......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 244 PS • April 2016 © American Political Science Association, 2016 doi:10.1017/S1049096516000147 Politics Euromaidan and the Role of Protest in Democracy Celeste Beesley, Brigham Young University ABSTRACT Protest can be seen as a highly democratic expression of popular opinion. However, protest is also a non-representative, extra-institutional process for political change. In hybrid regimes, such as Ukraine, the legitimacy of effecting change through mass protest is a subject of debate. Because of the influence of mass protests in Ukrainian politics, individual views on the democratic legitimacy of protest are potentially impor- tant in perceptions of government legitimacy. Using original survey data from December 2013, this article finds that, whereas satisfaction with the functioning of democracy, parti- sanship, and the oft-cited regional divide are important determinants of approval for the Euromaidan protests, they do not influence how Ukrainians perceive the role of protest in a democracy. However, among those less committed to democracy, protest is more likely to be seen as illegitimate. O n November 21, 2013, protests erupted in Ukraine. The immediate catalyst was then-president Victor Yanukovych’s decision not to sign an association agreement with the European Union (EU). The protests grew as citizens linked them to griev- ances about civil liberties, national sovereignty, and corruption (Diuk 2014; Onuch and Sasse 2014; Peisakhin 2015; Wolczuk and Wolczuk 2013). Whereas many scholars have studied the causes and effects of Euromaidan, this article examines how Ukrainians perceive the appropriate role of protest in a democratic system and, more specifically, how they view the Euromaidan protests. With a history now marked by the Orange Revolution and Euromaidan, the question of the democratic legitimacy of changing leadership through protest is potentially an important factor for Ukrainians’ continued engagement with the democratic process. Original survey data gathered in three key Ukrainian cities in December 2013 demonstrate that the democratic legitimacy of protest is distinct from approval for the Euromaidan protests in Ukrainians’ perception. Approval for the Euromaidan protests correlates with partisanship, age, political satisfaction, and policy preferences. However, the perceived general legitimacy of protest does not significantly correlate with party affiliation or regional factors; rather, it is affected by commitment to a democratic polit- ical system. DEMOCRATIC LEGITIMACY OF PROTEST Many citizens see protest as highly democratic—a means by which the public directly makes demands, even when institutions fail to provide voice or accountability (Robertson 2011; Trejo 2014). However, protests can undermine the rule of law and insti- tutionalized power transfer (Linz 1978). Protest involves a small percentage of the population and contains neither adequate rep- resentation of societal views nor safeguards for minority rights (Beissinger 2014; Dalton, Van Sickle, and Weldon 2010; Powell 1982). This democratic duality can lead to divided public opinion on the legitimacy of protest (Della Porta 1999; Martin 1994). This divided opinion was evident in public discourse during the Euromaidan protests. Although many citizens and politicians supported the protests (Herszenhorn 2013a, 2013b; Kramer, A., 2013), others referred to them as “disgraceful,” “crude hooliganism” (Roth 2013); “barbaric,” “making a garbage bin out of [Kyiv]” (Herszenhorn and Kramer 2013); and “hysteria” (Walker 2013). Yanukovych sought to delegitimize the protests, stating, “The leaders of the opposition have disregarded the principle of democracy according to which we obtain power through elections and not on the street” (Oliphant and Ensor 2014). In addition to concerns about legitimacy and fidelity to demo- cratic principles, the Orange Revolution (2005) and Euromaidan (2014) represent political victories for some Ukrainians and the loss of their preferred leadership and policy for others. Whether the latter group views these events as isolated losses in a legiti- mate democratic process or as illegitimate changes in the rules of democracy is unclear. The role of protest in government decision making is particu- larly problematic in electoral democracies—that is, regimes that hold regular elections but fall short of other requirements for democracy. Some people view elections as legitimizing the gov- ernment in power despite their faults. However, those same faults push others to seek for change through non-institutionalized Celeste Beesley is assistant professor of political science at Brigham Young University. She can be reached at celeste_beesley@byu.edu.