Neuerscheinung: Executive-Legislative Relations in Ukraine

A new publication by Fabian Burkhardt (IOS) and Olga Mashtaler (Tampere University) examines the relationship between the president, the government, and parliament since Ukraine’s independence in 1991 and provides an overview of cooperation and conflict among these three branches. 

Praised as "particularly informative" in a review in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the chapter is part of the volume “Exploring Ukrainian Politics: Institutions, Actors, and Policy Areas,” edited by Michael Dobbins and Eduard Klein. 

Since 1996, Ukraine’s executive-legislative relations have been characterized by a semi-presidential system with several subperiods: president-parliamentarism (1996–2006, 2010–2014) and premier-presidentialism (2006–2010, 2014–present). This chapter provides an overview of the factors that led to the adoption of semi-presidentialism in Ukraine and the effects that its two subtypes have had on Ukrainian politics, particularly in the relationship between the president, the government, and parliament. The authors analyze how these two subtypes of semi-presidentialism impacted democratic development and shifted the balance of power within a subtype without constitutional changes. Additionally, the chapter describes how informal politics, particularly patronal politics and clientelism, have influenced the functioning of formal institutions in Ukraine and how these informal structures have persisted beyond systemic crises in 2004 and 2014. The final section focuses on the internal development and institutionalization of the Ukrainian parliament, examining five indicators: (1) the parliamentary party system, (2) the partyness of parliament, (3) the nature of parliamentary majorities, (4) parliamentary influence in legislative production, and (5) permanent specialized committees.

Burkhardt, F., Mashtaler, O. (2026). Executive-Legislative Relations in Ukraine. In: Dobbins, M., Klein, E. (eds) Exploring Ukrainian Politics. Springer Texts in Political Science and International Relations. Springer, Cham.
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-032-14667-0_2