East European Politics and Societies and Cultures Volume 32 Number 1 February 2018 142–167 © 2017 SAGE Publications 10.1177/0888325417728771 journals.sagepub.com/home/eep hosted at http://online.sagepub.com Game of Seats: Electoral Rules, Revolutions, and Affiliation Switching in Ukraine, 1990–2014 Ireneusz Sadowski, PhD Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of Political Studies, Warsaw, Poland Nataliia Pohorila, PhD Ukrainian Catholic University, Lviv, Ukraine Since gaining its independence in 1990, Ukraine has experienced two revolutions and a war in the east of the country. Meanwhile, it has sampled all three major electoral systems (majoritarian, proportional, and mixed) and has created dozens of major par- ties and political blocs. Such a volatile context has consequences for such crucial political issues as accountability and circulation of the political class. At the same time, it allows researchers to address questions concerning the sources of change and stabil- ity in the politics of countries in transition. In particular, the case of Ukraine allows us to pinpoint the effects of popular upheavals and changing institutional arrangements on the stability of a political scene and the population of politicians. Data limitations of previous studies have prevented such a necessarily detailed temporal accounting. We analyze it for all Ukrainian MP hopefuls during the 1990–2014 period using the East European Parliamentarian and Candidate data (EAST PaC). The issue of political sta- bility was approached by examining affiliation switching and dropping out in all con- secutive elections to the Verkhovna Rada. The results reveal that revolutionary events had relatively minor immediate effects on the circulation of the political class, while individual strategies were highly dependent on the electoral rules working in conjunc- tion with other traits of the political system. Keywords: party switching; Ukraine; parliamentary elections; political class; elec- toral rules Introduction In the course of the twenty-five years of its post-Soviet history, Ukraine has expe- rienced two major political upheavals (Orange Revolution, Euromaidan), a pro- independence movement (which, in contrast to the revolutions, was relatively consensual), three major electoral systems—majoritarian, proportional representa- tion (PR), and mixed voting rules. All this was accompanied by high flux on the party scene. It is compelling to pose questions of how all these political develop- ments are interrelated. In this article, we aim to analyze the micro-foundations of a 728771EEP XX X 10.1177/0888325417728771East European Politics and SocietiesSadowski and Pohorila / Game of Seats research-article 2017