Political parties 212
Electoral systems 217
System of government 220
Federal versus unitary states 222
Consociationalism 223
Political institutions and democratization: A double-edged sword 226
Conclusion 227
Key Questions 228
Further Reading 228
In the former Soviet space (excluding the Baltics), some countries are more open and less authoritarian than others. Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, and Kyrgyzstan, for example, have enjoyed relatively greater political and civil liberties—and even periods of nascent democracy. Freedom House rated Ukraine as ‘Free’ shortly after the country’s Orange Revolution in 2004–05. In contrast, Russia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, and the other Central Asian countries have been far more closed. What accounts for this difference? The former Soviet states share a number of common features like their communist history and high levels of corruption, making these factors poor candidates for explaining the political divergence. Economic factors also have little explanatory power, as some of the poorest countries like Georgia and Kyrgyzstan have been among the relatively more democratic. Instead, some scholars have emphasized the importance of institutions for explaining the different levels of freedom within the region. The relatively more open counties have parliamentary systems, while the more authoritarian countries have presidential systems (Hale 2016, 2011). When power is vested in a president rather than divided between a president and prime minister, the argument goes, it facilitates a president’s expansion of executive power....
Institutional drivers and constraints of floodplain restoration in Europe
