Lithuanian Annual Strategic Review

When it comes to a description of the political process in Ukraine, scientific literature often employs the concept of political instability or better still, that of the instability of a political regime. To quote the scientific community, there are two key factors underlying the political stability/instability of the country, these include: features of 'political competition' among key political forces and the nature of functioning of the top level executive branch in the political system. This paper relies on criteria suggested by Jack Golsdtone and Jay Ulfelder, both American investigators, and discusses the dynamic character of the political regime in Ukraine in the aftermath of the Orange revolution. The analysis is based on the following key assumption, i.e. that political instability will for long be inherent to a democratic regime in Ukraine.