The Quality of Democracy in Belarus and Ukraine

Abstract

A re-examination of the role of agency suggests that although the endurance and the lawful functioning of democratic systems do matter, what appears to be of greater importance is the citizens' 'enlightened understanding' of the workings of democracy, without which the progress towards good governance and full partnership between the rulers and the ruled cannot be achieved. There is an existing gulf between people's acceptance of the 'institutional' forms of democracy and their 'emotional' loyalty to the past legacies in Belarus and Ukraine. As a result, these regimes can be defined as cases of demagogical democracy, associated with mass approval and reliance on the personalized power of a demagogue who governs by decree and seeks legitimation directly from the electorate.