"This volume explores the role of former president Kuchma and the oligarchs, societal attitudes, the role of the political opposition and civil society, the importance of the media, and the roles of Russia and the West"--Provided by publisher.

Post-communist democratic revolutions have, so far, taken place in six countries: Slovakia (1998), Croatia (1999-2000), Serbia (2000), Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004), and Kyrgyzstan (2005). The seven chapters in this volume situate these events within a theoretical and comparative perspective. The book draws upon extensive experience and field research conducted by political scientists specializing in comparative democratization, regime politics, political transitions, electoral studies, and the post-communist world. The papers by Valerie Bunce and Sharon Wolchik, Henry Hale, Paul D'Anieri, David R. Marples, Taras Kuzio, Lucan A. Way and Steven Levitsky as well as Anika Locke Binnendijk and Ivan Marovic explore different regime types and opposition strategies in post-communist states, the diffusion of opposition strategies between states in which democratic revolutions were attempted, the strategic importance of youth NGO's in mobilizing oppositions towards democratic revolutions, the use of non-violent strategies by the opposition, path dependent, theoretical and comparative explanations of the sources of successful and failed democratic revolutions, and the factors that lie behind divergent post-revolutionary trajectories.The volume represents a breakthrough in our understanding of why and how democratic revolutions take place in the post-communist world. It provides an integrated analysis of why such upheavals succeed in some, but fail in other states. The contributions point to, among other issues, why the post-revolutionary breakthroughs in Serbia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan have encountered obstacles, the ousted regime was never fully defeated and its representatives were able to launch counter-revolutions, as well as why, in Serbia and Ukraine, the political forces of the ousted regimes have returned to power in free elections held after democratic revolutions. "Post-Communist Democratic Revolutions in Comparative Perspective" is essential reading for scholars and policy makers alike.

Reports by international governmental and non-governmental organizations on the 2004 presidential elections in Ukraine constituted a significant factor in generating, facilitating, and completing the Orange Revolution. Ukrainian civil society, mass media, courts, and political parties were the main driving force behind the popular uprising that returned Ukraine to the path of democratization it had embarked on in 1991. Yet, the unambiguous stance and political weight of such institutions as the EU, PACE, NATO, and, above all, OSCE played their role too. The democratic movement benefited from the menace of international isolation and stigmatization of the Ukrainian state, which was expected in case President Leonid Kuchma had decided to prevent a repetition of the second round of the voting.The volume collects not all, but some of the most widely discussed reports, including English translations of selected sections of the three reports produced by the CIS International Observers Mission. The latter as well as a report by an Israeli institute depart from the assessments of the other organizations represented here, allowing for comparison of diverging evaluations of the same events. The volume assembles full or excerpted official reports of the International Republican Institute, the Tel Aviv Institute for the Countries of Eastern Europe and CIS, the European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Contributions by Yevgen Shapoval and Roman Kupchinsky introduce and conclude the collection.

The fourth volume of "Aspects of the Orange Revolution" continues the previous volume's discussion on the impact of foreign actors on Ukrainian politics. It provides both scholarly analyses and first-hand accounts. The collection not only investigates, but also gives voice to, some of those involved in the events of 2004. While most of the volume's contributors have an academic background, some of them report here from the perspective of official election or informal participant observers of the three rounds of the Ukrainian presidential elections. Part One juxtaposes some contrasting views on how far Russia's and the West's various interests, activities and tools influencing the Orange Revolution were comparable to each other, and adequate given the circumstances. Part Two presents individual reports by a number of international election observers who were following the campaign and voting in various parts of Ukraine in 2004. Part Three presents three additional on-the-ground observations focusing solely on the notorious electoral district No. 100 of Kirovohrad Oblast. The contributions by Andreas Umland, Iris Kempe, Iryna Solonenko, Vladimir Frolov, Valentin Yakushik, Matthias Brucker, Jake Rudnitsky, Rory Finnin, Adriana Helbig, Paul Terdal, Tatiana Terdal, Peter Wittschorek, Hans-Jörg Schmedes, Adrianna Melnyk, Ingmar Bredies, Oxana Shevel, and Volodymyr Bilyk add a number of novel points of view to those presented in the previous volumes. These partly contradictory and emotional texts as well as a number of photographs document the tense atmosphere and confrontational climate within which Ukraine's second phase of post-Soviet democratization started in 2004.

In Ukraine's presidential elections of 2004, the establishment candidate Viktor Yanukovych had the advantages of a solid regional base, access to administrative resources, dominance in the media, help by Russian spin-doctors, and support of Moscow. Yet the winner was the pro-Western challenger, Viktor Yushchenko. How did Ukrainian voters break through the barrage of propaganda so as to deliver their ultimate verdict? Was the divide between Eastern and Western Ukraine fact or PR fiction? In this volume, scholars from two continents examine various aspects of the elections that turned into the Orange Revolution focusing on electoral campaigns and attempts to manipulate results. Following the editor's scene-setting chapter which looks at the electoral laws and their consequences in the previous decade's elections, presidential and parliamentary, the contributors take up specific features of the 2004 contest. The critical part played by a single independent television channel is analyzed by Marta Dyczok. Ilya Khineyko reviews the coverage of the elections in the Russian press, favorable to Yanukovych and always looking for parallels between Russia and Ukraine as well as keeping in mind Moscow's interests. The myths and stereotypes of the campaign are taken up in two contributions by Lyudmyla Pavlyuk and Olena Yatsunska. Clearly, constructed images often overshadowed real issues. Valerii Polkonsky's essay exposes the linguistic innovations of the campaign, including the irony and humour unleashed by such incidents as the "egg attack" on Yanukovych. In Kerstin Zimmer's final paper, the machine politics, administrative resources and fraud which had worked so well in Donets'k are shown to have been less than successful on the national level for reasons of scale and impersonality.

"In the 20th and 21st century revolutions have become more urban, often less violent, but also more frequent and more transformative of the international order. Whether it is the revolutions against Communism in Eastern Europe and the USSR; the "color revolutions" across Asia, Europe and North Africa; or the religious revolutions in Iran, Afghanistan, and Syria; today's revolutions are quite different from those of the past. Modern theories of revolution have therefore replaced the older class-based theories with more varied, dynamic, and contingent models of social and political change. This new edition updates the history of revolutions, from Classical Greece and Rome to the Revolution of Dignity in the Ukraine, with attention to the changing types and outcomes of revolutionary struggles. It also presents the latest advances in the theory of revolutions, including the issues of revolutionary waves, revolutionary leadership, international influences, and the likelihood of revolutions to come. This volume provides a brief but comprehensive introduction to the nature of revolutions and their role in global history"--