PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • Membership
      • All Members
      • Core Members
      • Collegium Members
      • Associate Members
      • About Membership
    • Ukraine Experts
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
    • Submissions
  • Podcasts
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Ukraine Experts
Contacts

Address
1957 E St NW,
Washington, DC 20052

adminponars@gwu.edu
202.994.5915

NEWSLETTER
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Podcast
PONARS Eurasia
PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • Membership
      • All Members
      • Core Members
      • Collegium Members
      • Associate Members
      • About Membership
    • Ukraine Experts
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
    • Submissions
  • Podcasts
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Ukraine Experts
DIGITAL RESOURCES
digital resources

Bookstore 📚

Knowledge Hub

Course Syllabi

Point & Counterpoint

Policy Perspectives

RECOMMENDED
  • The Russia Program at GW (IERES)

    View
  • The Evolving Concerns of Russians after the Invasion | New Voices on Eurasia with Sasha de Vogel (March 9)

    View
  • PONARS Eurasia Spring Policy Conference (March 3)

    View
  • Ukrainathon 2023 (Feb. 24-25)

    View
  • How Putin has shrugged off unprecedented economic sanctions over Russia’s war in Ukraine – for now

    View
RSS PONARS Eurasia Podcast
  • The Putin-Xi Summit: What's New In Their Joint Communique ? February 23, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman speaks with Russian China experts Vita Spivak and Alexander Gabuev about the February meeting between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, and what it may tell us about where the Russian-Chinese relationship is headed.
  • Exploring the Russian Courts' Ruling to Liquidate the Memorial Society January 28, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with scholars Kelly Smith and Benjamin Nathans about the history, achievements, and impending shutdown of the Memorial Society, Russia's oldest and most venerable civic organization, and what its imminent liquidation portends for the Russian civil society.
  • Russia's 2021 census and the Kremlin's nationalities policy [Lipman Series 2021] December 9, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with social scientist Andrey Shcherbak about the quality of the data collected in the recent population census and the goals of Vladimir Putin's government's nationalities policy
  • Active citizens of any kind are under threat [Lipman Series 2021] November 5, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Alexander Verkhovsky about the Kremlin's ever expanding toolkit against political and civic activists, journalists, and other dissidents.
  • Russia's Legislative Elections followup [Lipman Series 2021] October 4, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Tanya Lokot and Nikolay Petrov about the results of Russia’s legislative elections and about what comes next.
  • Why Is the Kremlin Nervous? [Lipman Series 2021] September 14, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Ben Noble and Nikolay Petrov about Russia’s September 17-19 legislative elections, repressive measures against electoral challengers, and whether to expect anything other than preordained results.
  • Vaccine Hesitancy in Russia, France, and the United States [Lipman Series 2021] August 31, 2021
    In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Denis Volkov, Naira Davlashyan, and Peter Slevin about why COVID-19 vaccination rates are still so low across the globe, comparing vaccine hesitant constituencies across Russia, France, and the United States.  
  • Is Russia Becoming More Soviet? [Lipman Series 2021] July 26, 2021
      In a new PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Maxim Trudolyubov about the current tightening of the Russian political sphere, asking whether or not it’s helpful to draw comparisons to the late Soviet period.
  • The Evolution of Russia's Political Regime [Lipman Series 2021] June 21, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Grigory Golosov and Henry Hale about the evolution of Russia's political regime, and what to expect in the lead-up to September's Duma elections.
  • Volodymyr Zelensky: Year Two [Lipman Series 2021] May 24, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Sergiy Kudelia and Georgiy Kasianov about Ukrainian President Zelensky's second year in office, and how he has handled the political turbulence of the past year.
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Why Ukraine’s Yanukovych Fell… Though Many Predicted He Wouldn’t

  • February 26, 2014
  • Lucan Way

This weekend marked the remarkable downfall of Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych at the hands of protesters in Kiev.  It was an outcome that almost no one predicted when demonstrations began in late November against the president’s decision to reject integration with the European Union.  At the time, the democratically elected Yanukovych was among the most popular politicians in Ukraine with a parliamentary majority facing a weak and fragmented opposition.  Why did he fall and why did so few see it coming?

One important reason for the stunning collapse of Yanukovych’s regime was that he chose the wrong type of repression to suppress protests. By repeatedly engaging in extremely provocative and public displays of repression – high intensity coercion – Yanukovych simultaneously stoked protests and undermined the unity of the pro government coalition.   Yanukovych would likely have survived if he had simply sat tight and let the protests peter out.  Protesters might have remained on the square – but they would have increasingly been viewed as a small nuisance rather than a serious challenge to the President.

To understand why Yanukovych fell, we need to understand something that Yanukovych failed to grasp: the dynamics of what Steven Levitsky and I call high intensity coercion. High intensity coercion involves high-visibility acts that target large numbers of people, well-known individuals, or major institutions. Such coercion includes large scale violence such as firing on crowds, as occurred in Mexico City in 1968 and Tiananmen Square in China in 1989. This can be contrasted with low-intensity coercion. Low intensity coercion involves repressive actions that are largely out of the public eye: low-profile physical harassment, kidnapping and torture of low-level activists and supporters; the use of security forces or paramilitary thugs to vandalize opposition or independent media offices; and to harass, detain, and occasionally murder journalists and opposition activists. It also includes non-violent measures like firing opposition activists from their jobs.

Low intensity coercion is the bread and butter of almost all contemporary authoritarian regimes. Such coercion is used primarily to raise the costs of opposition and preempt serious challenges.  Low intensity coercion can also be used to discourage protest activity by raising the costs of protest and thereby encouraging people to give up.  It was the primary form of repression used by the USSR under Brezhnev (1964-1982), as well as Putin’s Russia, Singapore, and Belarus today.  High intensity coercion, by contrast, is quite rare.  It is used primarily to halt major opposition challenges, for example the use of tanks to clear protesters in Tiananmen square in China and the bombing of parliament by Yeltsin in Russia in 1993.

High intensity coercion is rare because – especially in the current era of global communications technology – it is quite risky.  It has two effects that may undermine authoritarian stability.  First, when applied sporadically or inconsistently, high intensity coercion is more likely to stimulate greater protest rather than discourage it.  Highly visible and dramatic acts of repression that are considered illegitimate heighten the populations anger at the regime and therefore encourage more protest; such repression may also function as a focal point, bringing together disparate groups opposed to the regime for various reasons.  In order for such repression to work, it must be applied consistently.

Second, high intensity coercion often undermines unity at the top.   In an era when everyone with a cellphone is a potential documentary film-maker, large scale abuse is impossible to hide, often triggering worldwide condemnation and sanctions against top elites. As a result, high intensity coercion may encourage elite defection by those who do not want to take responsibility for the regime’s illegal actions. Violent repression may also threaten the domestic legitimacy of the security forces, which, in turn, may undermine internal discipline and morale. And if the crackdown fails, top officials face prosecution or other forms of public retribution. Orders to repress protesters force coercive agents to tie themselves to the old regime in ways that put them at risk should the opposition take power.

Such risks mean that in the contemporary era, only the most cohesive authoritarian regimes have been able to carry out regular and consistent high intensity coercion without breaking at the seems.  Thus, the Assad regime in Syria, consisting basically of a single extended family, or the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe, founded in violent revolutionary struggle, have both been able to carry out extensive repression while maintaining tight cohesion.  These regimes are cohesive because they are held together by family ties or shared history of struggle – rather than simply patronage.  (In Russia, Yeltsin’s regime was hardly cohesive; however his attack on parliament was widely supported by Western powers at the time.)

By contrast, Yanukovych’s regime was based on pure patronage.   With weak ties to Yanukovych, his supporters were only united by their desire to make money and enjoy the fruits of their corruption. These were not the kind of people willing to risk losing their vacation homes — much less going to jail — so that Yanukovych could hang on. Much better to run for the exits than risk international isolation or worse.

In a nutshell, Yanukovych fell from power in part because he failed to understand the ways in which high intensity coercion both stimulated protest and threatened cohesion within his own ranks.  First, high intensity coercion was arguably the primary factor stimulating the protests.  Thus, protests began in late November in response to Yanukovych’s decision not to sign the European Association Agreement. However, the demonstrations only became large and sustained after Nov. 30, when police violently and publicly attempted to clear the central square.   After that, surveys of protesters in December showed that the single issue that united protesters most was not the failure to join Europe (54 percent) but the police beatings on Nov. 30 (70 percent).    Such repressive measures might have worked if Yanukovych had remained firm.  But instead, Prime Minister Mykola Azarov apologized for the actions and held back. The result was the worst of both worlds for Yanukovych.  He was perceived as both abusive and weak.

By early January, protest momentum had begun to die down.  A promised infusion of Russian financial assistance in December had bolstered perceptions of Yanukovych’s strength.  At this point, many – including me – argued that Yanukovych would survive if he simply sat tight and waited the protesters out – “not giving away anything serious, and letting the protests peter out.” If Yanukovych had simply avoided provoking the protesters, they likely would have died out of their own accord or dwindled to such a small number as to be considered a minor nuisance. (Only a few – including Oxana Shevel and Taras Kuzio – predicted he would fall.)

However, Yanukovych again overplayed his hand – using his parliamentary majority to force through a series of draconian laws that appeared to forbid any form of protest.  But this again only generated even more protest as demonstrations spread to regional governments.  In mid January, Kiev saw its first serious violence.  And yet again, Yanukovych responded inconsistently.  Rather than hunkering down, Yanukovych offered a major concession in response to renewed protests by firing the loyalist Prime Minister Azarov.  But this did nothing to tamp down protests, which only became stronger. Surveys of protesters again showed that the main motivating factor for protesters was not Europe but opposition to Yanukovych’s “violent repression against protesters.”

Then on Feb. 19-20, Yanukovych made the fateful decision to do something that no leader in post-Soviet Ukraine had ever done: order security personnel to open fire on protesters in public.  On the morning of Feb. 20, snipers in broad daylight opened fire on protesters in the center of Kiev – killing significant numbers of protesters.   This action destroyed the regime in one fell swoop.  Not only did it completely isolate Yanukovych from the public at large, his own supporters began defecting in droves – including the mayor of Kiev.  At this point, Yanukovych suddenly was deprived of support and had no choice but to flee. After he left the capital, his own Party of Regions completely distanced themselves from Yanukovych – blaming the deaths entirely on the president.

In sum, the fall of Yanukovych was hardly inevitable. It may have taken patience by Yanukovych to wait out the protests (in Iran anti-government protests in 2009 took 6-7 months to completely peter out). But there is little reason to think that Yanukovych would not still be in office if he simply done nothing but wait.

See the original post © The Monkey Cage

Related Topics
  • Ukraine
  • Way
Previous Article
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Russia Ready to Give the Falling Ukraine a Push—and Might Follow Suit

  • February 26, 2014
  • Pavel Baev
View
Next Article
  • In the News | Hовости

The Crisis in Ukraine is Not Over

  • February 27, 2014
  • Arkady Moshes
View
You May Also Like
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

The Desire to Possess: Russia’s War for Territory

  • Irina Busygina
  • February 8, 2023
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Kyiv-Washington Relations in Times of Colossal War: The Ultimate Test of a Strategic Partnership

  • Volodymyr Dubovyk
  • January 11, 2023
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Prevailing Soviet Legacies

  • Irina Busygina and Mikhail Filippov
  • December 27, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

In Russia’s Nuclear Messaging to West and Ukraine, Putin Plays Both Bad and Good Cop

  • Simon Saradzhyan
  • December 23, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Ukraine’s Asymmetric Responses to the Russian Invasion

  • Nurlan Aliyev
  • July 28, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем
  • Territorial Conflict

Dominating Ukraine’s Sky

  • Volodymyr Dubovyk
  • March 5, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Russian Anti-War Protests and the State’s Response

  • Lauren McCarthy
  • March 4, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Путин и Лукашенко

  • Konstantin Sonin
  • August 29, 2020

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

PONARS Eurasia
  • About
  • Membership
  • Policy Memos
  • Recommended
  • Events
Powered by narva.io

Permissions & Citation Guidelines

Input your search keywords and press Enter.