Deconstructing power: Society, elite perceptions and the politics of constitutional reform in Ukraine, 1999--2004

This dissertation examines the interaction between the ruling and opposition elites in Ukraine from 1999 to 2004 with a particular focus on their changing institutional preferences. It links this variation to the shifts in elites' perceptions of their relative power. Power perceptions also affect the likelihood of the institutional change. When competing elites agree on the power balance between them they are more likely to cooperate and agree on the substance of the institutional revision. On the other hand, different estimates of their relative power lead actors to the confrontation and result in a continued institutional status quo until the power balance becomes clear.;This dissertation has several implications for the current literature on institutions and democratization. It demonstrates how the symmetry in elites' power perceptions increases the likelihood of the institutional change. It also offers a novel way of integrating the society into the analysis of institutional transformation by demonstrating the impact of public attitudes on elites' power perceptions and, hence, the prospects of the compromise around the institutional rules. Lastly, it argues that the society affects elite interaction, and thus the dynamic of transition, not only in the moments of mass mobilization, but also in a period of its relative passivity. Tracing the political process in Ukraine over a four-year period prior to and during the Orange Revolution this dissertation shows that societal preferences can have a strong independent impact on the elites' strategies and choices.;In order to explain changes in elites' power perceptions I examine shifts in societal attitudes along two dimensions---political discontent and protest activity. The main hypothesis of the dissertation is that the ruling and opposition elites are more likely to have conflicting perceptions of the power balance when these two variables are at different levels of intensity. On the other hand, when both political discontent and protest activity are at approximately the same level then the power perceptions of the political actors tend to converge. The key antecedent condition for this hypothesis is the existence of a competitive authoritarian regime.