Ukraine is currently in the throes of revolution. Will this popular uprising move Ukraine closer to the West and a democratic government or strengthen the country's ties to Putin and Russia? Viktor Yanukovich's second round victory in the 2004 presidential election was nullified by Ukraine's high court due to rampant electoral manipulation. Viktor Yushchenko, supported by hundreds of thousands of protesters in the 2004 Orange Revolution, became president and ushered in, what many hoped would be, a more democratic government. Infighting and competition among the Orange coalition soon rendered the Yushchenko government ineffective. Ukraine's progression towards democracy slowed and ties to Russia began to flourish once again when Yanukovich became Yushchenko's prime minister. In 2010, Yanukovich was elected president in another second round election against Yulia Tymoshenko that observers and academics deemed free and fair. Unfortunately, a new evaluation of both the 2004 and 2010 elections presents a much less encouraging view of Ukrainian politics. As shown in this paper, electoral manipulation was present in both the 2004 and 2010 elections. Additionally, both parties participated in manipulatory behavior in both elections. This finding challenges much of the academic literature to date on Ukrainian politics. In support of this finding of corruption by multiple candidates, a unique list experiment was administered to raion (county) level administrators in Ukraine. These administrators were asked about their views regarding electoral manipulation. The results of this experiment suggest that these administrators are still very influenced by and, arguably, willing to engage in electoral manipulation. The experiment shows that, at least at the raion level, Ukrainian governance has not become more democratic. Overall, the prognosis for democratization efforts in Ukraine is not good. / text

This thesis seeks to examine the post-Soviet political transformation in Ukraine between 1991 and 2004. Since Ukraine declared independence in 1991, the problems of political transformation to democracy in Ukraine have affected the outbreak of the Orange Revolution. The thesis attempts to examine the problems of post-Soviet political transformation in Ukraine under Leonid Kravchuk and Leonid Kuchma in order to analyse the dynamics of the Orange Revolution in 2004. The dynamics of the Orange Revolution are in part a result of the mass movements against the ongoing problems of the post-Soviet political transformation to democracy in Ukraine. This thesis also argues that the Orange Revolution does not indicate the conclusion of the political transformation in Ukraine, since the problems of the political transformation in Ukraine still remain as it has been seen in the short-term evolution of the political progress of Viktor Yushchenko, who elected to the presidency in the 2004 presidential elections.

The thesis deals with the privatization of state-owned enterprises in Ukraine, specifically a case study of the privatization of Kryvorizhstal steelworks. The work covers the period of Leonid Kuchma's presidency until the privatization of Kryvorizhstal. It focuses on the influence of the political establishment that was in power, the influence of individual oligarchic groups on privatization. The work is based of analyses and comparisons of monographs on selected problems and on electronic sources.

Le présent travail est consacré à l’étude des représentations sociales des personnalités politiques ukrainiennes dans le discours médiatique français à partir de la "Révolution orange" de novembre - décembre 2004 jusqu’à mai 2009. Cette thèse doctorale s’inscrit dans une multitude de recherches sur les représentations interculturelles à visée pluridisciplinaire menées à ce jour en France et en Ukraine et peut être définie comme une étude d’un cas isolé. Le corpus de référence recensé comprend deux types de supports médiatiques, les articles de presse nationale quotidienne et hebdomadaire (1292) ainsi que les extraits des émissions télévisées des principales chaînes hertziennes françaises (605) se référant à Viktor IANOUKOVYTCH, Président de l’Ukraine en exercice, Viktor IOUCHTCHENKO, ex-Président ukrainien, et Ioulia TYMOCHENKO, ex-Première ministre ukrainienne. L’analyse de la sémiotisation médiatique de ces personnalités politiques ukrainiennes auparavant inconnues en France s’appuie sur l’étude quantitative (lexicométrique) et qualitative (analyse lexicographique, sémantique, stylistique et contextuelle, interprétation linguistique et culturelle) des éléments de l’imaginaire collectif des Français tels que les représentations, les stéréotypes, les symboles, les emblèmes et les mythes, se traduisant au niveau discursif par des unités lexicales figées. / The present paper examines the social representations of the Ukrainian political leaders in the French media discourse from the "Orange revolution" of November-December 2004 till May 2009. This doctoral thesis integrates a multitude of interdisciplinary researches on intercultural representations conducted at present in France and in Ukraine and can be defined as a study of an isolated case. The assembled corpus of reference comprises two types of media, the articles of national daily and weekly press (1292) as well as the extracts of television broadcast (605) referring to Viktor Yanukovych, the incumbent President of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko, the former Ukrainian President, and Yulia Tymoshenko, the former Prime minister of Ukraine. The analysis of media semiotisation of these Ukrainian political leaders formerly unknown in France is based on the quantitative (lexicometric) and qualitative study (lexicographic, semantic, stylistic, context analysis, linguistic and cultural interpretation) of the elements of the French picture of the world such as representations, stereotypes, symbols, emblems and myths, verbalized on the discourse level by the fixed lexical units. / Дане дисертаційне дослідження є спробою проведення комплексного міждисциплінарного аналізу міжкультурних репрезентацій українських політиків у французьких медіа у період з помаранчевої революції листопада-грудня 2004 року по травень 2009 року. Дана робота вписується в ширше коло досліджень міжкультурної комунікації, що в наш час проводяться як в Україні, так і у Франції.. Матеріалом дослідження послугували два типи вибірок, які увійшли до нашого корпусу: статті з щоденних та щотижневих видань французької національної преси (1292) та уривки телевізійних програм (605), де в тій чи іншій мірі фігурують постаті діючого Президента України В.Ф. Януковича, колишнього Президента України В.А. Ющенка та колишнього Прем’єр-міністра України Ю.В. Тимошенко. Вивчення медійної семіотизації вищеназваних українських політичних лідерів, до недавнього часу маловідомих у Франції, спирається на кількісний (лексикометричний) та якісний аналіз (аналіз словникових дефініцій, семантичний, стилістичний, контекстуальний аналіз, лінгвокультурологічна інтерпретація) таких елементів колективного уявлюваного французів, як репрезентація, стереотип, символ, емблема та міт, вираженим на дискурсивному рівні за допомогою стійких лексичних одиниць.