The academic paper is focused on developing historical and current geopolitical positioning of Ukraine in Europe. The scholars have attempted to solve the problem of affiliation of Ukraine to a specific sub‑region of Europe – Central and/or Eastern. It has been reasoned and argued that on the map of the European sub‑regions, Ukraine occupies an extremely specific and mixed position, as its affiliation to any certain sub‑region has always been historically and geopolitically determined, however it largely correlates with some attributes inherent both to Central and Eastern Europe. In conclusion it has been specified that Ukraine, being a boundary country, is characterized by a paradoxical geopolitical position and inconstant nature of its geopolitical projection within the frames of the sub‑regions in Central and Eastern Europe.

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This article is devoted to study and comparative analysis of the features and levels of support for new political parties during parliamentary elections in Ukraine, in particular the period 1998–2019. With this in mind, mainly based on the calculations of the indices of overall electoral volatility, intra-system electoral volatility and extra-system electoral volatility, we analyze the parameters of changes in electoral support (by voters) for political parties, in particular new ones, during the 1998–2019 parliamentary elections in Ukraine. In addition, we correlate overall, intra-system and extra-system electoral volatility, and present the correlation of overall electoral volatility in the sample of all political parties as the subjects of electoral processes in Ukraine and political parties elected to the national parliament (the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine). As a result, the study outlines two clusters of extra-system electoral volatility, which show the highest level of similarity, and calculates the dependence of the level of electoral volatility and stability of the party system in Ukraine. With this background, we conclude that electoral volatility in Ukraine is largely determined by the effect of party affiliation or desire to belong to the government or opposition, and is regulated by the special context of identity politics in this country.

The article clarifies that the typology of semi-presidentialism, which outlines the real powers of political institutions and the peculiarities of relations among them in the triangle “president–prime minister/cabinet–parliament”, was initiated to place the institutions of president and prime minister in the environment of the distribution of powers and responsibilities in the executive and party composition of legislatures. Thus, it was recorded that semi-presidentialism can be represented in the form of the systems of both unified and divided government, as well as their variational derivatives. Accordingly, it was found that the functionality and dynamics of semi-presidentialism are dependent both on constitutional norms and political factors. Simultaneously, the study primarily focuses on the updated and expanded theorization of the typology of semi-presidentialism based on the peculiarities of dualism, party affiliation and responsibility of the executives and the composition of legislatures. As a result, it argues that semi-presidentialism (based on presidential party positioning against the types of cabinets and the parameters of inter-party and intra-party relations) should be typified on the fully or partly unified majority systems, fully or partly unified minority systems, divided majority systems and divided minority systems, which provide various political implications. In addition, the study shows that such a logic and construction of different types of semi-presidentialism is of utmost importance, since it allows to recognize the various effects and consequences of the analyzed system of government, including its prevalence and statistics, stability and conflicts, as well as correlations with different types of political regimes. Keywords: semi-presidentialism, system of government, dualism, party affiliation and responsibility of the executives, composition of legislature, unified and divided systems.

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