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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface………..4
Abstract……….………5
CHAPTER ONE 1.1 Introduction ... 6
1.2 Ukraine’s path to its territorial breakup ... 7
1.3 Research questions ... 11
1.4 Societal and academic relevance ... 11
1.5 Structure of the thesis ... 11
CHAPTER TWO 2.1 Introduction ... 12
2.2 Geopolitics ... 12
2.3 Borders and territoriality ... 12
2.4 Geopolitical imaginations ... 14 2.5 Nation building ... 15 2.6 Core concepts ... 15 CHAPTER THREE 3.1 Introduction ... 16 3.2 Conceptual model ... 16
3.3 Operationalization of concepts ... 17
3.3.1 Operationalization of factors contributing to geographical divisions ... 17
3.3.2 Operationalization of attitudes towards the European Union and Russia ... 17
3.3.2 Operationalization of individual, household and contextual characteristics ... 18
3.4 Data ... 19
3.5 Dataset variables ... 22
3.5.1 Dependent variables ... 22
3.5.2 Independent variables ... 22
3.7 Logistic regression analyses ... 24
CHAPTER FOUR 4.1 Introduction ... 25
4.2 Historical legacy of the west ... 25
4.3 Historical legacy of the east ... 27
4.4 Nation building in post-‐Soviet Ukraine ... 29
4.5 The ‘myth’ of a divided Ukraine ... 31
4.6 The importance of the region ... 34
4.7 Russia and the ‘otherness’ of Ukrainians ... 37
4.7 Divisions in Ukraine and external forces ... 40
4.8 Conclusion and hypotheses ... 45
CHAPTER FIVE 5.1 Introduction ... 46
5.2 The direction in which Ukraine should develop ... 47
5.3 Ukrainian attitudes towards the West ... 50
5.4 Ukrainian attitudes towards the East ... 52
5.4 Other characteristics of the Ukrainian population ... 55
5.4.1 Economical preferences ... 57
5.4.2 Political preferences ... 59
5.5 Explanation of the used analyses and interpretation ... 70
5.6 Explanation of the independent variables ... 71
5.7 Binary logistic regression analyses ... 73
5.8 Multinomial logistic regression analysis ... 80
5.9 Conclusion ... 83
CHAPTER SIX 6.0 Conclusion ... 83
References………..86
PREFACE
This master thesis is the final product of my master’s programme in Human Geography of the University of Amsterdam, in which I hope to demonstrate the acquired research skills during the years of my study.
The demonstrations in Ukraine in November last year immediately caught my attention, and before I knew it, I converted the events into the subject of my thesis. Writing a thesis while trying to stay up-‐to-‐date with the developments in the country has proven to be a challenge. Also, a change in methodology asked even more time than available which resulted in working seven days a week on the thesis. But these are sacrifices that I would make again, for the sake of writing about a topic that genuinely interests me, and a good part of society, according to the attention it gets in the media.
My special thanks go to Virginie Mamadouh, for providing me with huge amounts of feedback, pushing me in the right direction when needed and a shared interest in the subject. I also have to thank Sjoerd de Vos, for helping me out with the
ABSTRACT
After the Second World War, the Eastern European region of the Ukraine was under direct influence by the Soviet Union, the cause of a period of deterritorialisation in the area. When the Cold War ended, the European area started to experience a phase of reterritorialisation, meaning that the disintegration of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics led to the birth of new states, including Ukraine. Ukraine, a country squeezed in between Western Europe and Russia is a divided country, in terms of support for either closer ties with the west or east, and tensions are visible. This was demonstrated by violent events in Ukraine in the beginning of 2014, marking the end of the in office period of the pro-‐Russian president Yanukovych. This study was done to get a better understanding of the 2014 crisis in Ukraine. In this research, two research questions are formulated: “Which factors have contributed to the shaping of a divided Ukrainian nation?” and “To what extent are different attitudes of Ukrainian citizens towards the European Union and Russia explained by individual, household and contextual characteristics?”. It is argued that the historical legacy has a major role in shaping divisions in Ukraine, and that nation-‐building policies have not brought the result the Ukrainian authorities were looking for. Different attitudes towards the EU and Russia are to be explained for a good part by reported voting behavior and the residential location, along with other independent variables. In the conclusion, it is argued that there is no single geopolitical vision in Ukraine. Furthermore, that a slow reorientation of the public opinion towards Europe since the independence in 1991, along with an event in which the government had to choose a geopolitical direction could be a primary reason for the crisis. It remains a central challenge for the Ukrainian government to accommodate desires to ‘Europeanize’ along with desires to maintain strong ties
INTRODUCTION TO THE GEOGRAPHICAL
DIVISIONS IN UKRAINE
CHAPTER ONE
1.1 INTRODUCTION
On the 21st of November in 2013, the Eastern European country Ukraine suspended preparations for a trade agreement with the European Union. The government said that it was instead looking into setting up a joint commission to promote connections between Ukraine, Russia and the European Union. This marked the start of large-‐scale demonstrations in the capital Kyiv and other cities. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians expressed their discontent with the decision to delay the association deal with the EU. The protests turned violent in the beginning of 2014, and after deadly clashes in February, the Russian-‐oriented president Viktor Yanukovych disappeared from his post on the 22nd of that month. The picture in figure 1.1 demonstrates the intensity of the occurrence.
Figure 1.1: Before and after the occupation of Kiev’s Maidan Square.
Source: The Funambilist, 2014.
These series of events were yet another eruption of the tensions in Ukraine, caused by the many contrasts in the country. Historically, Ukraine has been under the sphere of influence of different and contrasting ideologies.
1.2 UKRAINE’S PATH TO ITS TERRITORIAL BREAKUP
The nation-‐state of Ukraine was born in August 1991, when the parliament declared independence from the USSR followed by a nationwide referendum in which 90% voted for independence. Following on the independence, the economic and demographic situation deteriorated with the GPD collapsing with 60% between 1990 and 1998 and the population dropping by millions. The situation worsened during the presidential elections in 2004. Supporters of the more western-‐oriented candidate Viktor Yushenko claimed that the elections were accompanied by massive corruption, voter intimidation and direct electoral fraud. Their protests were later known as the Orange Revolution. This political crisis was characterized by the possibility of a civil war and breaking-‐up of the country, with some threatening to incorporate East-‐Ukraine into the Russian Federation.
About ten years later, the situation escalated again. The violent protests in the beginning of 2014 were only the introduction to a crisis of a much larger scale however. Although the interim government, voted on by the Parliament on the 27th of February in 2014, led by Arseniy Yatsenyuk was recognized by the European Union and the United States, Russia condemned the government for being illegitimate and the result of a coup d’état.
The Crimean peninsula became at stake in what is now referred to as the Crimean crisis. This land mass was once transferred to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic within the Soviet Union in 1954.Only three days after Yanukovych disappeared, pro-‐Russian forces started to take control of the Crimean peninsula. After a referendum, condemned by actors such as the EU, the United States and Ukraine, Crimea declared independence from Ukraine and asked to join the Russian Federation on March 17. On the 18th of March, Russian president Vladimir Putin defended his rights to annex Crimea: “In people’s hearts and minds, Crimea has always been an inseparable part of Russia. This firm conviction is based on truth and justice and was passed from generation to generation, over time, under any circumstances, despite all the dramatic changes our country went through during the entire 20th century” (The Washington Post, 2014).
The United Nations General Assembly declared the referendum invalid and incorporation of Crimea into the Russian Federation illegal. The sovereignty over the peninsula is currently disputed between Ukraine and Russia, but is de facto controlled by the Russian Federation.
Other cities in the east of Ukraine were confronted with pro-‐Russians as well (figure 1.4). The Ukrainian army came to action following the occupation of government
buildings in these cities, and the state of affairs gained more and more characteristics of a civil war. On the 11th of May, 2014, referenda on the status of Donets’k Oblast and Luhans’k Oblast took place, two oblasts that are bordered by Russia in the east. The results of the referendums were not officially recognized by any government, but the oblasts already named themselves Donets’k Peoples Republic and Luhans’k Peoples Republic.
Figure 1.4 A man replacing the Ukrainian flag for a Russian flag on an administration building in the eastern Ukraine city of Kharkiv.
Source: Ronkainen, 2014.
What has caused this rapid escalation and territorial breakup of Ukraine? According to Janmaat (2014), Ukrainians and Russians are closely affiliated ethnicities. Apparently, even situations like these can escalate quickly into violence, regionalism and separatism. Janmaat assessed linguistic differences as a primary reason for the territorial crisis. For a more thorough view, one has to consider the contributing factors to a divided Ukraine. Linguistic differences are part of a larger set, called ethnic identity. Ethnic identities are influenced by nation-‐states: they tell themselves who they are and what they represent in relation to the world, and how this influences their relations with other nation-‐states. Competing geopolitical
visions are produced by distinctive national identities, and interaction between them can lead to conflict (Dijkink, 1997).
Are there different geopolitical visions in Ukraine competing with one another? This is a difficult question, as these visions aren’t stable, but fluid. The spatial imaginary of Europe is reordering and that process continues to this day. The future of the Eastern border of the common European space is still a highly contested, and politically important issue. The actual situation is even more complex than this discourse, as Bialasiewicz (2003) demonstrates. Path dependency is a well-‐known concept, but the actual historical legacy shouldn’t be neglected when studying the diversity in a territory. The historical region of Galicia, once part of the Austro-‐ Hungarian empire is situated in a territory which is divided between Poland and Ukraine today, and in that sense also straddling the border of the European Union. Although historical, the region is still a geographical representation with a regional identity that hasn’t disappeared when the Austro-‐Hungarian Empire came to its end. This means that ethnicities and identities aren’t naturally divided in separated territories, but instead that borders, recognized or not recognized, are overlapping and therefore creating a complex mosaic of territories. This creates a difficult challenge for political actors who are striving for a consentient nation.
Aware of the foreign influences of the past, one of the priorities of the new Ukrainian government after independence in 1991 became state and nation-‐ building in the country. In this process, a state can try to eliminate cultural diversity in the country, for example by a forced assimilation of the minorities. National history has played a significant role in nation-‐building in post-‐colonial Ukraine. The new myths and legends of the country portrayed Ukraine as a European country with a different political culture than Russia. A country with a long history, legitimizing its independent statehood, but a victim of past foreign incursions. Tragedies in the past, such as the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986 could have only happened because Ukraine was not an independent nation at the time, so these events were utilized to further promote nationalization (Kuzio, 2002). Teaching and popularizing Ukrainian history is a key part of the state and nation building, attempting to unite the Ukrainians into one polity. The nation-‐building is based upon a civic nation that has its roots in different aspects of one ethnic group, Ukrainians. To foster this idea, the education system utilizes the same textbooks throughout its territory, with no exception for local variances, values or customs. Ukrainian history is higher on the teaching agenda than world history (Janmaat, 2002). National minorities can react in different ways to nation-‐building. They can fully assimilate to the dominant group, and lose their language and identity or they can resist and hold on to their own cultural roots and identity at all cost (Janmaat,
2000). The 2014 crisis in eastern Ukraine creates the suggestion that the latter is more prominent.
Ukraine is heavily influenced by the policies of several foreign actors too. For example, the process of European integration is not over and the European Union is currently “building Europe in Ukraine” by means of cross-‐border cooperation schemes, better known as Euroregions. Popescu (2008) examines the Euroregions from a geopolitical viewpoint with multi-‐scalar conceptualizations of political territory. Popescu emphasises on the Euroregions in the Romanian-‐Ukrainian-‐ Moldovan boundaries. Cross-‐border regions have been formed across European state borders in order to reduce their role as obstacles, eventually leading to a redefinition of state territoriality. Popescu concentrates on Euroregions as new territorial constructions instead of new institutional spaces. The regions in the East European borderlands were meant to be a territorial framework where applicant nations for the EU could get ready for their membership.
To the east of Ukraine lies Russia, of whom its predecessor, the Soviet Union, used to occupy a much larger territory in the past, including Ukraine. The influence of groups demanding that Russia must begin to reassert itself as a great power became already evident a few years after the independence of Ukraine. The foreign policy had to be reoriented towards the former Soviet republics in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), and to create some distance with the West in that tactic. This led to worries of Western observers, fearing the consequences of a more confrontational Russia (Kubicek, 2000).
It is clear that Russia didn’t shy away to take measures in the Crimean Crisis. Ukraine and its population is squeezed in between the political struggles of these two giants, the European Union and Russia. This study looks at the population of Ukraine with respect to the current conflict and their attitudes towards the European Union and Russia. For contextual purposes, the historical legacy and internal and external forces that have contributed to a divided nation will receive attention as well.
To what extent do different geopolitical (di)visions exist in Ukraine, and what are the underlying reasons for this? Which dimensions can be identified that are geographically dividing the population? And to what extent can we explain the attitudes of Ukrainian citizens towards the European Union and Russia by individual, household and contextual characteristics? The formulated research questions are named in the next section.
1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Two research question are formulated in this study:
1. Which factors have contributed to the shaping of a divided Ukrainian nation? 2. To what extent are different attitudes of Ukrainian citizens towards the European Union and Russia explained by individual, household and contextual characteristics?
1.4 SOCIETAL AND ACADEMIC RELEVANCE
The current tensions in Ukraine are receiving lots of attention by the media. The British politician William Hague named the situation Europe’s biggest crisis in the 21st century. The future of Ukraine is a topic leading to much discussion, and many people have an opinion about the situation. The results will contribute to the societal discussion about the future of Ukraine, and it will help people gain a better understanding of the situation. The most important aspect of societal relevance lies in the current affairs. Ukraine is the ‘battleground’ where the differences and difficulties between European and Russian policies are executed.
When talking about academic relevance, there has been much academic debate about geopolitical imaginations, ethnic identities and conflict. The current political unrest in Ukraine lacks academic insight however. This research will be a new chapter to the debate, as the situation in Ukraine is a new chapter in European territorial and ethnic struggles as well.
1.5 STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS
Following on this chapter, chapter two will provide the general theoretical framework that covers the main concepts of this research. In chapter three, the research design will be elaborated. Chapter four will look at different forces that are playing a role in the shaping of a divided Ukraine: the historical legacy, as well as internal and external forces. Chapter five includes both the descriptive and regression analyses, in the search for an answer of the second research question. Finally, in chapter six, the conclusions will be presented and discussed.
UKRAINE: STATE, TERRITORY AND
GEOPOLITICAL IMAGINATIONS
CHAPTER TWO
2.1 INTRODUCTION
To explain the ongoing creation of a divided Ukrainian nation, a general theoretical framework is essential. In this chapter, several concepts will be addressed that are needed to enquire a theoretical understanding of territoriality in Ukraine.
2.2 GEOPOLITICS
Before anything else, the kind of geopolitics used in this research should be defined. Geopolitics itself is a widely used notion for the spatiality of world politics. Classic geopolitics is the trend that considers states as homogeneous national units that are interacting with similar units. As this research is looking at diversity within Ukraine, classic geopolitics is not useful for this research. On the contrary, critical geopolitics tries to tell different narratives that don’t use states as building blocks. It recognises the ‘irredeemable plurality of space and the multiplicity of possible political construction of place’ (Ó Tuathail & Dalby, 1998:4). Critical geopolitics originates from the work of scholars who tried to investigate geopolitics as a social, cultural and political practice, instead of an easy understanding of world politics. Critical geopolitics is not about the ‘outside’ of a state but about the formation of boundaries at much more scales and levels. The territorial breakup of Ukraine is especially relevant to critical geopolitics because its narrative constructs an alternative vision of the nation-‐state, by contesting the vision of a homogeneous Ukraine. Both territoriality and national belonging are combined in this narrative.
2.3 BORDERS AND TERRITORIALITY
When studying a political world map, it is easy to make note of the borders dividing the territory. Borders have several important features that will be addressed first. First of all, borders are not a static feature of the landscape that can be taken for granted. Instead, borders are discursively constructed, meaning that the idea of boundaries gets produced and reproduced in an endless cycle. Boundaries are used
by people to make legitimate distinctions between territories and they are not perfect reflections of the physical and cultural landscapes of territories (Paasi, 1996). A second feature is that borders are used as an instrument to create a collective territorial identity. This is not generated naturally, but constructed by exploiting us-‐versus-‐them feelings (Paasi, 1996). Third, borders are utilized to reify power emerging from social and spatial relations. Contradictions and conflicts are present during processes of boundary making, and borders embody these (Newman & Paasi, 1998). It is important to stress on these features, partly because “the border has become a mark of distinction, a divide from the non-‐European ‘Other’.” (Paasi 1996:22).
So, borders are constructed, but there is a good reason for that according to Moisio (2007). It seems almost inevitable that borders are needed in Europe to create order. For example, the political space in Europe is currently a mix of old and new forms of territoriality, and it is uncertain whether the EU will develop into a neo-‐Westphalian super state with, for example, a shared European identity. The fall of the communist regimes left a large area with an undefined territoriality behind and the process of spatial establishment is still far from over, particularly when taken into account that the dynamics of the establishment of the European Union itself are far from over. Speaking about territoriality, this concept is in essence a behavior that uses bounded space as an instrument to secure particular outcomes. When access to the territory is controlled, one can manipulate its content and design the character of the territory (Taylor, 1994:151). Territoriality can be explained on different scales, one of them being the state level. A state is a political corporation exercising sovereign political authority over a defined geographic territory. A nation is a community of people who identify themselves as sharing a common future. A fundamental territorial link exists between state and nation. This can be a link of unity, but also a link of tension, and implications of this tension are shown in intrastate en interstate violence (Mansbach & Rhodes, 2007:426). This brings us to the time of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, which was a sovereign Soviet socialist state from 1922 to 1991. The foreign affairs of that country were tightly controlled by the political elites of the Soviet Union in Moscow however. The lack of Ukrainian control over their territory is a reason why the country experienced intense deterritorialisation in that period, a historical legacy that would play a role in the formation of the independent Ukraine after the Cold War. The new Ukraine was a state of disunited polity, regional disparities with the need to build a coherent political nation within its borders, which were the heritage of the Ukrainian SSR (see also chapter four). The state and nation building were therefore characterized by integration, consolidation of the political space and the search for unity (Kuzio
2002:43). Seven divisions were pointed at as preventing the unity that the Ukrainian leaders would like to see:
• political: left versus right-‐wings • regional: the west versus the east
• nationalism: patriotism versus cosmopolitanism
• territorial structure: separatism versus federalism and centralists • statehood: Derzhavnyky (statists) versus National Democrats • religion: believers versus non-‐believers
• economy: supporters of capitalism versus those in favor of a planned economy
The process after the independence of Ukraine is a reterritorialization process. Reterritorialization can be defined as the processes that are “generally understood as the restructuring of territorial forms of organization of social relations, such as the nation-‐state. This implies the uncoupling of the exclusive links between state sovereignty and territory, as well as the emergence of territorial configurations beyond the scope and the scale of the nation-‐state.” (Popescu, 2008:419).
2.4 GEOPOLITICAL IMAGINATIONS
The actual geographical location is not enough for states to understand their place in the world system. The geopolitical imagination, or geopolitical vision, of a country is important too. Where does a state fit into the global system, and what is the perception of other states in the same system? As Agnew (1998:5) suggests, ‘the history of modern world politics has been structured by practices based on a set of understandings about “the way the world works” that together constitute the elements of the modern geopolitical imagination’. The geopolitical imagination has its foundations in sixteenth-‐century Europe. Geopolitical imaginations aren’t stable, but instead they differ over time due to long-‐term changes in both spatial and historical context. Popular views of the territoriality of a nation are often competing with other interpretations, and the latter may become the dominant view over time (Mansvelt Beck, 2006).
For a more comprehensive view of geopolitical imaginations, the work of Dijkink (1997) is important. Dijkink wrote about the stories that some nation-‐states tell themselves about who they are and what they represent in relation to the world, and how this influences their relations with other nation-‐states. Geopolitics, in this sense, is nothing else then competing geopolitical visions that are produced by distinctive national identities that interact with one another, leading to international conflict. The framework Dijkink constructs is said to be relevant for supranational
integration (such as the EU) and economic globalization too. Geopolitical visions are to be seen as national however. Western or pan-‐European geopolitical visions do not exist, although important similarities in the views of different European countries exist. National identities are the fuel of distinctive geopolitical visions, by transforming collective feelings of pride and pain into models of the world. Five elements of geopolitical visions are named: the naturalness of national borders, a listing of friends and foes (geopolitical codes), the selection of a foreign model to emulate, a national mission and a set of natural forces that determines the nation’s position in the world (for example, sea power versus land power or degree of isolation).
2.5 NATION BUILDING
No single definition of a nation exists, but a nation is often described as the culmination of a process of evolution from a tribe through to an ethnic group (Kuzio, 2002:6). This requires a definition of ethnic groups as well. They are a group of people that hold a common belief in their descent, as said by Max Weber (2001). Usually, they share a history with a myth that tells the story of their descent. A distinctive and shared culture and a defined territory are other features. Adding to that, an ethnic group must somehow be aware that they are different from their neighboring ethnic groups, so they must recognize a difference between ‘We’ and ‘Others’.
For nation building, the definition of Mylonas is used (2013:xx): “Nation-‐building, sometimes used interchangeably with national integration, is the process through which governing elites make the boundaries of the state and the nation coincide.”
2.6 CORE CONCEPTS
The core concepts that are especially relevant in this research are nation-‐building, ethnic identities and geopolitical visions. The geopolitical visions that are particularly important are the visions that compare the position of Ukraine with the European Union and Russia. These visions are dependent on the ethnic identities of people, together with the efforts of the state that contribute to the creation of geopolitical visions. The next chapter will use the theories in this chapter to establish the research design.
RESEARCH METHODS
CHAPTER THREE
3.1 INTRODUCTION
This chapter will elaborate on the research methodology, prior to the analysis in the next chapters. First, the conceptual model will be presented and discussed. Second, the research questions will be operationalized, working towards a description of the statistical analyses in chapter five.
3.2 CONCEPTUAL MODEL
The conceptual model (figure 3.1) consists of all earlier mentioned groups of variables and their assumed connections.
Figure 3.1 Conceptual model Ethnic identity Individual and household characteristics Contextual characteristics
Attitudes towards the European Union and
3.3 OPERATIONALIZATION OF CONCEPTS
This section involves the operationalization of the research questions. The first research question will be answered through a literature study. The second research question will be answered by means of a quantitative study, using descriptive statistics and regression analyses.
3.3.1 OPERATIONALIZATION OF FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO GEOGRAPHICAL DIVISIONS
Which factors have contributed to the shaping of a divided Ukrainian nation?
This contextual research question is represented in the left side of the conceptual scheme. Three main groups of factors are considered: the historical legacy, internal forces and external forces.
Historical legacy in the context of this thesis is defined as all the relevant events that happened in the past, which are still reflected in present-‐day Ukraine. An event is historical when they happened before the independence of Ukraine. The answer to this question is based on existing literature on the topic of historical events in the Ukrainian region.
The analysis of internal forces that contributed to a further divide in Ukraine is based on a literature study. Internal forces that are included are nation-‐building, language and education policies and movements and parties.
External forces that contribute to the shaping of a divided Ukrainian nation are foreign policies of several actors. To operationalize the foreign policies, both academic and policy papers of the involved actors are analysed. Only documents since the independence of Ukraine are included. The included actors are Russia, the EU, France, Germany, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, and the United States.
3.3.2 OPERATIONALIZATION OF ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE EUROPEAN UNION AND RUSSIA
To what extent are different attitudes of Ukrainian citizens towards the European Union and Russia explained by individual, household and contextual characteristics? The attitudes are part of the geopolitical visions of the Ukrainian population. Strictly said, an attitude is a settled way of thinking or feeling about something. The last word of that sentence, ‘something’, represents a person or thing, which is the
subject of the thoughts and feelings of, in this case, an individual. Methodologically speaking, the ‘something’ is a dependent variable, a variable of which its values are the result of independent variables. Not surprisingly, the independent variables coincide with attitudes. The dependent attitudes that are the subject of this thesis are the attitudes towards the European Union among other Western actors and Russia. But in what kind of attitudes should we be interested? To understand the current political unrest in the country, the attitudes towards the European Union among other Western actors and Russia are equally important. General variables that would be helpful in an analysis are about the direction in which Ukraine should develop, ranging from closer ties with Russia or the West towards a more independent development. Also, an evaluation of the political situation in the West and East are helpful. Is the way the politics in the West and East are functioning appreciated by the Ukrainian population? More specific themes will need to be addressed too. When talking about the European Union among other actors in the west, the attitudes towards an entry of Ukraine into the European Union might be one of the most significant indicators. Also, the opinions about an entry of Ukraine into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are quite important. Changing the scope to Russia, a few themes are of importance as well. Data that could answer how close the ties with Russia should be are helpful here. A possible entry of Ukraine into the Union State of Russia and Belarus should be an important indicator. Another theme is to make Russian an official language in Ukraine.
3.3.2 OPERATIONALIZATION OF INDIVIDUAL, HOUSEHOLD AND CONTEXTUAL CHARACTERISTICS
It is interesting to find out what the attitudes about these themes are, but for a more thorough understanding, one should incorporate independent variables too. This allows us to explain the origin of the different attitudes. Independent variables can be divided between individual and household variables and contextual variables. Individual and household variables that could explain the dependent variables are the following: nationality, language, age, income, religion, education, family status, gender, political and economic preferences and the group of population where an individual feels the most connection with. For the contextual variables, we have to look at the living location. Two types of the living location are important. First, the oblast in which a respondent lives. Second, an urban or rural living location. The next section will explain the data which is going to be used to answer the second research question.
Attitudes to the economic organization of Ukraine that are significant are to be found on the topic of the economic transformation in the country. A sudden change
of the economic system after the collapse of the Soviet Union can have a strong influence on the lives of individuals, whether it’s a positive or negative influence. Is the Ukrainian population willing to adapt to a new economic system? More specifically, variables that would be needed are concerning the willingness of working for a private company. And, of course, the attitudes about the economic transformation in general. Is the population in favor of it?
Besides variables concerning the economic organization, variables concerning the political organization in Ukraine are important too. A general topic on the political organization is the state system. Furthermore, the public opinion about a state system based on the principles of socialism or capitalism is a variable we need to concentrate on. This is also related to the political transformation in the country since the collapse of the Soviet Union. More topics that can be essential are the attitudes towards a multiparty system, and the preference of a few leaders with more political power over more laws and debates or not. A final indicator of the politics in the country is the willingness of the population to protest against deteriorating living standards in the country.
3.4 DATA
To give an insight into the influence of the individual, household and contextual characteristics on the attitude towards the European Union and other Western actors and Russia, a quantitative analysis will be carried out. The dataset which will be used is from GESIS – Leibniz-‐Institute for the Social Sciences (Vorona et. al, 2004). The title of this project is “Ukrainian Society at the Edge of the 21st Century”. The objective of the data collection was to catch individual attitudes to the political, social and economic transformations in Ukraine. In total, 1810 citizens living in Ukraine completed the written survey with a standardized questionnaire. Respondents were at least 18 years old of age and they were not in hospital, jail or in active military service at the time. The surveys were conducted in either the Ukrainian or Russian language. The data was collected in January of 2000 by the SOCIS center, a Ukrainian sociological company which conducts socio-‐political and marketing research. Respondents were selected by a quota sample and the average bias from the social statistics at that time does not exceed 2.0 percent. See figures 3.2 and 3.3 for an overview of the living location of respondents. The producers of the survey haven’t provided information about non-‐response.
Figure 3.2 Number of respondents by oblast in Ukraine.
Figure 3.3 Distribution of respondents.
To compare the number of respondents per oblast with the population distribution, see figure 3.4. The sampling of the survey is in line with the population distribution. The eastern oblasts are the most populated oblasts of Ukraine, and that is where a relative high number of surveys were collected. On the other hand, the lesser-‐ populated oblasts have a smaller number of respondents.
Oblasts are Ukraine’s primary administrative units. Ukraine is a unitary state, meaning that the central government is supreme and oblasts can only exercise power that the government decides to delegate. Along with the 24 oblasts, Ukraine consists of one autonomous republic, Crimea, which became the subject of the territorial dispute between Russia and Ukraine in 2014. Also, two cities with a special status exist: the capital Kyiv and Sevastopol, which is located on the Crimean peninsula. Within the survey, Crimea also includes Sevastopol however, so there is no unique data of Sevastopol in the analysis. The oblasts and cities with a special status are further divided into raions (districts), but the focus of the analysis will be on the administrative level of oblasts. The oblasts are often named after their respective administrative centers, the largest city in a region. In general terms, the population of oblasts consists of about one to two million people with the most populated oblasts being situated in the east (as shown in figure 3.4).
Figure 3.4 Population distribution in Ukraine.
3.5 DATASET VARIABLES
In section 3.3, the dependent and independent variables were named that could be helpful in answering the research questions. This researched is limited to the available data however. In this section, questions from the survey are connected to each of earlier discussed themes, beginning with the dependent variables.
3.5.1 DEPENDENT VARIABLES
The attitudes towards the European Union and other Western actors involves the following variables:
o V147 In what direction would you like to see Ukraine develop? o V150 Evaluation of the political situation in Russia
o V151 opinion about Ukraine joining union with Russia and Belarus o V152 opinion about Russian as official language
o V153 opinion about entry into EU o V154 opinion about entry into NATO
In the descriptive analysis, the answers to these questions are presented in a geographical way, ordered by category, to provide insight into the divisions in the country.
3.5.2 INDEPENDENT VARIABLES
The explanatory variables (questions) that can be used in an analysis are:
• Individual and household characteristics: o V128 voting for parliament election
o V148 to what group of the population you carry yourselves first of all? o V334 average income per person in your family
o V398 membership in a religious confession o V399 gender o V400 age o V401 family status o V405 education o V406 nationality o V409 native language
o V4 attitude about economic transformation in Ukraine (markets vs pre-‐ Perestroika conditions)
o V10 working for a private company o V11 support for socialism or capitalism
o V123 Do you agree with the idea that a few strong leaders could do more good for our country than all the laws and debates?
o V393 suffer for the sake of order or protest against deterioration of economic situation?
o V124 In your opinion, does Ukraine need a multiparty system?
• Contextual characteristics:
o V411 where do you live now? (Kyiv, large city, small city or village) o V412 residence location (oblast)
3.6 DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS
How will the data be used? Two main types of analyses will be done. First, the data will be analyzed in a descriptive way. Second, the dependent variables will be tested on their relationship with independent variables using regression analyses.
There are several benefits of doing a descriptive analysis prior to regression analyses. A descriptive analysis allows us to do a further exploration of the data. These knowledge has its benefits when formulation hypotheses that will be tested using the regression analyses. A good understanding of the data is vital in that sense.
The descriptive analysis includes the presentation and interpretation of statistics. To make the statistics easier to interpret, maps are provided. As the number of oblasts in Ukraine is quite high, it would be difficult only to use tables. The maps will display the data ordered by oblasts. Maps are faster to interpret than tables, and because of the spatiality of this research, maps are an indispensable instrument. Especially because the regional differences in Ukraine may be far more complex than a simple east-‐west divide, the maps are a necessary tool. The maps will immediately give us a sense of the relationship of the dependent variables with a contextual individual variable. Both the dependent and independent variables will be used in the descriptive analysis.
In the descriptive analysis, the spatiality of the dependent variables will be presented first. First, the attitudes towards the Ukrainian nation. Second, the attitudes towards the European Union and other Western actors. Third, the attitudes towards Russia. The next thing to do is to present the spatial distribution
3.7 LOGISTIC REGRESSION ANALYSES
After the initial descriptive analysis, regression analyses will be utilized to find an answer to the last research question:
To what extent are different attitudes of Ukrainian citizens towards the European Union and Russia explained by individual, household and contextual characteristics? The different attitudes are seen from a dichotomous perspective whenever possible, to ensure that the results are more likely to be significant. The exact interpretation of the analyses will be explained in the section prior to the analyses. After the binary logistic regression analyses, a multinomial regression analysis will be done too, this time including three instead of two categories of the dependent variable.
In the following chapter, the research will focus on the question which factors have contributed to the shaping of a divided Ukrainian nation. Chapter five includes the quantitative analysis.
