| Abstract [eng] |
The dissertation examines US democracy protection policy carried out in three post-Soviet countries that had been just moved away from autocratic rule: Russia in 1991-1996; Georgia in 2003-2008; and Ukraine in 2004-2009. It aims to answer the question whether US policy increased or decreased the likelihood of democratic consolidation in new democracies. Based on theoretical insights from the disciplines of both comparative politics and international relations, two novel research instruments are developed: the ‘two scales’ model and the concept of pragmatic democracy protection policy. By employing these two research instruments, it is revealed that US national security interests have had a distorting impact on US democracy protection policy towards Russia, Georgia and Ukraine. Due to its interest in the cooperation with leaders in power, the US did not apply the principal of democratic conditionality in bilateral relations with the three post-Soviet countries and did not deter the non-democratic behaviour of their governments. Such US policy decreased the likelihood of democratic consolidation. Furthermore, US security interests corrupted US-funded democracy assistance programmes in two out of three cases (in Russia and Georgia). Instead of enabling the opposition and civil society in new democracies, these programmes increased the asymmetry of political playing field and limited the capability of civil society to control the government. This also decreased the likelihood of the consolidation of new democracies. |
