva Bellin, “The Robustness of Au-
thoritarianism in the Middle East: Exceptionalism in Comparative Perspective,” Comparative
Politics, Vol. 36, No. 2 (January 2004), pp. 139–153.
30. A more nuanced hypothesis might be that competitive authoritarian regimes that emerged
from partial democracies are more vulnerable than competitive authoritarian regimes that
emerged from full-blown autocracies.
31. Levitsky and Way, “The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism.”
32. On the model, see Lucan A. Way, “Authoritarian State Building and the Sources of Regime
Competitiveness in the Fourth Wave: The Cases of Belarus, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine,” World
Politics, Vol. 57, No. 2 (January 2005), pp. 231–261.
33. Anders Åslund, “The Ancien Régime: Kuchma and the Oligarchs,” in Åslund and Michael
McFaul, eds., Revolution in Orange: The Origins of Ukraine’s Democratic Breakthrough (Washington,
D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006), pp. 9–28.
even greater opposition. On the eve of the 2004 presidential vote, three-
quarters of the Ukrainian voters wanted greater democratization.34 This
societal response to autocratic government most distinguishes Ukraine from
its Slavic neighbors, Belarus and Russia. The “Ukraine without Kuchma” cam-
paign from December 2000 to March 2001 and the results of the March 2002
parliamentary elections demonstrated that Ukrainian society was active and
sophisticated. Especially after the electoral success of the Our Ukraine bloc in
the 2002 parliamentary vote, Ukraine’s opposition also had a foothold in an
important state institution.
In addition, Kuchma did not control rents generated from oil and gas sales
that could have been used to purchase the loyalty of societal challengers.
Ukraine’s economy began to grow in 1999 for the ªrst time since independ-
ence, peaking at a 12 percent increase in gross domestic product in 2004. But,
in contrast to the leadership in other resource-rich states such as Iran,
Kazakhstan, and Russia, Kuchma’s regime did not control or own major seg-
ments of the Ukrainian economy. Ukrainian growth increased the ªnancial au-
tonomy and independence of the regime’s opponents.
Finally, Kuchma never aspired to construct full-blown autocracy. As he dem-
onstrated in the fall of 2004, Kuchma was prepared to transgress democratic
rules to prevent the opposition from coming to power, but he also wanted to
keep up the appearance of democracy. He never canceled elections. He did not
amend the constitution so he could run for a third term, but instead took the
risky move of recruiting a successor, Viktor Yanukovych, to run in the 2004
presidential election—one who was not a Kuchma loyalist.
regime unpopularity
Given that a presidential election triggered the Orange Revolution, an unpop-
ular regime was a necessary condition for democratic breakthrough. Although
it may seem obvious, this measure of the regime’s weakness distinguishes
Ukraine from countries such as Russia, where President Putin is still popular,
or countries such as Mexico during the heyday of semi-authoritarian rule,
when the Institutional Revolutionary Party could manufacture electoral victo-
ries without major voter fraud.35
When asked on the eve of the 2004 presidential election, only 8 percent of
International Security 32:2 54
34. Polling data cited from Taras Kuzio, “Everyday Ukrainians and the Orange Revolution,” in
Åslund and McFaul, Revolution in Orange, p. 61.
35. Beatriz Magaloni, Voting for Autocracy: Hegemonic Party Survival and Its Demise in Mexico (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
Ukrainian voters approved of Kuchma’s tenure; 62 percent disapproved.36 No
factor undermined Kuchma’s standing more than the murder of journalist
Georgy Gongadze, the founder of the internet publication Ukrainska Pravda.
Tapes of conversations between Kuchma and subordinates leaked to the press
strongly suggested that Kuchma ordered Gongadze’s execution. Kuchma was
not running for ofªce in 2004, but his handpicked presidential candidate,
Prime Minister Yanukovych, did little to inspire hope for a break with past cor-
rupt practices. Yanukovych was a convicted felon who still maintained ties
with criminal circles in his hometown region of Donetsk. Among voters, he
was perceived as the candidate who would preserve the status quo, not
change it.
Yet, in the rerun of the second round on December 26, 2004, Yanukovych
captured 44 percent of the vote. This signiªcant level of support reºects both
the success and limits of Yanukovych’s campaign strategy, which deliberately
tried to accentuate ethnic and regional divisions within Ukraine, mobilizing
the Russian-speaking voters in the east against the Ukrainian-speaking
supporters of Yushchenko in the west.37 Yanukovych also tried to portray
Yushchenko as a U.S. lackey who would undermine the stable relationship
that Ukraine had developed with Russia under Kuchma’s leadership. The
Yanukovych campaign called his opponent “Bushenko” and circulated posters
and leaºets warning of a U.S.-orchestrated civil war in Ukraine similar to
those in Bosnia, Serbia, and Iraq should Yushchenko come to power.38
The campaign strategy worked. Yanukovych won smashing victories in the
December round of voting in the eastern regions of Donetsk (93 percent),
Luhansk (91 percent), and Crimea (81 percent), but he failed to break double
digits in the western regions of Ternopil, Ivan-Frankivsk, Lviv, and Volyn. Fos-
tering polarization did not help Yanukovych win votes in the center of
Ukraine, including Kiev, which swung decidedly toward Yushchenko (71 per-
cent). Given the economic boom under way throughout Ukraine in 2004, espe-
cially in Kiev, this strong popular support for change suggests a deep, genuine
rejection of the regime constructed by Kuchma in the 1990s.
Ukraine Imports Democracy 55
36. See Razumkov Centre Sociological Survey, as reported in “2004 Presidential Elections: How
Ukrainians Saw Them,” National Security and Defence, No. 10 (2004), p. 19; and Natalya Panina, ed.,
Ukrainian Society, 1994–2005: Sociological Monitoring (Kiev: Institute of Sociology, Academy of Sci-
ences and Democratic Initiatives, 2005), p. 25.
37. Mikhail Pogrebinsky, director, Kiev Center for Political Studies and Conºictology, and cam-
paign adviser to Viktor Yanukovych, interview by author, Kiev, November 2005.
38. Wilson, Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, p. 95.
unreliable coercive capacity
The post-Soviet Ukrainian state never developed the coercive capacities of a
full-blown autocracy, including the kind of intelligence services or internal se-
curity troops needed to repress popular revolt. Political arrests and even assas-
sination happened, but massive repression never occurred. Unlike Russia in
1993, political competition in Ukraine never devolved into military conºict be-
tween state institutions. In contrast to Russia and Armenia, the line between
civilian government and military service remained clear in Ukraine.
Consequently, when faced with mass social mobilization against the regime
during the Orange Revolution, President Kuchma could not invoke tradition
or call upon loyal special forces to disperse protesters. He did, however,
threaten to use force. A week into the protest, troops from the ministry of the
interior armed and mobilized, with the intention of clearing the square.39 But
Orange Revolution sympathizers from within the intelligence services warned
the opposition of the impending attack, and commanders within the regular
army pledged to protect the unarmed citizens if these interior troops marched
into the center of town.40 These defections made clear that those with the
guns—that is, the military, the intelligence services, and police—could not
be trusted to carry out a repressive order.41 These splits helped to convince
Kuchma to call off the planned police activity, even though Yanukovych was
urging the Ukrainian president to take action.
Divided loyalties within the security forces are closely intertwined with
mass mobilization. Had only a few thousand demonstrators remained,
Kuchma might have been less reluctant to use force. To understand why there
were hundreds of thousands and sometimes a million people mobilized for
two weeks after the vote requires a closer examination of the resources that
made the Ukrainian democratic opposition powerful and effective.
Components of Increased Democratic Power
In retrospect, all revolutions seem inevitable. Beforehand, all revolutions seem
impossible. The Orange Revolution was no exception. Autocracy in Ukraine
was weak, but the democratic opposition seemed even weaker. In comparative
perspective, Ukraine’s civil and political society looked poorly organized,
International Security 32:2 56
39. Interview with Ihor Smeshko, chief of the Ukrainian Secret Service, in The Orange Revolution,
documentary ªlm written, directed, and produced by Steve York (Washington: York Zimmerman,
2007).
40. Yurii Lutsenko, MPand a key organizer of the Maidan protests, interview by author, Kiev, No-
vember 2005.
41. C.J. Chivers, “How Top Spies in Ukraine Changed the Nation’s Path,” New York Times, January
17, 2005.
ranking well below other countries in the region.42 The boldest attempt at mo-
bilization against the regime—the Ukraine without Kuchma campaign in
2001—ended in demoralizing defeat. Everyone knew that the 2004 presidential
elections offered a major opportunity for renewed societal mobilization, but
few were optimistic about a positive outcome.43 Yet, the naysayers were wrong
this time. Several resources were critical for the success of the Orange
Revolution.
united and “effective” opposition
A united opposition—or at least the perception of one—was crucial for the
2004 democratic breakthrough. In the previous decade, division, disorganiza-
tion, and the absence of a single, charismatic leader had crippled Ukraine’s
democratic forces. Ironically, Kuchma helped opposition unity when he dis-
missed Yushchenko as prime minister in 2001. At the time, Yushchenko cut an
image of a technocratic economist, not a revolutionary. He was a popular
prime minister with a record of achievement, an image of not being corrupt, an
appealing biography, and a handsome appearance, but his colleagues worried
that he did not have the temperament to become a national political leader.44
A critical step for forging unity was the 2002 parliamentary elections. To par-
ticipate in these elections, Yushchenko created a new voting bloc, Our Ukraine,
which captured a quarter of the popular vote. Our Ukraine’s success in 2002
made Yushchenko the focal point of a united front for the presidential election.
Importantly, Yuliya Tymoshenko agreed not to run for president, but instead
backed Yushchenko.45
A single candidate was essential for the electoral success of Ukraine’s oppo-
sition. Without electoral victory, there would have been no Orange Revolution.
Whether Yushchenko was necessary for the opposition’s electoral success in
2004 is impossible to know; that he was a candidate who could unite the dem-
ocrats was clear.46
Beyond acknowledging the importance of unity behind one candidate, as-
sessing the general effectiveness of the opposition’s electoral campaign is
difªcult. The second round of the vote essentially became a polarized ref-
Ukraine Imports Democracy 57
42. See Marc Morjé Howard, The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2003), chap. 4.
43. Wilson, Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, p. 123.
44. Roman Bezsmertny, Our Ukraine MP; and Alexander Moroz, MP and chairman of the Socialist
Party, interviews by author, Kiev, July 2002.
45. Yuliya Tymoshenko, interview by author, Kiev, February 2006.
46. On the misplaced emphasis on leaders in such situations, see Kurt Schock, “Nonviolent Action
and Its Misconceptions: Insights for Social Scientists,” PS: Political Science and Politics, Vol. 36, No. 4
(October 2003), pp. 705–712.
erendum on the Kuchma regime. The vote was polarized along geographic
lines: the farther west one lived, the more likely one supported Yushchenko,
while the farther east one lived, the more likely one supported Yanukovych.47
Therefore, measuring the causal impact of campaign efforts in this polarized
election about the past is particularly difªcult. Yushchenko won, suggesting
that he effectively used his campaign assets, such as party organization, his
personal appeal, targeted messages, and ªnancial resources to pay for cam-
paign staff, leaºets, and get-out-the-vote activities.48 He also stuck to his
message: criticizing Kuchma’s regime rather than pushing a comprehensive
agenda of policy changes.49 His message structured the vote as a choice be-
tween two different systems of government: one that was corrupt, authoritar-
ian, and criminal versus one that would be “for the truth,” “for freedom,” and
“for our rights.” Rather than appealing to concerns of individuals, Yushchenko
and his campaign asked voters to make assessments about the overall political
and economic health of their country.50 Yushchenko also tried to keep his own
speeches positive. The use of the word Tak! (Yes!) and the color orange were
carefully chosen positive symbols.51 Regrettably, however, no one collected the
kind of survey data necessary to trace the effects of the Yushchenko cam-
paign’s strategies and tactics.
One aspect of the campaign, however, can be traced: voter mobilization. The
Yushchenko campaign believed that a higher voter turnout would help its
cause and therefore devoted huge resources to get-out-the-vote efforts. In ad-
dition to party activities, the nongovernmental organization Znayu carried out
massive voter education and get-out-the-vote efforts, recognized by friends
and foes as contributors to Yushchenko’s electoral success. The youth groups
Black Pora, Yellow Pora and its afªliated Freedom of Choice Coalition, and
the Committee of Ukrainian Voters (known by its Ukrainian acronym CVU)
also organized extensive get-out-the-vote campaigns, while groups such as
Internews-Ukraine placed public service announcements on television educat-
ing Ukrainian voters about their electoral rights, which indirectly also in-
International Security 32:2 58
47. Razumkov Centre Sociological Survey, as reported in “2004 Presidential Elections,” p. 9.
48. Tracing the effects of campaign messages and techniques is difªcult even in older democra-
cies. See Henry E. Brady and Richard Johnston, eds., Capturing Campaign Effects (Ann Arbor: Uni-
versity of Michigan Press, 2006).
49. Of course, he did have a program, including a list of presidential decrees that he promised to
enact should he be elected. These future actions, however, were not emphasized. After the elec-
tion, two-thirds of the electorate reported that they had never heard about these decrees. See
Razumkov Centre Sociological Survey, as reported in “2004 Presidential Elections,” p. 10.
50. Donald R. Kinder and D. Roderick Kiewiet, “Sociotropic Politics: The American Case,” British
Journal of Political Science, Vol. 11, No. 2 (April 1981), p. 132.
51. Ihor Gryniv, Our Ukraine MP and campaign manager, interview by author, Kiev, November
2005.
creased voter interest. In the second round, voter turnout reached an amazing
80 percent; in the rerun of the second round (the third time Ukrainians were
asked to go to the polls that fall), turnout was still very high, 77 percent.
exposure of fraud
Another component of the opposition’s success was the ability to quickly pro-
vide an accurate and independent account of the vote after polls closed. Sev-
eral organizations monitored the count, but CVU played the central role in
monitoring all rounds of the 2004 presidential vote. CVU also conducted a par-
allel vote tabulation (PVT) in all three rounds. In addition, the Ukrainian
NGO Democratic Initiatives Foundation coordinated the National Exit Poll
conducted by four polling ªrms: the Kiev International Institute of Sociology
(known by its Ukrainian acronym KMIS), the SOCIS Center, the Social Moni-
toring Center, and the sociological service of the Razumkov Centre.52
CVU had ten years of experience, and the Democratic Initiatives Foundation
orchestrated the ªrst exit polls in Ukraine in the 1998 parliamentary elec-
tions.53 Compared with their efforts in earlier elections, however, these groups
also faced a much more sophisticated voter manipulator in 2004. First,
Kuchma’s regime falsiªed the vote at the precinct level and not between the
precinct level and higher levels of counting where fraud traditionally occurs.54
A parallel vote tabulation attempts to expose fraud by sampling the actual
vote count at the precinct level. But if the precinct numbers are already fraudu-
lent, then a PVT will simply reºect the result of the falsiªed vote, an outcome
that CVU encountered. Because CVU ªgures from its PVT did not expose
fraud, the committee did not release its second-round results.55 Second, the
legitimacy of the National Exit Poll came into question when two ªrms in
the consortium used a different tallying method. In response to the polar-
ized atmosphere of the 2004 vote, preelection opinion polls recorded very high
no-response rates, exceeding 70 percent in some regions and more than 50 per-
cent nationwide. As a corrective, two consortium partners, KMIS and the
Razumkov Centre, agreed to switch from face-to-face polling to a more anony-
Ukraine Imports Democracy 59
52. The government-sponsored Ukrainian Institute of Social Research and the Russian ªrm Foun-
dation for Social Opinion (known by the Russian acronym FOM) also conducted exit polls. FOM
discontinued its exit poll in the ªrst round because more than 40 percent of all voters refused to re-
veal how they voted. See Tetiana Sylina, “Exit Poll: ALong Ordeal,” National Security and Defence,
No. 10 (2004), pp. 24–28.
53. See http://www.dif.org.ua.
54. Yevgen Poberezhny, deputy chairman of the board of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, in-
terview by author, Kiev, November 2005.
55. Ihor Popov, chairman of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, interview by author, Kiev, March
2005.
mous method in which they essentially placed a second ballot box outside of
the polling station into which voters could report how they voted without the
interviewer seeing. SOCIS Center and the Social Monitoring Center—allegedly
under government instruction—refused to adopt this new method. Not sur-
prisingly, the two methods produced different results: the more anonymous
method used by KMIS and the Razumkov Centre reported higher levels of
support for Yushchenko than did the results collected by SOCIS and the
Social Monitoring Center through face-to-face interviews. The consortium dis-
solved before the second round. In this round, results released by KMIS and
Razumkov gave Yushchenko 53 percent of the vote compared with 44 percent
for Yanukovych.56 Ofªcial results claimed that Yushchenko won 46 percent of
the vote, and Yanukovych 49 percent. This discrepancy was essential for mobi-
lizing citizens to protect their votes.
After the PVT and exit polls yielded ambiguous results, qualitative methods
came to the rescue. Individual election monitors reported hundreds of irregu-
lar procedures.57 Turnout levels in some eastern regions were so outrageously
high, and jumped so dramatically in the last minutes of voting, that election
ofªcials and analysts knew they could not be true.
This combination gave a few members of the Central Election Commission
(CEC) the courage not to certify the ªnal count, sending the issue to Ukraine’s
parliament, the Rada, which then sent the issue to the Supreme Court.58 On
December 3, 2004, the court used evidence of fraud collected by the CVU and
other NGOs to annul the ofªcial results and call for a replay of the second
round later that month.
The defecting CEC members or the Supreme Court majority might have
acted differently if hundreds of thousands of protesters were not in the streets
by the time of their deliberations.59 At the same time, a necessary condition for
International Security 32:2 60
56. Democratic Initiatives, “Final Results of the National Exit Poll 2004 for the 2nd Round of the
Presidential Election in Ukraine,” November 27, 2004, mimeo.
57. On the second round of the presidential elections, see, for instance, CVU, “Report of the Com-
mittee of Voters of Ukraine on Observation of Voting and Vote Tabulation on November 21, 2004,”
http://www.cvu.org.ua/doc.php?lang?eng&mid?docs&id?828. On the OSCE monitoring mis-
sion’s report following the second round of elections, see International Election Observation Mis-
sion, “Statement of Preliminary Findings and Conclusions,” November 22, 2004, http://
www.osce.org/documents/odihr/2004/11/3811_en.pdf. Election monitoring efforts of NGOs to
gather evidence of falsiªcation were facilitated by the multiparty composition of the local election
commissions. This method of forming election commissions put Our Ukraine members and sup-
porters in the room in most election districts when counts were taking place. This method of con-
stituting CEC commissions was another attribute of competitive authoritarianism. Full-blown
autocracies do not allow opposition parties to participate in vote counting.
58. Roman Knyazevich, Central Election Commission member, interview by author, Kiev, March
2005.
59. Ibid.
the court’s decision was hard evidence that the results had been falsiªed in a
systematic manner. This evidence came from Our Ukraine election monitors
and commission members, CVU monitors, and members of other NGOs. The
effort to document violations and then take legal action to prosecute the of-
fenders was much greater in this vote than in previous elections, and proved
critical to Our Ukraine’s case before the Supreme Court.60
independent media
Independent media were another important ingredient that created momen-
tum for the Orange Revolution. Kuchma’s failures as a president could dam-
age the popularity and legitimacy of his regime only if his actions were
communicated to the voters. Any media reporting, think tank publication, Our
Ukraine press release, or parliamentary hearing that provided objective analy-
sis of the Gongadze affair or exposed corruption played some role in decreas-
ing Kuchma’s popularity. Gongadze’s murder critically undermined support
for the ancien régime and sparked mass mobilization in support of regime
change. The initial wave of civic protest in 2001 failed to dislodge Kuchma’s
regime, but it did help to create the permissive conditions for Our Ukraine’s
victory in the 2002 parliamentary vote and Yushchenko’s rise in popularity.
Importantly, Ukrainska Pravda and Ukraine’s other independent media outlets
did not fold or practice self-censorship after Gongadze’s death, but continued
to investigate and expose Kuchma’s alleged crimes, often under threatening
circumstances.61
During the 2004 campaign, Kuchma’s regime controlled or enjoyed the loy-
alty of most national media outlets. By 2004 Ukraine boasted several inde-
pendent television networks, but all the major channels were owned or
controlled by oligarchs loyal to Kuchma and Yanukovych.62 Through a system
of temniki, or secret commands, Kuchma’s staff directed the news coverage on
these channels, resulting in a massive asymmetry of positive television expo-
sure for Yanukovych compared with Yushchenko.63 Russian television stations
ORT, RTR, and NTV, which enjoy considerable audiences in Ukraine, also gave
favorable coverage to Yanukovych.
Important independent outlets did remain, however, and others devel-
Ukraine Imports Democracy 61
60. Mikhola Katarynchuk and Yuri Kliuchkovsky, Our Ukraine MPs who argued the Our Ukraine
case before the Supreme Court, interview by author, Kiev, November 2005.
61. Olena Prytula, editor, Ukrainska Pravda, interview by author, Kiev, June 2002.
62. Marta Dyczok, “Was Kuchma’s Censorship Effective? Mass Media in Ukraine before 2004,”
Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 58, No. 2 (March 2006), pp. 215–238.
63. For the percentages, see International Renaissance Foundation (IRF), Promotion of the Fair and
Open Election of 2004 (Kiev: IRF, January 2005), pp. 14–19.
oped during the 2004 campaign. In 2003 a wealthy Yushchenko ally, Petro
Poroshenko, acquired the rights to a small television station and transformed it
into Channel 5. Poroshenko hired a team of professional journalists who aimed
to provide media coverage of the entire campaign and not just Yanukovych.
Channel 5 did provide positive coverage of the Yushchenko campaign, but
with roughly 8 million viewers, the station’s audience was much smaller than
those of the major channels, and its signal reached only approximately 30 per-
cent of the country.64
Regarding radio, Radio Era provided news that was not shaped by the
government. External stations such as Radio Liberty, the BBC, and Voice of
America were also important channels of independent news for those with
the ability to receive shortwave broadcasts—a small fraction of the Ukrainian
population.65
Important print newspapers such as Zerkalo Nedeli, Ukrayna Moloda, Vecherny
Visty, and Silsky Visty (controlled by the Socialist Party), as well as internet
news outlets such as Ukrainska Pravda and Telekritika—a web-based forum for
discussing television coverage of the campaign—also provided sources of elec-
tion news that were not controlled by the state or oligarchs tied to the state.
But all had limited circulation.66 Every region also had at least one opposition
newspaper, including such famous examples as Kafa, Hrviyna, and Vechirney
Cherkassy. In 2004 the media were skewed in favor of Yanukovych, but inde-
pendent and pro-Yushchenko outlets did exist.
The impact of Ukraine’s independent media outlets on the election results is
difªcult to measure. Their role in facilitating popular mobilization after the
vote was more obvious. Independent media played a critical role in communi-
cating news about the falsiªed vote and helped mobilize and coordinate popu-
lar opposition to the regime after the vote. Channel 5 played the central role,
ªrst communicating the results of the exit polls and then reporting the numer-
ous cases of electoral fraud. Channel 5 later provided live, twenty-four-hour
coverage of the events in Maidan, broadcasts that helped encourage others to
join the protests, especially when viewers saw the peaceful, festive nature of
the crowds. By the end of the demonstration, Channel 5 had catapulted from
International Security 32:2 62
64. Adrian Karatnycky, “Ukraine’s Orange Revolution,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 84, No. 2 (March/
April 2005), pp. 35–52.
65. Some FM stations, such as Radio Continent, Radio NART, and Radio Takt in Vinnytsia
rebroadcast Radio Liberty, which Liberty ofªcials claimed reached 8 percent of the population. See
Olena Prytula, “The Ukrainian Media Rebellion,” in Åslund and McFaul, Revolution in Orange,
pp. 113–115.
66. Internet access in 2004 was limited. Half of internet news readers lived in Kiev. “Media
Sustainability Index, 2004” (Washington, D.C.: IREX, 2004), pp. 208–209, 11, http://www.irex.org/
program/MSI_EUR/2004/MSI-2004-Ukraine.pdf.
thirteenth place to third place in the national ratings. Its coverage also pres-
sured other channels to stop spewing propaganda.67 By the fourth day of pro-
tests, staffs at most other stations had defected and joined the street
demonstrators. Radio Era, Radio Kiev, and Radio Gala also provided around-
the-clock reporting from Maidan.
The Orange Revolution may have been the ªrst in history organized in large
measure on the web. During the critical days after the second-round vote,
Ukrainska Pravda displayed the results of the exit poll most sympathetic to
Yushchenko as well as detailed news about allegations of fraud. The website
also provided logistical information to protestors. During the second round,
Ukrainska Pravda grew to 350,000 readers and 1 million hits a day.68 Other por-
tals also provided information that helped to make the Orange Revolution.
Maidan.org was a clearinghouse of information and coordination for protesters.
The student group Pora and Our Ukraine also maintained important websites
that blasted informational and motivational emails to supporters and observ-
ers all over the country and the world. Telekritika emerged as a popular site
for independent journalists during the campaign, and played an instrumental
role in pressuring journalists working at Kuchma-friendly outlets to withdraw
their support. As a technology of mobilization and coordination, text messag-
ing was essential for those in Maidan Square who did not have access to the
web or email.
popular mobilization to “protect the vote”
To put Ukraine back on a path toward democratization, it was insufªcient for
Yushchenko to win the election, to prove that the results were falsiªed, and
then to communicate this result to a sizable portion of Ukrainian citizens. A
ªnal, necessary condition for the Orange Revolution’s success was mass mobi-
lization after the election to defend the actual voting results. It happened on a
scale and for a duration that vastly exceeded the expectations of both the orga-
nizers and their foes.
The protest was not spontaneous. Months in advance of the presidential
election, Our Ukraine campaign leaders made plans to organize street demon-
strations in what they believed was the likely event that the election results
would be falsiªed.69 At the last minute, the location of their protest changed
and some tactics of mobilization misªred, such as a planned parallel vote
Ukraine Imports Democracy 63
67. Tetyana Lebedeva, head of the board, Independent Association of Broadcasters, interview by
author, Kiev, November 2006.
68. Prytula, “The Ukrainian Media Rebellion,” p. 110.
69. Taras Stetskiv, MP and Our Ukraine campaign manager; and Gryniv, interviews by author,
Kiev, November 2005.
count to be conducted in the tents in Maidan Square. The campaigners did,
however, succeed in their central idea of calling on Yushchenko supporters to
take to and remain in the streets until the fraudulent vote was overturned. Sev-
eral components produced success.
First, the regime did not impede the initial mobilization effort. After consid-
ering the streets outside the CEC as ground zero of the protest, and because of
the police contingent posted around it, Our Ukraine leaders decided instead to
make their stand in Maidan Square. The day after the second round of voting,
Our Ukraine members of parliament went to Maidan early in the morning to
build a stage, and no one tried to stop them (though MPs were assigned this
task speciªcally because they have immunity). The quick appearance of truck-
loads of tents, mats, and food supplies, which had been secured weeks before,
clearly demonstrated the opposition’s preplanning.70
Second, Our Ukraine leaders coordinated with Yellow Pora activists to set
up a tent city downtown. Yellow Pora started with 15 tents in what they called
their “territory of freedom,” but others spontaneously joined the effort, swell-
ing the number of tents to 2,000, which housed more than 7,000 people from all
over Ukraine.71 This act immediately created a quasi-permanent presence in
downtown Kiev. Like the color orange, the tent city and Maidan became major
symbols of the revolution.
Third, Yushchenko appeared on television to call upon his supporters to
come to Kiev and occupy the square immediately after the falsiªed second-
round results had been released. Strangely, Yushchenko’s ªrst postelection
speech was covered on all major Ukrainian televisions stations. Later in the
process of mobilization, as already discussed, independent media outlets en-
couraged demonstrators to come to Kiev and also helped coordinate the mas-
sive logistics required to keep a million people fed and warm.
Fourth, Yushchenko credibly committed to sustaining the protest until the
election results were reversed or annulled when, on November 23, he took
the oath of ofªce for president before 191 MPs in the Rada. At that moment,
Ukraine had two groups claiming to be the sovereign power over the same
land—a classic deªnition of a revolutionary situation.72 This bold and contro-
versial move meant that there could be no compromise between “Presidents”
Yanukovych and Yushchenko—one had to step aside. The move also inspired
the demonstrators to rally behind their president.
International Security 32:2 64
70. According to Stetskiv, Our Ukraine began purchasing tents and supplies a month before the
protest began. See his remarks in York, The Orange Revolution.
71. Pora, “Civil Society and the Presidential Elections,” Times of Change, No. 11 (November 27,
2004).
72. Charles Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978), chap. 9.
Fifth, NGOs that focused on get-out-the vote activities during the campaign
also played an important role in urging voters to “protect their vote” after elec-
tion day. The Znayu information campaign devoted particular attention to ed-
ucating voters about their responsibility to ensure that their vote was
accurately counted.73 Other NGOs developed and distributed similar mes-
sages during the campaign, helping indirectly to mobilize civic resistance
against fraud after ofªcial second-round results were announced.
Sixth, regarding the logistics of the Maidan demonstration, Yushchenko and
his team beneªted tremendously from the support of the Kiev city government
and Mayor Oleksandr Omelchenko. While initially reluctant to take sides, the
Kiev city government eventually provided logistical support for the provision
of food, water, and sanitation. They also opened more than a dozen govern-
ment buildings for out-of-town protesters to use as warm shelter. Had politi-
cians loyal to Kuchma been in charge of the capital, they could have severely
constrained the opposition’s capacity to protest.
Seventh, Ukraine’s civil society and the middle class more broadly helped
increase the numbers in Maidan from the several thousand who planned to
show up to the million or so who spontaneously joined the protest. Our
Ukraine leaders made preparations for tens of thousands to protest a rigged
election, but they did not anticipate that their supporters would swell to more
than a million people. Providing for such large numbers required the volun-
teer work and donated supplies of thousands of individuals who previously
had no direct relationship with Our Ukraine.
A ªnal feature of the mobilization’s success was nonviolence. Our Ukraine
organizers and Pora activists did not prepare for an armed conºict: no guns in
Our Ukraine headquarters and no pro-Yushchenko militias waiting in the
wings. On the street, where protesters and soldiers stood eye to eye for days,
demonstrators used humor and music to defuse tension. At several moments
during the seventeen-day standoff, some political and Yellow Pora leaders,
including Tymoshenko, wanted to end the crisis by storming the president’s
ofªce.74 They calculated, not without reason, that the government’s armed
forces would not stop them, that Kuchma would ºee, and that they
could therefore seize power with a minimum amount of violence as the
Serbian and Georgian oppositions had done in 2000 and 2003, respectively.
Ukraine Imports Democracy 65
73. Dmytro Potekhin and Pyotr Kosuchev, Znayu leaders, interviews by author, Kiev, March 2005.
74. Vladislav Kaskiv, Yellow Pora leader and one of the advocates for seizing the building, inter-
view by author, Kiev, March 2005; and Lutsenko, an opponent of seizing buildings, interview by
author. See also the testimonials of Our Ukraine leaders David Zhvania and Roman Bezsmertny, in
York, The Orange Revolution.
Yushchenko, however, categorically rejected these tactics, and no one was pre-
pared to act against their leader.
The protesters stayed in place for more than two weeks. They achieved a
major victory on December 3, when the Supreme Court ruled that the second-
round results were invalid because of systemic fraud, and therefore a rerun
must be held on December 26.
External Factors That Weakened (or Failed to Strengthen) Autocratic
Power
Most evaluations of democracy assistance focus on those programs and re-
sources that enhance democratic institutions and democratic actors. In cases of
democratic transition or breakthrough, however, external actions and re-
sources that constrain autocratic actors can be just as important as aid pro-
vided to democratic actors. Democratization is not always an engineering
problem, but a political struggle in which the relative power between the
forces of democratic change and forces of autocratic continuity determines the
outcome. Measuring how external factors inºuence both sides of the equation
is essential to a complete assessment of international inºuences on domestic
regime change.
international inputs sustaining competitive autocracy
Ukraine never became a full-blown autocracy. Western linkage, coupled with
aid to institutions that checked presidential power, helped keep it between dic-
tatorship and democracy, a regime type that proved conducive for the Orange
Revolution. The West—Canada (a big player in Ukraine due to the large
Ukrainian émigré community there), Europe, and the United States—
remained a constant pull on Ukrainian government ofªcials. Kuchma was a
ruthless leader who erected a corrupt and criminal regime. But he did not at-
tempt to construct a truly repressive tyranny, because he wanted a cooperative
relationship with Europe and the United States. Strikingly, even in the face of
harsh criticism, Kuchma sent Ukrainian troops to Iraq, maintained ties to
NATO and the European Union, and unlike Slobodan Miloševibin Serbia,
avoided becoming a pariah in the West.
In contrast to Russian ofªcials during the Putin era, Kuchma and his govern-
ment continued to believe that Ukraine was a Western country that belonged
in Europe. The modalities of membership were tricky: Ukrainian membership
into the World Trade Organization was a high and attainable priority in the
Kuchma era (though never realized), but Ukraine was too big and too poor to
apply for European Union candidacy anytime soon, while a full place in
International Security 32:2 66
NATO also presented difªculties because a majority of Ukrainians did not
support the idea of joining. The goal of European integration or Western inte-
gration more generally, however, remained real and widely supported.
Kuchma even turned up for a NATO summit in Prague in November 2002 to
which he personally was not invited.
Kuchma’s desire to be in the West created points of leverage for U.S. and
European diplomats. Rather than isolating Ukraine completely as Kuchma’s
regime became more autocratic, U.S. and most other European policymakers
working on Ukraine advocated a policy of constructive if sometimes critical
engagement.75 Serious sanctions were discussed but never applied.76 After
Gongadze’s murder, the Bush administration did deny Kuchma a presidential
visit to Washington, which the Ukrainian president desperately desired. At the
Prague summit attended by Bush and Kuchma, the ofªcial language was
changed from English to French so that the two presidents, whose countries’
names begin with the same letter in English but different letters in French,
would not sit next to each other. Kuchma understood the snub. More gener-
ally, U.S. ambassadors in Ukraine actively engaged Ukraine’s democratic
forces, especially after the murder of Gongadze, in a manner that Ukrainian
government ofªcials called meddlesome. Yet direct contact with Kuchma
never ended, and active courtship of some of Kuchma’s closest conªdants, in-
cluding his billionaire son-in-law, Viktor Pinchuk, continued even during the
Orange Revolution. The U.S. strategy was to keep the regime leaders inter-
ested in the West, so as to raise the costs of seriously bad behavior during the
2004 presidential vote. U.S. State Department ofªcials stated clearly in 2003
that “the conduct of the presidential campaign and election” was “the primary
focus of U.S.-Ukraine relations.”77
Western assistance and moral support also helped sustain pockets of plural-
ism within the regime and independent, opposition actors outside of the state.
Within the state, the independence of the Rada was especially critical in check-
ing executive power. Technical assistance provided by the Indiana University
Parliamentary Development Project helped make this institution more effec-
tive. Party development efforts by the International Republican Institute (IRI)
and the National Democratic Institute (NDI) also helped ensure that Kuchma’s
party did not win an overwhelming majority of seats in the parliament, as oc-
Ukraine Imports Democracy 67
75. Carlos Pascual, U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, 2000–03, interview by author, Kiev, June 2002.
76. Richard Youngs, “Ukraine,” in Ted Piccone and Youngs, eds., Strategies for Democratic Change:
Assessing the Global Response (Washington, D.C.: Democracy Coalition Project, 2006), p. 104.
77. Ambassador John Tefft, U.S. deputy assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs,
“Ukraine’s Election: Next Steps,” testimony before the House International Relations Committee,
108th Cong., 2d sess., December 7, 2004, http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rm/39542.htm.
curred in the Russian Duma during the Putin era. IRI and NDI worked with
several parties that won representation in the Rada, and in turn helped main-
tain this institution’s independence from the president. State Department
ofªcials also went out of their way to court the Rada speaker during the crisis.
As Ambassador John Tefft testiªed, “We welcomed Rada Speaker [Volodymyr]
Lytvyn to Washington ªve days before the run-off to underscore our support
for a legislative body committed to ensuring an outcome that reºected the will
of the people.”78
Russian leaders and organizations, to varying extents, played the opposite
role and encouraged autocratic methods as an effective strategy for holding on
to power. Years before the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election, Putin em-
braced Kuchma without criticizing his antidemocratic ways. Through the pro-
vision of subsidized gas, Russia offered direct ªnancial support to Ukraine’s
government. Putin’s own system of growing autocratic rule provided a model
for Kuchma to emulate. Obviously, Russian ideological and ªnancial assis-
tance was not sufªcient to build a stable authoritarian regime in Ukraine, yet it
is equally true that the Ukrainian regime would have looked less authoritarian
and perhaps would have been even less tempted to steal the 2004 presidential
election without Russian support. Ukraine’s geographical proximity and
signiªcant Russian-speaking population facilitated the ºow of ideas about the
Russian model as an alternative to the Western model of democracy.
After the second round, Putin tried to strengthen Ukraine’s “managed de-
mocracy” by quickly acknowledging Yanukovych as the winner in the presi-
dential vote, even before the ofªcial results were released. Throughout the
Orange Revolution, Putin stood ªrmly on the side of Yanukovych and against
reconciliation, ºatly denouncing the idea of rerunning the elections.79
external contributions to the regime’s (un)popularity
Kuchma’s own actions, monitored by independent media, drove his govern-
ment’s decline in popularity. Indirectly and marginally, Western reactions to
Kuchma’s behavior helped magnify his image as an illegitimate and criminal
leader. Most important, U.S. and European leaders strongly denounced the
manner in which Kuchma handled the investigation into the murder of
Georgy Gongadze.80 When Oleksandr Moroz released tapes implicating
International Security 32:2 68
78. Ibid.
79. Daniel Williams, “Putin Opposes Rerun in Ukraine: Kuchma Gets Support in Election Crisis,”
Washington Post, December 3, 2004.
80. See U.S. Ambassador Stephen Pifer, U.S. deputy assistant secretary for European and Eurasian
affairs, testimony before the House International Relations Committee, 108th Cong., 2d sess., May
12, 2004, p. 3.
Kuchma in the murder, the U.S. government granted the producer of these
tapes, Yuri Melnichenko, asylum. Miroslava Gongadze, Gongadze’s widow,
and his two children also received asylum. Miroslava Gongadze eventually
took a job working for the Ukrainian division of Voice of America, a U.S. gov-
ernment–funded radio and television network. After the murder, as discussed
earlier, the Bush administration never invited Kuchma to the United States
and tried hard to marginalize him at international gatherings. The Bush ad-
ministration further downgraded contacts with the Kuchma regime after it be-
came known that the Ukrainian government had tried to sell its Kolchuga air
defense radar system to Iraq.81 Kuchma did receive some praise from the
White House for his decision to send Ukrainian troops to Iraq. The general
message coming out of Washington and the U.S. embassy in Kiev, however,
was that Kuchma and his regime were not held in high regard.
Ukraine’s independent media, parliament, and political opposition also
noted the West’s negative reaction to Kuchma. Media reporting, think tank
publications, Our Ukraine press releases, and parliamentary hearings that pro-
vided an objective analysis of the Gongadze affair or corruption played some
role in decreasing popular support for the Kuchma regime. Many of these criti-
cal sources received Western technical assistance or ªnancial support, includ-
ing Ukrainska Pravda, the Razumkov Centre, and the Rada. Freedom House
provided direct assistance to Znayu and indirect assistance to Yellow Pora and
the Freedom of Choice coalition by sponsoring and helping to organize a sum-
mer camp for Yellow Pora activists and activists from other organizations. An-
other organization that received a grant from the U.S. Agency for International
Development (USAID), the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation, funded and organized
the major portion of the Znayu campaign. Indirectly, these efforts all contrib-
uted to more critical coverage of the Kuchma regime and a decline in its
popularity.
In addition, independent analysis and reporting from these sources helped
inform U.S. and European government ofªcials and analysts, who in turn
inºuenced their own governments’ perception of Kuchma.82 For instance,
Ukrainska Pravda would publish an article about corruption, which would be
read by an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in
Washington or a researcher at the German Marshall Fund (GMF) in Brussels.
In turn, he or she might speak out on television, in the op-ed pages, or in
Ukraine Imports Democracy 69
81. Michael Wines, “Report of Arms Sale by Ukraine to Iraq Causes Consternation,” New York
Times, November 7, 2002.
82. This is the “boomerang” effect discussed in Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists
beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press,
1998).
brieªngs to government ofªcials about corruption in Ukraine, and thereby
inºuence how the Bush administration or the European Union acted on
Ukraine. Such information ºows also inºuenced Ukraine’s Freedom House
scores, which in turn helped shape Western assessments of the Kuchma
regime. Ukrainian publications that had the resources to translate a portion
of their work into English, including Zerkalo Nedelya, Ukrainska Pravda, and
the Razumkov Centre’s journal, National Security and Defence, were espec-
ially effective in reinforcing the determination of Western nongovern-
mental campaigns to expose Kuchma’s illegitimacy. During the ªnal weeks of
the campaign and during the Orange Revolution, emails sent and websites op-
erated by the CVU, Pora, Our Ukraine, Internews-Ukraine, and several others
also helped inform the outside world about the machinations of Kuchma and
Yanukovych, inºuencing the way foreign governments reacted to the falsiªed
results of the second round of voting.
The Kremlin did not invest major resources in trying to improve Kuchma’s
international image, but Russian ofªcials coordinated and sponsored various
activities aimed at helping Yanukovych win the election. At the urging of the
Kremlin, Russian businesspeople contributed to Yanukovych’s campaign.83
Some reports claimed that Russian sources provided $300 million to his cam-
paign, with the lion’s share coming from Gazprom.84 Several Russian public
relations consultants, including some closely tied to the Kremlin, worked di-
rectly for the Yanukovych campaign, while others participated in projects in
Ukraine designed to bolster indirectly the Yanukovych efforts.85 For instance,
in 2004 Russian public relations professionals created the “Russian House” in
Kiev, which organized public events to emphasize Russia’s pivotal role for
Ukraine’s economy and security. To help Yanukovych, Putin personally
traveled twice to Ukraine in the fall of 2004. A Russian-sponsored election-
monitoring group observed the Ukrainian vote and declared the ªrst and sec-
ond rounds free and fair.
The Ukrainian prime minister and his ªnancial backers also hired U.S. law
ªrms and public relations specialists to help with the campaign, including
Barbour, Rogers, and Grifªth and DBC Public Relations Experts. These
Western public relations efforts included the ªelding of an electoral monitor-
ing group consisting of former members of the U.S. Congress. The impact was
International Security 32:2 70
83. Sergei Markov, interview by author, Moscow, September 2005.
84. These numbers are reported in Jackson Diehl, “Putin’s Unchallenged Imperialism,” Washing-
ton Post, October 25, 2004.
85. Russian public relations experts who worked for Yanukovych included Marat Gelman, Sergei
Markov, Vyacheslav Nikonov, and Gleb Pavlovksy.
marginal, but the effort was real. Resources aimed at bolstering Yanukovych’s
campaign came not only from Moscow but also from Washington.
external facilitators of divisions within the security sercives
Identifying a direct Western impact on division within the security forces
is difªcult. Some observers have claimed that soldiers who participated in
NATO’s Partnership for Peace programs were more likely to support the dem-
onstrators than those who did not.86 To date, however, the evidence marshaled
to support this claim is far from convincing.
Western actors did contribute indirectly to keeping the peace during the
standoff between armed forces and the Orange demonstrators. Well before the
election, U.S. diplomats explicitly warned ofªcials in Kuchma’s government
that they would become pariahs if the vote was not free and fair. Ambassador
John Herbst called upon visiting U.S. dignitaries, such as Madeleine Albright,
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Richard Holbrooke, Henry Kissinger, and Thomas
Pickering to communicate threatening messages about the negative conse-
quences of bad behavior should the election process become tainted.87 As a
signal of its seriousness, the U.S. government denied a visa to Ukrainian oli-
garch Hryhoriy Surkis to warn Kuchma and his family (including Kuchma’s
billionaire son-in-law, Viktor Pinchuk) that they too could face a similar fate of
persona non grata status in the West. In the end, these threats did not prevent
Kuchma and his team from trying to steal the vote. Yet the threats and warn-
ings against violently breaking up the peaceful demonstration did continue
throughout the standoff, including a late-night phone call from U.S. Secretary
of State Colin Powell to Kuchma (which Kuchma refused to take) on the night
when security forces were getting ready to try to clear the square. The U.S. em-
bassy learned of these troop movements from an anti-Kuchma source within
the Ukrainian security service.88 Throughout the crisis, Pinchuk was a consis-
tent and accessible channel of communication for U.S. government ofªcials
who wanted to get a message to Kuchma. Polish President Aleksandr
Kwasniewski, who was working with a European Union delegation to help
mediate the crisis, also used his contacts with the regime to discourage the use
of force on this critical evening. Measuring the impact of these efforts, how-
Ukraine Imports Democracy 71
86. See comments of Maj. Gen. Nicholas Krawciw at a panel discussion titled “Ukraine’s Armed
Forces: On the Way to Join NATO?” at the American Enterprise Institute event “Ukraine’s Choice:
Europe of Russia?” held in Washington, D.C., on December 10, 2004.
87. U.S. Ambassador John E. Herbst, interview by author, Kiev, November 2005. See also Celeste
A. Wallander, Ukraine’s Election: The Role of One International NGO (Washington, D.C.: Center for
Strategic and International Studies, March 2005).
88. Herbst, interview by author.
ever, is difªcult. Several participants in the standoff did report that the U.S. in-
terventions were useful in providing moral support on a very tense and critical
day.89 Nevertheless, the number of protesters on the streets was the decisive
deterrent to violence, not a phone call from Washington.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that the Kremlin supported Yanukovych’s de-
sire to use force to clear the streets. Some press accounts even claim that Russia
sent its own special forces to Kiev to assist in the protection of the presidential
administration building, which at one point was under threat of forceful take-
over by Orange leaders.90 Press reports also claim that Putin ordered his spe-
cial forces unit, Vympel, to Kiev to evacuate Kuchma and his family, as well as
remove secret documents, if the moment to ºee arose.91 Deªnitive evidence of
Russian military involvement never materialized, and statements made subse-
quently by Orange Revolution leaders implied that the Russian military threat
was greatly exaggerated.92 Moscow’s ability to inºuence the internal cohesion
and actions of Ukrainian armed forces was just as limited as the West’s.
External Factors That Strengthened Democratic Power
Ukrainians made the Orange Revolution. Ukrainians provided the leadership,
ideas, organizational capacity, and ªnancial resources to prevail against the
Kuchma regime in the fall of 2004 and overturn a falsiªed election. In the mar-
gins, however, intellectual and ªnancial imports from the West helped to
strengthen Ukraine’s democratic opposition and offset resources transferred
from Russia in an effort to weaken the challengers to the Kuchma regime.
external contributions to a united and effective opposition
Assessing the role of external actors on the formation of a united and effective
opposition in Ukraine (or anywhere else) is a challenging task because of the
nature and sensitivity of the work. The nature of the work is difªcult to evalu-
ate because the process of making an impact occurs indirectly over extended
periods of time and in parallel with local inputs. The transfer that takes place
between groups such as the International Republican Institute and the
National Democratic Institute, on the one hand, and Our Ukraine on the other,
is essentially one of ideas and know-how, the most difªcult variables to trace
systematically.93 Assessing this work is sensitive because Ukrainian actors do
International Security 32:2 72
89. Tymoshenko and Lutsenko, interviews by author.
90. United Press International, “Russian Troops in Ukraine Capital,” November 24, 2004.
91. Nikolai Petrov and Andrei Ryabov, “Russia’s Role in the Orange Revolution,” in Åslund and
McFaul, Revolution in Orange, p. 151.
92. Ibid.
93. Because tracing causality in this sector is so difªcult, few have tried. Serious attempts include
not want to taint their reputations or legitimacy by reporting that Western ac-
tors contributed to their domestic success, whereas Western actors seek to
protect their partners and also maintain a claim of acting as nonpartisans. De-
spite these constraints on analysis, observations about the role of external ac-
tors on the development of Ukraine’s opposition coalition can still be made.
There is no evidence that the United States or any European government
contributed ªnancial resources directly to the campaign of Viktor Yushchenko
and Our Ukraine.94 Our Ukraine did receive ªnancial contributions from
citizens living in the United States and Canada, though the greatest source
of foreign funding for the Yushchenko campaign came from Russia.95 The
Yushchenko campaign also hired U.S. and Russian campaign consultants.96
But foreign governments or NGOs did not pay for these professional ser-
vices.97 Ukrainians did.
As discussed above, the Our Ukraine campaign had greater organizational
reach than any other party in Ukraine. Our Ukraine leaders accomplished this
feat primarily on their own through years of hard work. At the same time, they
reported that the development of their organizational capacity beneªted from
years of close relationships with IRI and NDI.98 Well before the formation of
the Our Ukraine bloc in 2002, IRI and NDI worked closely with many of the in-
dividuals who later assumed senior positions in the Our Ukraine organization
and campaign. After the creation of the party, IRI and NDI provided addi-
tional training assistance, though using different strategies. IRI conducted
multiparty training programs focused almost exclusively on regional party
leaders outside Kiev, while NDI provided trainers to programs organized by
Our Ukraine, a service it provided to other parties as well.99 NDI staff also fo-
Ukraine Imports Democracy 73
Carothers, Confronting the Weakest Link; and Sarah E. Mendelson, “Democracy Assistance and Po-
litical Transition in Russia: Between Success and Failure,” International Security, Vol. 25, No. 4
(Spring 2001), pp. 68–106.
94. Kathryn Stevens, director, Ofªce of Democracy and Governance USAID Ukraine; Chris
Holzen, resident director, Ukraine, International Republican Institute; David Dettman, resident di-
rector, Ukraine, National Democratic Institute; and Stetskiv—all interviews by author, Kiev, No-
vember 2005.
95. Anonymous board member of a major Russian corporation who gave funds to the
Yushchenko campaign, interview by author, Moscow, June 2005.
96. The U.S. ªrm Aristotle International provided some marginal campaign advice to Our
Ukraine. The Russian ªrm Image Kontakt, headed by Aleksei Sitnikov, also worked for
Yushchenko. Sitnikov and Dettman, interviews by author.
97. The head of NDI’s ofªce in Kiev, David Dettman, used to work for Aristotle International and
most certainly facilitated the initial contacts between Our Ukraine and that ªrm. Interestingly, in
the 2006 parliamentary election, this company worked for Kuchma’s former chief of staff, Viktor
Medvedchuk. Likewise, Yanukovych and his Party of Regions dumped the Russian consultants
for the 2006 contest and hired one of the Washington’s most prominent Republican ªrms, Davis
Manafort, which had previously worked for Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. See Jeremy
Page, “Revolution Is Reversed with a Little Spin from the West,” Times (London), March 28, 2006.
98. Stetskiv and Katarynchuk, interviews by author.
99. Dettman and Holzen, interviews by author.
cused more of their efforts on working with Our Ukraine’s senior leadership in
Kiev. Measuring systematically the results of these interactions, be it NDI’s en-
gagement with senior party ofªcials or IRI’s regional training efforts, is be-
yond the scope of this study.100 That there were purposive efforts by both IRI
and NDI to strengthen Our Ukraine’s campaign abilities is without question.
Indirectly, both IRI and NDI also helped to increase the respectability
of Yushchenko in Washington. IRI organized a trip to Washington for
Yushchenko and his senior staff in February 2003, at which time the Ukrainian
presidential candidate met with key Bush administration ofªcials and mem-
bers of Congress. Signiªcantly, he met Senator Richard Lugar, who would
eventually play a key role in helping to impede U.S. endorsement of the
second-round result of the 2004 vote.101 Former Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright, chair of NDI’s board, traveled to Ukraine in February 2004 to
meet with Yushchenko and other Our Ukraine ofªcials. Upon returning to
Washington, she also spoke favorably of Yushchenko’s candidacy. These kinds
of contacts helped assure the Bush administration that the Ukrainian opposi-
tion was viable and worth supporting. Our Ukraine ties with other European
parties also bolstered Yushchenko’s image in the West. More generally, elite
networks between Our Ukraine leaders and Western leaders nurtured Our
Ukraine allies in the West when debates erupted in Washington and European
capitals about how to respond to the Orange protesters.102
Turnout in regions supportive of Yushchenko were much higher in the
2004 election than in previous elections. Several U.S. and European organiza-
tions, including IRI, NDI, the International Renaissance Foundation (IRF, the
Ukrainian afªliate of the Soros Foundation), Freedom House, Internews-
Ukraine, and the Eurasia Foundation contributed direct ªnancial assistance to
the get-out-the-vote projects organized by their Ukrainian partners.103
For years before the 2004 vote, Russian state authorities tried to weaken and
divide the Ukrainian opposition. In August 2001 Russian prosecutors charged
International Security 32:2 74
100. To measure the impact of these programs on party development would require surveying re-
cipients of this technical assistance and then comparing the results to the ideational and organiza-
tional development of parties not exposed to this kind of aid. Such data do not exist.
101. Lorne Craner, president, International Republican Institute; and Steve Nix, director, FSU Pro-
grams, International Republican Institute, interviews by author, Washington, D.C., October 2005.
102. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Adrian Karatnycky, William Miller (former U.S. ambassador to
Ukraine), and Lech Walesa are examples of private citizens with close ties to Our Ukraine who
played active roles in shaping Western debates regarding the Orange Revolution.
103. Eric Boyle, regional director, Kiev regional ofªce, Eurasia Foundation; Yevhen Bystrytsky, ex-
ecutive director, International Renaissance Foundation; Juhani Grossman, senior program ofªcer,
Civic Participation in Elections in Ukraine, Freedom House; Petro Koshukov, co-director of Znayu
project; and Inna Pidluska, president, Europa XXI Foundation—interviews by author, Kiev, No-
vember 2005.
Yuliya Tymoshenko with “complicity in bribe-giving.”104 In 2004 Russian me-
dia outlets with reach inside Ukraine described Our Ukraine as having fascists
within its coalition. These same sources also cast Yushchenko as a U.S. puppet,
controlled by his wife, an American and former Department of Defense
ofªcial.
external facilitators to exposing fraud
Many of the Ukrainian activities that contributed to the exposure of campaign
fraud had signiªcant assistance from external actors. In fact, the West’s central
contribution to the Orange Revolution was in the form of long-term support of
voters’ rights groups, think tanks, youth groups, and other civil activist orga-
nizations and media organizations that would be instrumental in monitoring,
polling, conducting PVTs and exit polls, and disseminating information about
voters’ rights and violations of those rights.
Even with the mixed results of the PVTs, the Committee of Ukrainian Voters
still played a leading role in exposing fraud (and creating the perception of
fraud) during the second round of the presidential vote, ªrst through its net-
work of 10,000 monitors (the number cited in CVU press releases), second
through the CVU-initiated legal actions that helped challenge the legitimacy of
the ofªcial results, and third through the evidence of falsiªcation gathered by
CVU ofªcials and then used by the Our Ukraine lawyers before the Supreme
Court. Based on its experiences ªrst in the Philippines and later in other coun-
tries in postcommunist Europe, NDI provided the original idea for a Ukrainian
election monitoring organization and also substantial technical and ªnancial
assistance to CVU.105 In 2004 other Western donors, including most impor-
tantly the IRF, also contributed major ªnancial resources to CVU.106 The PVT
technology used by CVU was also imported from the United States.107
CVU was the largest and most visible NGO effort supported by Western
funds dedicated to exposing fraud, but not the only effort. At the end of its
voter education and voter mobilization campaigns, the Znayu campaign, sup-
ported ªnancially by the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation and Freedom House, also
turned to exposing fraud, including one leaºeting campaign that threatened
Central Election Commission ofªcials about the legal consequences of commit-
Ukraine Imports Democracy 75
104. Jan Maksymiuk, “Yuliya Tymoshenko Now Faces Criminal Charges from Russia,” Ukrainian
Weekly, Vol. 69, No. 36 (September 9, 2001).
105. On this technology, see Eric C. Bjornlund, Beyond Free and Fair: Monitoring Elections and Build-
ing Democracy (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004).
106. The ªgures are listed in IRF, Promotion of the Fair and Open Election of 2004.
107. Popov and Poberezhny, interviews by author. On this method for exposing fraud, see Larry
Garber and Glenn Cowan, “The Virtues of Parallel Vote Tabulations,” Journal of Democracy, Vol. 4,
No. 2 (April 1993), pp. 95–107.
ting electoral fraud.108 Yellow Pora, Black Pora, Chysta Ukraina, and hundreds
of smaller NGOs also used various tactics to expose fraud. Using its small
grants program, Freedom House funded many of the NGO activities at the re-
gional level through its Citizen Participation in Elections in Ukraine pro-
gram.109 Our Ukraine also worked hard to expose fraud, ªrst by training its
party representatives serving on CEC commissions on the rules for vote count-
ing and mechanisms for recording irregularities, and second by organizing a
parallel network of election monitors. NDI played a major role in training Our
Ukraine monitors.110
The Democratic Initiatives Foundation’s exit poll, which also played a criti-
cal role in undermining the legitimacy of the second-round ofªcial results, was
also an imported technology. Its use in Ukraine was funded almost entirely by
Western donors, including the IRF, Eurasia Foundation, Counterpart, and sev-
eral Western embassies.111 IRF even ªnanced the participation of Russian and
Polish polling experts in the exit poll project.112
In addition to Ukrainian poll watchers, the OSCE, IRI, NDI, and the U.S.-
Ukrainian Foundation deployed international monitoring teams to observe the
Ukrainian election. Most innovatively, NDI and Freedom House cooperated to
bring to Ukraine the European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations
(ENEMO), which comprised 1,000 observers from seventeen electoral monitor-
ing organizations in formerly communist countries. ENEMO brought trained
electoral monitors, experienced in exposing postcommunist vote rigging
(many observers also spoke Russian) and at a fraction of the cost that it would
have taken to bring in Americans or Western Europeans. All of these interna-
tional teams released critical reports about the election process, which were in-
strumental in generating uniªed U.S. and European condemnation of the
voting procedures.113
Another successful innovation in the Ukrainian observation efforts was the
presence of a special envoy, Senator Richard Lugar, who visited Ukraine dur-
ing the second round of voting as a personal representative of President Bush.
An experienced foreign affairs specialist and the chair of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, Lugar had the authority to make his judgments mean-
International Security 32:2 76
108. Koshukov and Potekhin, interviews by author.
109. Grossman and several Ukrainian recipients of these funds, interviews by author.
110. Vadim Galaychuk, general director, Moor and Krosondovich, and coordinator for Our
Ukraine Election Monitoring Program, interview by author, Kiev, November 2005.
111. See Democratic Initiatives Foundation, http://www.ukma.kiev.ua/pub/DI/.
112. IRF, Promotion of the Fair and Open Election of 2004.
113. “Declaration by the Presidency of the European Union on Ukraine,” November 22, 2004,
http://www.um.dk/en/servicemenu/News/NewsArchives2004/DeclarationByThePresidencyOf
TheEuropeanUnionOnUkraine.htm.
ingful in Washington and European capitals. His press statement on the vote
was scathing: “[I]t is now apparent that a concerted and forceful program of
election-day fraud and abuse was enacted with either the leadership or coop-
eration of governmental authorities.”114 Lugar’s statement in turn bolstered
the negative evaluation and tone of Secretary of State Powell’s ªrst remarks on
the vote, which were much more damning than initial reactions from the
White House. Powell unequivocally declared the ofªcial result illegitimate,
“because it does not meet international standards and because there has not
been an investigation of the numerous and credible reports of fraud and
abuse.” He went on to warn that “[i]f the Ukrainian government does not act
immediately and responsibly, there will be consequences for our relationship,
for Ukraine’s hopes for a Euro-Atlantic integration, and for individuals re-
sponsible for perpetrating fraud.”115 Our Ukraine leaders and NGO activists
reported that Powell’s remarks provided a major boost of inspiration for their
supporters.116 His statement also raised doubt within President Kuchma’s en-
tourage about its ability to make the “ofªcial” results stick.
external contributions to independent media
During the 2004 presidential campaign, Internews-Ukraine subsidized and
supported a whole series of activities, including the production of public ser-
vice announcements, television talk shows, press conferences around the
country, and funds to support local coverage of the national campaign and
voters’ rights in the print media.117 These activities occurred only at the mar-
gins because pro-Kuchma forces still dominated the national electronic media.
The survey data needed to measure the causal impact of these externally sup-
ported activities do no exist.
During the Orange Revolution, several journalists—including Andrei
Shevchenko and Roman Skrypin, both at Channel 5, as well as Natalia
Dmytruk, the ofªcial sign-language interpreter for state-run television—
assumed heroic roles in their coverage of the campaign and the civic resistance
triggered by the electoral fraud.118 At various stages in their careers, many of
these people had contact with Western donor programs, most notably USAID-
Ukraine Imports Democracy 77
114. “Remarks by United States Senator Richard Lugar on the Ukrainian Presidential Elections,”
Kiev, November 22, 2004, http://kiev.usembassy.gov/ªles/041122_lugar-qa_eng.html.
115. Quoted in William Branigin, “U.S. Rejects Tally, Warns Ukraine,” Washington Post, November
25, 2004.
116. Lutsenko, Tymoshenko, and Pora student leaders, interviews by author.
117. Sue Folger, Ukrainian director, Internews-Ukraine, interview by author, Kiev, November
2005.
118. When translating the spoken broadcast into sign language, Dmytruk told her viewers that the
announcer was not telling the truth.
funded media projects.119 Ukrainska Pravda, which played a central role in the
Orange Revolution, received major support from the National Endowment for
Democracy.120 Telekritika, an internet publication sponsored by Internews-
Ukraine, was a useful source of information and debate during the 2004 cam-
paign and its immediate aftermath. Discussions on Telekritika were especially
instrumental in spurring the “journalists’ rebellion” on October 28, 2004, when
forty journalists from ªve different television stations declared that they
would no longer obey the Kuchma regime’s secret instructions (temniki).
Maidan.org—another media outlet critical for the coordination of “revolution-
ary” activities—received major ªnancial assistance from Western donors.121
external inputs into mass mobilization
Several weeks in advance, Our Ukraine planned the ªrst actions of civic resis-
tance after the second round of voting. There is no evidence that it received
any Western intellectual or ªnancial assistance in making these preparations.
Nor did U.S. or European government sources support its two-week operation
in Maidan Square. The assertion that demonstrators were paid a daily wage
for their efforts is a complete myth.
Less directly, external sources played a role in facilitating mass mobilization.
A model for “electoral revolution” already existed and had succeeded in two
postcommunist countries within the previous three years—Serbia in 2000 and
Georgia in 2003. Serbian and Georgian activists from Otpor and Kmara helped
reinforce these demonstration effects through direct interaction with their
Ukrainian counterparts.122 In particular, Yellow Pora leaders had signiªcant
contacts with civic resistance activists from Slovakia, Serbia, and Georgia,
through the facilitating efforts of Freedom House and the German Marshall
Fund. For instance, Freedom House organized and funded a summer camp for
Ukrainian youth activists and invited trainers from the Serbian youth move-
ment, Otpor, to attend. Pavol Demeš, a leader of the OK 98 movement in
Slovakia, traveled to Ukraine several times in the months leading up to the Or-
ange Revolution to train and provide support for Yellow Pora. Znayu also
International Security 32:2 78
119. Andrei Shevchenko, Channel 5, and Kateryna Myasnykova, executive director, Independent
Association of Broadcasters, interviews by author, Kiev, November 2005; and Natalya Ligachova,
project director and chairman of the board, Telekritika, interview by author, Kiev, February 2006.
120. Nadia Diuk, senior program ofªcer, National Endowment for Democracy, interview by au-
thor, Washington, D.C., October 2005; and Olena Prytula, editor, Ukrainska Pravda, interview by
author, Kiev, March 2005.
121. Remarks by Andrij Ihnatov, board member, Maidan Inform, at a workshop on the Orange
Revolution, International Renaissance Foundation, Kiev, March 18, 2005.
122. Andriy Kohut, board member, Black Pora, interview by author, Kiev, March 2005.
used trainers from Serbia and Georgia.123 It is difªcult to trace exactly what
knowledge about nonviolent resistance was transferred in these interactions,
but it is without question that Ukrainian activists received inspiration from
successful civic organizers from other countries.124 Moreover, nearly all of
these civic mobilization training programs received at least partial funding
from Western sources, including the IRF, Freedom House, the U.S-Ukrainian
Foundation, GMF, NDI, the Westminster Foundation, and the Swedish Inter-
national Development Cooperation Agency, as well as grants from Western
embassies in Kiev.125 Black Pora and Yellow Pora received direct ªnancial as-
sistance from several Western sources, including the Westminster Foundation,
GMF, and several Western embassies. USAID and its implementers, however,
never provided any direct assistance to these youth groups, as they were con-
sidered too radical and partisan.126
Western condemnation of the falsiªed election also inspired the demonstra-
tors. When Secretary of State Powell’s words of condemnation were read in
Maidan Square, the crowd applauded enthusiastically. Former Solidarity
leader Lech Walesa addressed the demonstrators in Maidan, assuring them
that the West was on their side. Similarly, several Western ambassadors met
with Our Ukraine leaders during this period to express support and empathy.
The impact of these acts of solidarity is difªcult to quantify, but many leaders
of the Orange Revolution subsequently testiªed that Western support for their
protest played a signiªcant role in keeping people in the streets.127
external contributions to crisis mediation
In parallel with these activities was a mediation effort between Kuchma,
Yanukovych, and Yushchenko that was facilitated by Presidents Aleksandr
Kwasniewski of Poland, Valdas Adamkus of Lithuania, and Javier Solana of
the European Union. Kwasniewski was especially inºuential in pressing for
not only a negotiated but the correct solution—that is, a reversal of the falsiªed
vote—to the crisis; Solana followed his lead. The Bush administration deliber-
Ukraine Imports Democracy 79
123. Potekhin, interview by author.
124. Potekhin and Kosuchev from Znayu, and Kaskiv and Yevgen Zolotarev from Yellow Pora, all
participants in these transnational meetings, interviews by author.
125. Altogether, in the year before the 2004 vote, the International Renaissance Foundation, the lo-
cal Ukrainian arm of the Soros Foundation, contributed $1,653,222 to nongovernmental organiza-
tions implementing election-related projects. See IRF, Promotion of the Fair and Open Election of 2004,
p. 1. Yellow Pora received several IRF grants.
126. USAID ofªcials and Pora members, interviews by author, Kiev, March and November 2005.
127. Tymoshenko, Lutsenko, Gryniv, Galaychuk, Stetskiv, Katarynchuk, and Yellow and Black
Pora activists, interviews by author.
ately did not seek a public role in the negotiations, but stayed closely involved
behind the scenes through contacts with Kwasniewski, Adamkus, and Solana.
This international effort helped diffuse tensions between polarized enemies.
Western mediators also helped persuade Yushchenko to accept constitutional
changes that would weaken the power of the president and strengthen the
power of the parliament, a compromise that certainly made it easier for
Kuchma and Yanukovych to agree to a third round of elections. Whether the
roundtable negotiations were necessary for the breakthrough, however, is dis-
putable. Critics of the negotiations, including Tymoshenko, have argued that
the Western-anchored mediation efforts were not central to the outcome and
actually tied the opposition’s hands after the breakthrough.128 Ironically, after
the 2006 parliamentary elections, Yanukovych became prime minister again,
this time with more enhanced powers as a result of the Orange Revolution.
Conclusion
The Orange Revolution resulted from miscalculations by the ancien régime.
President Kuchma had successfully manipulated the vote to retain power in
1999. He and his aides believed they could do the same for Yanukovych in
2004. They underestimated the opposition’s ability to win the election, expose
fraud, and mobilize citizens to protect their votes through mass demonstra-
tions. They overestimated their ability to withstand or stop the protests. The
Orange Revolution was a contentious struggle for power between a semi-
autocratic regime and a democratic opposition, in which the opposition had
enough power—the necessary strategies, resources, and popular support—to
prevail. Between 2001 (the last time these two sides had clashed) and 2004, the
balance of power between autocratic incumbents and democratic challengers
had shifted in favor of the latter.
The set of necessary conditions needed to produce this favorable balance of
power was large and complex. The presence of only a few of these factors
would not have generated the same outcome. A more popular or more ruth-
less autocrat might have been able to outmaneuver the democratic opposition.
A less organized electoral monitoring effort might not have been able to con-
vince people to take to the streets. Thousands on the streets, instead of tens of
thousands or hundreds of thousands, might have tempted the regime to use
force, and they might have succeeded. A myriad of factors must be in play to
produce dramatic events such as the Orange Revolution.
International Security 32:2 80
128. Tymoshenko, interview by author.
Of this long list of factors, external actors played a role in inºuencing only a
few. Given the extremely precarious distribution of power, however, these im-
ported inputs from the West were consequential in tipping the balance in favor
of the democratic challengers.
Regarding policies, actions, and programs aimed at weakening the semi-
autocratic regime, the Ukrainian experience suggests that it is hard for out-
siders to foster splits within such régimes and also difªcult for them to directly
inºuence its popularity. The West played no measurable role in facilitating
splits within the security forces. Anecdotal evidence suggests that Western
criticism of Kuchma contributed to his declining popularity at home, but no
hard data exist to isolate the independent causal role of foreign rebuke. More
generally, however, the West did seem to play a role in impeding the full-scale
consolidation of autocracy. Western resources helped strengthen institutions
such as the Rada, which checked presidential power. Western long-term aid to
civil society also helped keep semi-autocracy in Ukraine from becoming a full
autocracy. Russia provided technical assistance and resources for constructing
a stronger autocracy, but these resources were insufªcient. It also remains un-
clear if Kuchma actually wanted to develop a full-blown autocracy. In the mar-
gins, Western engagement of Kuchma, his aides, and his family members
raised the costs of completely turning away from democracy.
Regarding policies, actions, and programs targeted at strengthening the op-
position, the Ukrainian experience suggests that it is difªcult to inºuence the
effectiveness of opposition candidates in elections. In the margins, external ac-
tors can encourage unity among the democratic opposition, but the real driv-
ers of unity will always be local actors. Western imports were crucial in
exposing electoral fraud. The ideas and technology for uncovering fraud—exit
polls, parallel vote tabulation, and poll monitors—were imported from the
United States. Funding for these activities came largely from Western sources,
and the presence of international monitors provided moral support for local
monitors. External actors also contributed to the development of independent
media in Ukraine. One of the most effective media outlets, Ukrainska Pravda,
relied almost exclusively on external ªnancial support. Finally, imported ideas
and resources strengthened electoral mobilization, both before and after the
vote. If ªnancial assistance for these mobilization activities came from U.S. and
West European sources, intellectual and inspirational input came from Serbs,
Georgians, and Slovaks. Tracing the intellectual origins of nonviolent civic re-
sistance ideas goes back even farther. Indian and U.S. ideational inputs—that
is, the ideas and practices of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King—are
also present in the making of the Orange Revolution.
This article has focused speciªcally on the precipitants of the Orange
Ukraine Imports Democracy 81
Revolution and the external factors that inºuenced them, and not the longer-
term structural factors that produced the precipitants. Pushing the causal ar-
row back and assessing, for instance, how external dimensions inºuenced the
development of the middle class, economic growth, or civil society is a neces-
sary next step in constructing a complete explanation of the domestic and
international causes of the Orange Revolution.
This article also has offered a new method for the study of democracy pro-
motion, starting ªrst with a theory of democratization based on domestic vari-
ables and then zooming out to see how these were inºuenced by international
factors. This article has deliberately recorded nonªndings; some signiªcant do-
mestic factors for producing the Orange Revolution had no external inºuence,
even when it is possible to identify external actions designed to inºuence these
domestic factors. This single case study cannot generate a new or complete
theory for external dimensions of regime change. More modestly, this article
provides a research strategy for how to isolate the causal mechanisms connect-
ing the international to the domestic regarding democratization, with the ex-
pectation that future case studies structured in similar ways might eventually
contribute to theory development in this undertheorized ªeld.
Important policy lessons for those interested in democracy promotion can
also be learned from this case. First, domestic actors drive the drama of demo-
cratic change. Attempts to manufacture democracy without strong, local part-
ners are likely to fail. Second, state-to-state constructive engagement with a
semi-autocratic regime can create the space for democratic assistance to soci-
etal actors. Think of the counterfactual. If Ukraine had no diplomatic relations
with the United States in 2004, the regime would have been less constrained in
cracking down on opposition activities and more likely to limit, if not cut off
entirely, Western democracy assistance efforts. Freedom House, IRI, and NDI
do not have ofªces in Tehran today. Third, technologies and ªnancial support
used to expose fraud were the most effective imports for the Orange Revolu-
tion. And international norms helped. The right to a free and fair election is
now an internationally recognized norm embedded in international organiza-
tions such as the OSCE. Access to aid and technology that facilitate this right,
therefore, is harder to limit than other forms of democracy assistance such as
training for political parties or direct aid to opposition movements. Western
statements condemning electoral fraud also played a direct role in mobilizing
protest. Fourth, aid to independent media—a frequently underfunded element
of democracy promotion programs—played a direct and consequential role in
exposing fraud and mobilizing citizens to protect their vote. Finally, in the
margins, external actors provided ideas about how to build an effective politi-
cal opposition and how to mobilize protest after the vote.
International Security 32:2 82
It is also important to identify international inputs that did not play a con-
structive role in promoting democratic breakthrough in Ukraine. Technical
assistance to the regime—that is, aid to try to make the Kuchma government
reform—did not work. Programs that try to reform institutions from the an-
cien régime should be avoided and implemented only after breakthrough. The
pull of the European Union and NATO—a major factor in democratic consoli-
dation in other postcommunist countries in Europe—played only an abstract,
minor role in this case of breakthrough. Finally, several factors had to come to-
gether to produce the Orange Revolution. The stars must really be aligned.
In countries where all of these factors are not present, breakthrough is un-
likely, and foreign assistance to try to foster breakthrough might even be
counterproductive.
Ukraine Imports Democracy 83