Ukraine After the Parliamentary Elections of 2012: Selected Scenarios of the Development of the Political Situation

Abstract

The twenty or so years of Ukrainian sovereignty is definitely too short a period to facilitate fully justified hypotheses concerning the development of both the domestic and international situation of Ukraine, but it does make it possible to make some conjectures. This paper presents a scenario for the development of Ukraine’s political situation which, in the author’s opinion, will take place, or is actually in progress, following the 2012 parliamentary elections. This simplified scenario has been designed employing a forecasting method named the international scenario method. Taking into consideration that forecasting social phenomena tends to be difficult in many respects (which is a consequence of their strong and multifarious relations not only with other social, but also physical and biological, phenomena) the paper refers to selected forecasting issues, in particular those related to the international scenario method, which is then applied to the political situation of Ukraine. In the author’s opinion, in the years to come Ukraine will continue to degenerate towards authoritarian regimes, or will ‘strengthen’ its status as a hybrid regime.