Historical Path Dependency and Media Freedom: Poland and Ukraine in the 1990s

Svitlana Soroka

Department of Public Administration, Petro Mohyla Black Sea National University, 68 Desantnikiv 10, 54003 Mykolayiv
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2022-0388

Yuliana Palagnyuk

Department of Social Work, Governance and Pedagogy, Petro Mohyla Black Sea National University, 68 Desantnikiv 10, 54003 Mykolayiv
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1019-8498


Abstract

The paper’s objective is to explain the different levels of media freedom in the post-socialist counties of Central and Eastern Europe in the 1990s, particularly in Po­land and Ukraine. Even though these two countries are very close geographically, they started the process of transition from communism to democracy and initiated media reforms in the same period, in 10 years the results of these processes were dif­ferent: Poland achieved the level of free media whereas Ukraine did not. The theories of Putnam’s deep long-term historical path dependence approach, East Central Euro­pean historians and path dependence approaches of the economic reforms in the 1990s in the Central and Eastern European countries of post-socialist transitions are com­bined and applied for the analysis of media freedom in the 1990s and its deep histori­cal predecessors in the sample countries.


Keywords:

media freedom, media reforms, post-socialist transition, democracy


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Published
2020-12-31

Cited by

Soroka, S., & Palagnyuk, Y. (2020). Historical Path Dependency and Media Freedom: Poland and Ukraine in the 1990s. Studia Warmińskie, 57, 401–414. https://doi.org/10.31648/sw.4629

Svitlana Soroka 
Department of Public Administration, Petro Mohyla Black Sea National University, 68 Desantnikiv 10, 54003 Mykolayiv
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2022-0388
Yuliana Palagnyuk 
Department of Social Work, Governance and Pedagogy, Petro Mohyla Black Sea National University, 68 Desantnikiv 10, 54003 Mykolayiv
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1019-8498