VOLUME 8, NUMBER 1, JANUARY 2015 FAILURE OF NETWORK INDUSTRY LIBERALISATION IN EASTERN EUROPE: THE CASE OF ELECTRICITY LIBERALISATION IN UKRAINE Katharina ILLIUSHCHENIA ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE ON THE BALKAN CONSTITUTIONS AND THE SPACE PROVIDED FOR THE CITIZENS Teuta VODO and Eleni STATHOPOULOU ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………... FALLING BETWEEN TWO STOOLS – THE CASE OF THE LITHUANIAN CIVIL SERVANT REFORM OF 2013 Lars JOHANNSEN, Karin HILMER PEDERSEN and Saulius PIVORAS ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………... THE BACKWARD EAST? EXPLAINING DIFFERENCES IN SUPPORT FOR RADICAL RIGHT PARTIES IN WESTERN AND EASTERN EUROPE Alina POLYAKOVA ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………... INCOME INEQUALITY AND GOVERNMENT REDISTRIBUTION: A CROSS-NATIONAL STUDY Vincent A. MAHLER, Kimberly LOONTJER and Sara PARANG ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………... BOOK REVIEW: DEMOCRACY AND SOCIAL PEACE IN DIVIDED SOCIETIES: EXPLORING CONSOCIATIONAL PARTIES Henrik JACOBSEN ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………... JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 2 EDITORIAL TEAM General Editor General Editor Miro Haček Peter Csányi ................................................................. ................................................................ University of Ljubljana Alexander Dubč ek University Trenčin Faculty of social sciences, CAAPPI Department of Political Science Kardeljeva ploščad 5 Študentská 2 1000 Ljub ljana , S lovenia 911 50 Trenčin, Slovakia [email protected] [email protected] General Editor Assistant Editor Jurij Toplak Simona Kukovič .................................................................. .................................................................. Alma Mater Europ aea University of Ljubljana European Center Maribor (AMEU -ECM) Faculty of social sciences, CAAPPI Gosposka ulica 1 Kardeljeva ploščad 5 2000 Maribor , Slovenia 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia [email protected] [email protected] ...................................................... ................................ Articles appearing in JCP, are abstracted and indexed in following bibliographical databases: EBSCO, International Political Science Abstracts, ProQuest Political Science, International Bibliography of Social Sciences (IBSS), JournalSeek, UlrichsWeb and DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals); also included (from 12/2013) in Universal Impact Factor. EDITORIAL BOARD Davor BOBAN, University of Zagreb, Croatia Marjan BREZOVŠEK, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia Đorđe GARDAŠEVIĆ, University of Zagreb, Croatia Arnaldo M.A. GONÇALVES, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Macau Victoria GRAHAM, Monash University Johannesburg, South Africa Pavol HRIVIK, Alexander Dubcek University of Trenčin, Slovakia Lars JOHANNSEN, Aarhus University, Denmark Kenneth KA-LOK CHAN, Hong Kong Baptist University, China Rudolf KUCHARČÍK, University of Economics Bratislava, Slovakia Lisa McINTOSH SUNDSTROM, University of British Columbia, Canada Meredith REDLIN, South Dakota State University, USA Andrius ŠUMINAS, Vilnius University, Lithuania Michael TKACIK, Stephen F. Austin State University, USA Taro TSUKIMURA, Doshisha University Kyoto, Japan Nebojša VLADISLAVLJEVIĆ, University of Belgrade, Serbia Reuben WONG, National University of Singapore, Singapore CO-PUBLISHERS Department of Political Science Alexander Dubček University Trenčin Študentská 2, 911 50 Trenčin, Slovakia Centre for analysis of administrative-political processes and institutions (CAAPPI) University of Ljubljana, Faculty of social sciences Kardeljeva ploščad 5, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia Alma Mater Europaea - European Center Maribor (AMEU-ECM) Gosposka ulica 1, 2000 Maribor, Slovenia DESIGN CAAPPI, Ljubljana. Journal of Comparative Politics is published twice a year, in January and July. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS 4 FAILURE OF NETWORK INDUSTRY LIBERALISATION IN EASTERN EUROPE: THE CASE OF ELECTRICITY LIBERALISATION IN UKRAINE Katharina ILLIUSHCHENIA ............................................................................................................................................................................ 20 A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE ON THE BALKAN CONSTITUTIONS AND THE SPACE PROVIDED FOR THE CITIZENS Teuta VODO and Eleni STATHOPOULOU ............................................................................................................................................................................ 34 FALLING BETWEEN TWO STOOLS – THE CASE OF THE LITHUANIAN CIVIL SERVANT REFORM OF 2013 Lars JOHANNSEN, Karin HILMER PEDERSEN and Saulius PIVORAS ............................................................................................................................................................................ 49 T HE BACKWARD EAST? EXPLAINING DIFFERENCES IN SUPPORT FOR RADICAL RIGHT PARTIES IN WESTERN AND EASTERN EUROPE Alina POLYAKOVA ............................................................................................................................................................................ 75 INCOME INEQUALITY AND GOVERNMENT REDISTRIBUTION: A CROSS-NATIONAL STUDY Vincent A. MAHLER, Kimberly LOONTJER and Sara PARANG ............................................................................................................................................................................ 95 BOOK REVIEW: DEMOCRACY AND SOCIAL PEACE IN DIVIDED SOCIETIES: EXPLORING CONSOCIATIONAL PARTIES Henrik JACOBSEN ............................................................................................................................................................................ PARTICIPATE For further information on submissions, please consult the guidelines at http://www.jofcp.org. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 4 FAILURE OF NETWORK INDUSTRY LIBERALISATION IN EASTERN EUROPE: THE CASE OF ELECTRICITY LIBERALISATION IN UKRAINE Katharina ILLIUSHCHENIA1 ……………………………………………………………….…………………………………………… Deregulatory reform of electricity industries includes three main steps: a) the break-up of vertically integrated monopolies; b) the privatisation of generation (and sales) companies; and c) the introduction of competition rules in the electricity market. This article discusses the key acts of reform, the political and economic circumstances in which they were enacted, the positions of key actors and the challenges confronted in Ukraine during electricity liberalisation policy-making. The article concludes that liberalisation reform of the electricity industry under both political systems in Ukraine in the 1990s and early 2000s failed because no effective privatisation rules were established and implemented. Key words: electricity liberalisation, privatisation, competition, Ukraine. 1 PROBLEM SETTING Through the mid-1980s, the monopoly was the dominant form of organisation for national electricity markets all over the world. Vertically integrated monopoly companies, usually owned by states, controlled all spheres of electricity production, transmission, distribution and supply (Figure 1). In some national electricity markets, independent power producers and sales companies existed, but they sold or purchased electricity from state monopoly companies through special agreements and were not allowed to set their own prices. Electricity tariffs for consumers were fixed by state regulatory bodies. Such consensus on the monopolistic organisation of the electricity industry was based on two core assumptions. It was believed, first, that state ownership is necessary to provide the appropriate mechanisms for control and finance and, second, that the monopoly is an efficient means to preserve and develop electricity networks and to secure energy supplies (Helm 1993, 411). 1 Katharina ILLIUSHCHENIA, PhD Fellow at the University of Hamburg, Institute of Political Science. The present paper is based on the doctoral project on the electricity liberalization policies in the EU, Ukraine and Russia. The research was funded by a grant from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. Contact: [email protected]. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 5 FIGURE 1: MODEL OF MONOPOLY IN ELECTRICITY MARKETS Source: Belyaev (2011, 52). Since the 1980s, however, two of the most significant trends in world economic policy have been the deregulation of infrastructure sectors, such as electricity, telecommunications, aviation and railways, and the replacement of monopolies with competitive market models. The major philosophy behind the deregulation of traditionally monopoly-dominated infrastructure sectors is the economic belief that free competition between infrastructure companies will lead to large efficiency gains, lower prices for all groups of consumers, high economic growth, increased welfare and, as a result, a more competitive position for national companies in the globalised international economic arena. Hirsh (1999), in his study of the deregulation of the American electricity industry, claims: By the end of the century, however, technological change discredited the central tenets of the consensus and contributed to the downfall of utility elites. Change manifested itself as technological stasis, the end of previous trends towards increasing thermal efficiency and economies of scale in standard generating hardware. By itself, the reversal of historical patterns would not have contested the rationale for utilities’ natural monopoly status unless other producers could generate electricity at comparable costs.