The article attempts to identify common explanatory factors and internal causal mechanisms behind the poor democratic performance of post-communist semi-presidential regimes. It attributes poor democratic performance to constitutionally powerful presidents supported by single-party-majority cabinets. Under this situation, omnipotent presidents enact media-related law unhindered, tightly regulate the media, prevent the opposition from disseminating election information, and thus increase the ruling party’s probability of winning elections. Through quantitative analysis and comparative case studies of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, this paper verifies the convergent pathway from powerful presidents’ media control to poor democratic performance. In conclusion, powerful post-communist presidents endanger democracy via media control.

This article examines how the choice of Ukraine’s constitutional system affects both the relationship among key constitutional actors and the prospects of institutional change. It analyzes the character of the relationship between the president and parliament in the context of their competition over control of the cabinet. It then examines how and why the institutional interests and preferences of key political and public policy actors who inhabit the presidency, the legislature and the cabinet affect the prospects of maintaining or changing the constitutional status in Ukraine. It concludes that the institutional stability in Ukraine is still in a state of flux.