Socio-Political Nature of the Protest and its Consequences (On the Example of Ukraine and Belarus)

Abstract

Dissatisfaction with the actions of the authorities, the growth of protest potential and social tension leads to the accumulation of prerequisites for active actions of society, up to mass demonstrations and even a change in the country’s political regime with further cardinal changes in the internal and foreign policy of the state.In the Eastern European part of the post-Soviet space, the events of 2013-2014 in Ukraine are often referred to as the most striking examples of protest activity, after which the existing regime was over-thrown by other political forces, the state authorities were unable to stabilize the situation, which led to a military conflict between Ukraine and Russia, and subsequently to a radical change in the country’s foreign policy.The second example is the mass protests of 2020 in Belarus, which did not lead to the resignation of the incumbent president, but demonstrated the presence of a protest potential in society, dissatisfaction with the actions of the authorities in the face of outwardly positive economic indicators of the country, and weak support for the course of development of the state as a whole The main results and conclusions of the work: the reasons for the protests in Ukraine and Belarus lay in the political dimension (lack of effective communication and public dissatisfaction with the actions of the authorities), while the excessive use of force by the state significantly increased the confrontation and significantly weakened the legitimacy of the authorities. The peculiarities of the nature of the protest in Ukraine and Belarus have led to different socio-political consequences. The article was prepared as part of the research work on the topic AR08857524 “Protest potential in Kazakhstan: features, factors and trends” and can be used to further study protest activity in the post-Soviet space, as well as to model scenarios for the development of the situation in order to develop a state policy that will meet the socio-economic and political needs of society.

Key words: social protest, protest movements, protest potential, social tension.