Still winners and losers? Studying public opinion’s geopolitical preferences in the association agreement countries (Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine)

ABSTRACT

This paper assesses some of the factors that influence the public’s geopolitical preferences in the Association Agreement (AA) countries (Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine). Specifically, I test the winners and losers theory, according to which individuals with higher chances of success in a particular society (winners) tend to support EU membership more than those with lower chances (losers). In addition, I explore the influence of political engagement, future migration preferences, and political values on this support. Departing from the conception of geopolitical preferences in the AA countries as a dichotomy between supporters of the Eurasian Economic Union (Easternizers) and supporters of the European Union (Westernizers), I adopt a four-fold classification that also considers the individuals who support both (Balancers) and neither (Isolationists). Drawing on survey data from Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine (2015–2019), I find similar patterns of effects for the winners and losers variables across the three countries, with winners more likely to be Westernizers and losers more likely to be Easternizers or Isolationists. Moreover, politically engaged individuals tend to be Balancers and Westernizers, whereas disengaged individuals show support for the Isolationist option. Values are a significant predictor for Balancers and Westernizers, since preferring liberal values has a positive effect on being a Westernizer and negative on being a Balancer.

KEYWORDS:

• AA countries
• public opinion
• geopolitical preferences
• EU
• EAEU

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Guillem Rico for his guidance and valuable suggestions, and the editor and the anonymous referee for their feedback and comments on the manuscript. I also thank the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sport for funding this work [FPU16/01493]. This work has been realized in the context of the Ph.D. program in Politics, Policies, and International Relations of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

Notes

1. The countries that are part of the EaP are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine.

2. Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine are the only three EaP countries to sign AAs.

3. Titular nationality is an ethnolinguistic concept that serves to define the ethnic groups that constituted a majority (or the group after which the republic was named) in a particular Soviet republic (Fearon and Laitin 1996; Dave 2004). In this paper, titular nationalities refer to Georgians in Georgia, Moldovans in Moldova, and Ukrainians in Ukraine.

4. The Balancer category is understood in this paper as more of an ideal aspiration of individuals who would like to see a perfect environment in which their country is equally connected to both the EU and the EAEU; however, the legal and political feasibility of this option is uncertain. In this sense, some authors have pointed out that, before the creation of the EAEU, several of the presidents of future country members presented it as a way to increase the probability of a future united Europe based on the union of the EU and the EAEU (Minakov 2017). Nonetheless, developments after the founding of the EAEU and successive conflicts that eroded mutual trust between Brussels and Moscow make this scenario highly unlikely. For example, an in-depth study of this topic conducted by Dragneva, Delcour, and Jonavicius (2017) concluded that the compatibility between the EAEU and the EU is constrained by (1) the highly asymmetrical Russian-controlled nature of the EAEU and (2) legal compatibility issues that could arise if the legislation of the two international organizations were applied in the same territory.

5. Considering the heterogeneous nature of the DK/DA category, this paper will not include this category in its hypotheses nor in the theory section. Moreover, excluding this category does not significantly alter the main results of this paper.

6. More detailed tables for each country and survey can be found in online Appendix 1.

7. Aside from the purely utilitarian reasons, several authors have argued that the fact that education is positively correlated to support for EU accession could also be related to the fact that individuals who are more educated are also more cosmopolitan and share certain EU values (Ehin 2001; Müller 2011; Hakhverdian et al. 2013). These new values and a world vision could make it easier for the better-educated individuals to counterbalance some of the conceptions inherited through the historical legacies of the Soviet era.

8. This does not apply to people stating that they are Romanians in Moldova since this group is consistently characterized by a pro-EU position that differentiates them from ethnic minorities both in Moldova and in the rest of the AA countries (King, C 2013; Berlinschi 2019). In this sense, Romanians in Moldova are not an ethnic group per se, since it is commonplace for Moldovans to identify themselves as Romanians if they see Moldovans and Romanians as a single ethnic group. In fact, most people that consider themselves Romanians think that the Moldovans and Romanians were artificially separated by the Moldovanist policies promoted by the USSR (for more information see King, C 2013; Knott 2015) Consequently, the arguments and expectations referring to ethnic minorities across this paper do not consider Romanians as a traditional ethnic minority but as a subgroup of the majoritarian Moldovan ethnicity.

9. These groups are (ordered according to their size in the sample): Georgians, Azerbaijanis, and Armenians in Georgia; Moldovans, Ukrainians, Russians, Gagauzes, Romanians, and Bulgarians in Moldova; and Ukrainians, Russians, both Ukrainian and Russian, and Belarusians in Ukraine.

10. In the case of the Georgian surveys, interest in politics is measured using two different questions, one referring to interest in national politics and the other addressing interest in international politics. For this paper, I decided to use the one that refers to international politics. In any case, the coefficient of correlation between the two variables is 0.89.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education [FPU16/01493].