Corruption is a global problem and one that has plagued Ukraine for its entire 30 years of modern independence. In the year this book was published, Ukraine ranked 117th out of 180 countries in the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, although this is an improvement of seven points since 2012. Erik Herron’s book presents an argument that, “Ukrainians have entered into a Faustian bargain by accepting entrenched corruption to ensure that institutions perform their basic functions” (pp. 2, 122, 187). The focus of the book is on politics rather than economics, with detailed attention to elections, political parties, institutions, and civil society.

Herron uses an impressive collection of empirical data, draws on his personal experience as an election observer in Ukraine and presents his argument through an interesting theoretical lens: describing vertical accountability (or lack thereof) as well as horizontal and diagonal accountabilities that he develops in detail in chapters 3, 4, and 5. In his own words, the book “distills two decades of my research on Ukrainian politics” (p. vii). However, much of what is in the book also draws on previous studies of Ukrainian politics (such as that by Mark Beissinger, Sarah Birch, Paul D’Anieri, Nadia Diuk, Oleksandr Fisun, Henry E. Hale, Taras Kuzio, Olga Onuch, Oxana Shevel, Lucan A. Way, Andrew Wilson), in addition to the author’s own work, as he notes in the acknowledgments (p. ix).

The strength of the book lies in the in-depth, detailed description and analysis of the electoral process in Ukraine and how it has become systemically riddled with corruption. This is perhaps the first study that explains in great detail the constantly changing electoral rules and party system (chap. 3); how deputy requests work (or don’t work) as a mechanism of horizontal accountability (chap. 4); the ins and outs of election monitoring and proxy voting (chap. 5); and the complex structure of the Election Administration, the Central Electoral Commission, the District Electoral Commissions and Precinct Electoral Commissions, the lottery process, technical candidates, side payments, and more (chap. 6).

This is all supplemented with numerous maps, tables, and figures using data from a wide variety of sources, including surveys conducted by Herron in collaboration with other scholars. These add texture to the narrative, despite the fact that at times they are problematic. For example, figure 3.3, the map of Poroshenko’s electoral performance (on p. 77) is unreadable, as is figure 5.1 (on p. 115). Table 4.1 (on p. 92) has no source, table 5.4 (on p. 120) on Proxy Voting has no dates, and the reference is to a website. Similarly, statistics on civil society (cited on p. 105) are sourced to a media article in footnote 6 rather than public opinion polls, and on page 199 the statistics referenced to footnote 23 do not provide a source at all.

In addition to these technical issues, there are a number of others. For example, the statement that “none of Ukraine’s elections have met international standards” (p. 48) citing the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is not accurate, as can be established by a simple visit to the OSCE website that archives these reports. The Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) Election Observation Mission Final Report of the Presidential Election 31 March and 21 April 2019, concluded that, “The ODIHR EOM assessed compliance of the election process with OSCE commitments, other international obligations and standards for democratic elections, and domestic legislation” (https://www.osce.org/files/f/documents/8/3/439631_0.pdf). The one election that was fraudulent, the 2004 presidential race, triggered the Orange Revolution and resulted in another round of voting. The OSCE’s assessment was,

The comparative dimension that runs through the analysis and is highlighted in the conclusion, where Herron compares Ukraine to other post-Soviet states, is useful. However, perhaps it would have been good to expand the comparative scope globally, to compare corruption in other regions of the world with high corruption rates and where democracy is still emerging (or not), like the transitologists of the 1990s did (Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan; Phillipe Schmitter and Terry Karl). This would have allowed for a more nuanced analysis of whether the issues are associated with the Soviet legacy or other factors. Ukraine’s ranking in the Transparency International Index places it in the neighborhood with Egypt, Nepal, and Sierra Leone.

Herron’s excellent discussion of corruption in the political system would have been stronger if there was more mention of the economic dimension of this. He notes in chapter 4, “Ukraine’s business sector is a critical actor in electoral politics” (p. 98) and at the root of much of the corruption. The story of how the Communist Party elite blended with the newly emerging corporate elites who came to dominate the political process could have received more attention. Furthermore, the oligarchs are barely present in the discussion, despite not only their media ownership but also their active role in corrupting the political process. Rinat Akhmetov, who bankrolled the Regions Party is mentioned only once (p. 98) and his associate Yury Boyko twice (pp. 143, 164–67); Ihor Kolomoisky, who was associated with Volodymyr Zelensky appears only three times (pp. 3, 98, 100); Victor Pinchuk, former President Kuchma’s son-in-law, has only two mentions; while Dmytro Firtash, Serhiy Lyovochkin, and Victor Medvechuk do not appear at all. The use of Yanukovych’s “Black Ledger” (p. 110) serves as a great illustration of corrupt practices but perhaps not an example of “how campaign financing is poorly regulated in Ukraine.” The 800-page handwritten book kept track of illicit payments from 2007 to 2012, including those made to US lobbyist Paul Manafort.

Also, like many political scientists, Herron doesn’t really include a discussion of the role of political communication in his analysis, or as John Downing once put it, he treats political actors as mute chess pieces moving around on a large political chessboard (Internationalizing Media Theory: Transition, Power, Culture. Reflections on Russia, Poland and Hungary 1980–95, 1996). This is all the more surprising given how much attention is devoted to elections, where media plays a key role, and that the oligarchs own most of the media in the country (Marta Dyczok and Diana Dutsyk, “Ukraine’s Media: A Field Where Power is Contested,” in Matthew Rojansky, Georgiy Kasianov, and Mykhailo Minakov, ed., From ‘the Ukraine’ to Ukraine: History of Contemporary Ukraine (1991–2020), 2021).

Herron’s main argument that corruption is the norm in Ukrainian politics is a solid one, however the framing of it suggests a static situation. Another way of framing it would have been to portray it as a power struggle between those who sought to continue Soviet-era systemic corruption, transforming it into modern formats in response to changing circumstances, and those who have sought to eradicate it, albeit with limited success to date. This comes through the discussion about civil society and incumbent President Zelensky’s new initiative to fight corruption prior to the Russian invasion that changed everything in Ukraine but is implicit rather than explicit.

Overall, this highly readable book makes a contribution to our understanding of both contemporary Ukraine and how corruption works and is likely to find its way onto many syllabi on both topics.