Granting or Curbing Freedom?
Granting or Curbing Freedom?

Formal and Informal Institutions Governing Media in Ukraine before and after Euromaidan

Summary/Abstract: This paper contains an analysis of the post-communist transformation of the media system in Ukraine, which may also shed light on media transformations in other non-Baltic post-Soviet countries which, in contrast to the advanced new democracies in Eastern Europe, such as Estonia and Poland, have never managed to implement quick and substantial economic and political changes and to adopt wholly democratic systems. Instead, they have entered a ‘gray zone’ between democracy and authoritarianism (Carothers 2002).The paper begins with a description of factors impeding reform which are often overlooked in media studies. Then I present the theory applied to the analysis of these factors in political science. I use this theory to analyse the dynamics of Ukrainian media transformation in 2014–2015, the two years after the EuroMaidan protests. The Ukrainian case is interesting, because after the years of protracted and unfi nished democratic transformations in media realm the period after the EuroMaidan brought rather significant changes into the country’s media. Analysis of these changes may contribute to our knowledge of what can foster or suppress progress in media democratisation in countries with protracted or delayed media reform.

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