Balancing National Uncertainty and Foreign Orientation: Identity Building and the Role of Political Parties in Post-Orange Ukraine

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Notes

These features are discussed in scholarly literature. See, for example, Brubaker (1996), Chernetsky (2003), Kuzio (2002), Schopflin (1996), Smith (1998) and Tolz (1998).

Different levels of national identity development have also been seen as explaining the degree of success in democratisation and market reforms (D'Anieri 2002; Shulman 2005).

In the Soviet identity projects, Russia was presented as an ‘elder brother’ and became the main kin-state for the post-Soviet republics.

Some scholars have prioritised ethnic components as, for them, the new states in Eastern Europe were ‘nationalising states’ or ‘nationalising regimes’ (Brubaker 1996; Schopflin 1996; Smith 1998). An opposing school warned against building an ethnic identity in the multi-ethnic post-communist states (Geertz 1993; Ignatieff 1993). The representatives of this school gave the priority to building civic identity, which is based on inclusiveness and corresponds to values and behaviour supportive of democratic society and which therefore would promote the democratisation of post-communist countries (Shulman 2002a).

According to Habermas (1992), European identity is based on the values of peace, democracy, respect for human and minority rights, social justice and welfare.

This can be explained by the fact that a majority of voters in post-communist countries were regarded as demobilised—meaning that voters distrusted parties, and did not identify with a party, which led to extremely volatile electoral support for political parties (Rose 1995).

The most influential is the identity of the Russian minority group, which is concentrated in five south-eastern regions—Donetsk Oblast’, Luhansk Oblast’, Kharkiv Oblast’, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast’ and Zaporizhzhya Oblast'—and in Crimea.

Despite certain overlaps, the borders between these identities do not match with the religious, linguistic or regional borders.

Further sub-groups are distinguished within this identity group.

According to surveys of public opinion, the number of Ukrainian patriots has increased from 60% in 2003 to 75% in 2006; around 60% of the citizenry was ready to fight for their country in armed conflicts (Yakymenko & Lytvynenko 2006).

Immediately after independence, policies concerning national identity building were dominated by the presidency. Under the auspice of the presidencies of Leonid Kravchuk (1991–1994) and Leonid Kuchma (1994–2004) the multiple projects of identity building were launched. Despite the fact that ethnic diversity was instrumentalised in the election campaigns, the priority in state policies was given to building civic components (Szporluk 2000; Arel & Ruble 2006).

As part of the compromise to rerun the controversial second round of the 2004 presidential election, some of the anti-Kuchma coalition joined with the ‘party of power’ to pass a constitutional reform (cancelled after the election of Viktor Yanukovych as president in 2010) that substantially reduced the powers of the president and correspondingly augmented the powers of the prime minister and parliament. Furthermore, the electoral rules were changed from a mixed to a proportional voting system in which all 450 members of parliament are elected from party lists. The proportional election system added to the value of representative mandates and to the importance of the political parties in Ukrainian politics. Furthermore, the fact that Ukraine's population became increasingly disappointed in the presidency of Yushchenko shifted the focus from the presidency to political parties (and their programmes) as alternative sources of political will.

Previous research used other definitions for the phenomenon we call National Uncertainty. These were the definitions of ‘localisms’ (Wilson 2002, p. 42), ‘self-sufficiency in nationhood’ (Kostiuchenko 2009, p. 1), ‘sense of belonging to one distinct community’ (Tolz 1998, p. 993) and ‘inferiority complex’ (Rjabtschuk 2009, p. 143). These definitions have been driven by the focus of analysis of these studies and do not contradict ours.

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Notes on contributors

Tetiana Kostiuchenko

The authors would like to thank the participants of the workshop ‘Elites and the Formation of Identities in Post Soviet Space: Global and Domestic Influences’ (held at Emmanuel College, Cambridge University on 11 June 2010) and the two anonymous reviewers for their comments on an earlier draft of this essay. The authors are indebted to Klaus Segbers and the Institute for East European Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin for financial support. The authors would also like to thank David Lane for his detailed and very inspiring critique on revised versions. Of course, the usual disclaimer applies.