Elections and Democratization in Ukraine By Sarah Birch. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000. 212p. $65.00.

Extract

Elections and Democratization in Ukraine represents a valuable contribution to our understanding of the dynamics of party systems development in postcommunist politics. Unlike many volumes that rely on largely anecdotal evidence and narrative, this book is extremely well organized and systematic. There is a clear theoretical structure, and systematic evidence is employed to test specific hypotheses. Using some of the classic works on the development of party systems and relations between parties and voters to provide a theoretical framework, the author derives a set of hypotheses about characteristics that might affect voter choices over time.