This article investigates two competing explanations of why reforms associated with the Bologna process brought disappointing results in Ukraine. The lack of anticipated benefits from the reforms may stem either from a flawed implementation of the Bologna process, or from more fundamental differences between the models of higher education governance in Ukraine and the countries where the Bologna process originated. Using the theoretical lens of path dependence theory and an emergent analytical framework for the cross-country comparison of higher education governance, the author examines how the Soviet governance legacy and the new push for Europeanization intersect in the Ukrainian system of higher education, in ways that are both productive and detrimental, to shape institutional structures of the university, patterns of power and control, and relations to the state and society. Data analysis supports the conclusion that disappointing outcomes of the Bologna process in Ukraine can be traced to a fundamental mismatch between the existing logic of university governance rooted in a Soviet model of higher education and the logic presumed in the European reforms. (Contains 1 table.)