Soviet legacies of economic development, oligarchic rule and electoral quality in Eastern Europe’s partial democracies: the case of Ukraine
Journal: London School of Economics and Political Science Research Online (London School of Economics and Political Science)
Year: 2019

Can economic development retard democracy, defying expectations of classic modernization theorizing? If so, under what conditions? Our article addresses the puzzle of poor democratic performance in highly urbanized and industrialized postcommunist states. We assembled an original dataset with data from Ukraine's local and national elections and constructed district- (rayon) and region- (oblast) level indices of electoral quality. Regions and districts that score higher on developmental indices a