Ukraine Rises: Democracy, Protest, Identity and War in Comparative Perspective

Discover how Ukraine transitioned from an oligarchy in crisis to a resilient democracy. Understand why Ukrainians engage in the war effort so inspiringly. Critically consider the role of global geopolitics in nation and state building. Engage in debates about EU accession. Assess the role of autocratic hybrid warfare on democracies worldwide and analyse current events as they unfold. Understand Ukraine and its people, who are resisting one of contemporary history’s most horrific and consequential wars of aggression. Come to understand what the prospects for peace are. Answer what would it take to achieve a just peace.

“Ukraine Rises" is a highly rated course on Ukrainian politics, with an in-depth focus on democratic duty, engagement, resistance, and resilience. Highly interactive, “Ukraine Rises,” will prepare you with strong knowledge of complex post-colonial democratization, economic transitions, and wartime democratic resilience. Placing the case of Ukraine in comparative perspective (with cases from Latin America, MENA, Asia, and Europe) students will explore key themes in politics (transition from autocracy, democratization, democratic backsliding, resilience, nation and state-building, identity politics, citizen engagement, the role of Oligarchs, geopolitics, foreign policy, corruption, wartime politics, and civilian engagement in war).

“Ukraine Rises" provides practical skills in policy analysis and research that will be valuable in your future career. Thus, students will not only engage in critical debates about regional decolonization and the historical role of Russian hegemony but will also develop professional and analytical abilities applicable beyond the classroom.

Students will discuss and debate issues with a prize-winning teacher who personally advises policymakers and will also meet in-person or online practitioners and policymakers who will provide input on their work. Past guests include former ambassadors, MoD insiders, civil society leaders, activists, and scholars and students from abroad. Thus, in this interactive course, students will both engage in critical debates and discussions of decolonization in the region and the historical role of Russian regional hegemony, and they will also develop concrete professional and employability skills that they can use in their future jobs including data analysis and public policy writing.

This is the first such course taught at a social science department in the UK – so by taking it students are also part of making history. 

The course has four central aims.

• To introduce students to the case study of Ukraine in comparative perspective. 
• To offer an overview of comparative democratization to understand politics of Ukraine.
• To offer students the opportunity to assess critically how Ukraine democratized and developed a civic national identity after independence in 1991. 
• To enable students with lessons from the Ukrainian case for comparative studies of transition, democratization, political engagement, identity, and war.

The course will be taught on the basis of ten two-hour lectures and ten one-hour seminars which will be highly interactive. Students will be expected to read key texts in advance of seminars to enable direct engagement with the texts and broader informed discussion. The seminars will comprise a mix of question-and-answer sessions and small group work. The second half of the seminars will include a debate/discussion lead by the students in a flipped class format.

1.    Students will come to know the trajectory of contemporary politics in Ukraine.
2.    Students will have developed a data driven understanding of different empirical themes contemporary Ukrainian politics.
3.    Students will be able to compare Ukraine’s contemporary politics to other third wave democracies.
4.    Students will develop an understanding of theories of democratization and political engagement.

 

1. Synthesis of information, evaluation of competing explanations, applying theory to       policy, formulation of one’s own reasoned argument
2. Research on primary and secondary literature
3. Research employing primary data

At least two of the following practical skills:  

1.    Research skills
2.    Capacity to carry out independent and group work
3.    Capacity to produce written work and to give effective oral presentations
4.    Basic quantitative and/or qualitative analysis 
5.    Policy brief writing skills
 

At least two of the following transferable skills and personal qualities:  

1.    Read primary and secondary sources on a regular basis
2.    Capacity to analyze critically in writing
3.    Capacity to respect deadlines
4.    Capacity to present work 
5.    Capacity to write for policy audiences
6.    Basic use of Stata/R and/or basic use of Nvivo 

Policy Brief (70%): 2500 words

Presentation (25%) 1000 words

Seminar Engagement (5%) 

Readings:
1.    Onuch, Olga, and Henry E. Hale. 2022. The Zelensky Effect. Oxford University Press.
2.    Sasse, Gwendolyn. 2001. “The ‘New’ Ukraine: A State of Regions.” Regional & Federal Studies 11(3): 69–100.
3.    Barrington, Lowell W., and Erik S. Herron. 2004. “One Ukraine or Many? Regionalism in Ukraine and Its Political Consequences.” Nationalities Papers 32(1): 53–86.
4.    D’Anieri, Paul. 2005. “The Last Hurrah: The 2004 Ukrainian Presidential Elections and the Limits of Machine Politics.” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 38(2): 231–49.
5.    Hale, Henry. 2010. “Ukraine: The Uses of Divided Power.” Journal of Democracy 21(3): 84–98.
6.    Linz, Juan. 1990. “The Perils of Presidentialism.” Journal of Democracy 1(1): 51–69.
7.    Herron, Erik S., and Nazar Boyko. 2015. “Horizontal Accountability during Political Transition: The Use of Deputy Requests in Ukraine, 2002–2006.” Party Politics 21(1): 131–42.
8.    Levitsky, Steven, and Lucan Way. 2002. “The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism.” Journal of democracy 13(2): 51–65.
9.    Nitsova, Silviya. 2021. “Why the Difference? Donbas, Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk After Ukraine’s Euromaidan Revolution.” Europe-Asia Studies 73(10): 1832–56.
10.    Popova, Maria. 2010. “Political Competition as an Obstacle to Judicial Independence: Evidence from Russia and Ukraine.” Comparative Political Studies 43(10): 1202–29.
11.    Tsebelis, George. 1999. “Veto Players and Law Production in Parliamentary Democracies: An Empirical Analysis.” American Political Science Review: 591–608.
12.    Way, Lucan A. 2005a. “Authoritarian State Building and the Sources of Regime Competitiveness in the Fourth Wave: The Cases of Belarus, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine.” World Politics 57(02): 231–61.
13.    Casier, Tom. 2011. “The EU’s Two-Track Approach to Democracy Promotion: The Case of Ukraine.” Democratization 18(4): 956–77.
14.    Kubicek, Paul. 2005. “The European Union and Democratization in Ukraine.” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 38(2): 269–92.
15.    Kulyk, Volodymyr. 2023a. “National Identity in Time of War: Ukraine after the Russian Aggressions of 2014 and 2022.” Problems of Post-Communism: 1–13.
16.    Beissinger, Mark. 2011. “Mechanisms of Maidan: The Structure of Contingency in the Making of the Orange Revolution.” Mobilization: An International Quarterly 16(1): 25–43
17.    Tucker, Joshua A. 2007. “Enough! Electoral Fraud, Collective Action Problems, and Post-Communist Colored Revolutions.” Perspectives on Politics 5(03): 535–51.
18.    Finkel Eugene. 2024. Chapter 1 & 2 Intent to Destroy. Basic Books.
19.    Getmansky Anna, Anton Grushetsky, Nadiya Kostyuk, Tolga Sinmazdemir, Austin Wright, Thomas Zeitzoff, (2025). Red lines versus negotiables: how exposure to wartime violence influences support for peace settlements in Ukraine, Political Science Research and Methods, 10.1017/psrm.2025.10073, (1-22).
20.    Alexseev, M. A., & Dembitskyi, S. (2024). Geosocietal Support for Democracy: Survey Evidence from Ukraine. Perspectives on Politics, 22(4), 1077–1099.
 

Listen to Podcasts:
1.    Ukraine: The Latest. https://open.spotify.com/show/6cnkk1J0I1UqtxTYVUL4Fe   
2.    Ukrainian Spaces Podcast. https://open.spotify.com/show/7iABkz4iYNIuSzze71BG3L 
3.    Ukraine Calling Hromadske Radio. https://hromadske.radio/en/podcasts/ukraine-calling 

Read Blogs & Quick Reads:
1.    Archive of Monkey Cage Blog in Washington Post (2013-2023). https://www.washingtonpost.com/search/query=monkey+cage+ukraine&time=all&sort=relevancy  
2.    Ponars Eurasia Policy Memos. https://www.ponarseurasia.org/category/policy-memo-category-policy-memos/?_sft_post_tag=tags-ukraine 
3.    The Ukrainian Week. https://ukrainianweek.com 
4.    Ukrainska Pravda. https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/ 
5.    Hromadske TV. https://hromadske.ua/en 
6.    The Reckoning Project. https://www.thereckoningproject.com 
7.    OPORA website: https://oporaua.org/en