The Machiavellian Epistemology of Democratic Reorganization in Ukraine

Abstract

This article aims to explain the conceptual and practical work behind the reorganization of the Ukrainian democratic scene from the time of the rejection of the association agreement between Ukraine and the European Union by Viktor Yanukovych up to its self-exile in the Russian Federation. The principled or idealistic analysis of democracy is ill suited to explain the mutations of the political link inherent to this reorganization, apart from the category of chaos. The Machiavellian epistemology of democracy identifies the changes in Ukrainian democracy as a concrete political activity marked by logical situations and constraints to which political actors must always adapt. The apparent chaos of the Ukrainian political scene unfolds in this context a series of rigid and fluid meanings and actions, more or less coordinated, constituting a sum of reference points of orchestration by political actors.