Dilemmas of State-Led Nation Building in Ukraine

Dilemmas of State-Led Nation Building in Ukraine PDF

Author: Taras Kuzio

Publisher: Praeger

Published: 2002-12-30

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780275977863

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How has the Ukrainian state sought to build national identity over the past decade, and with what results? The premise of the book is that assertions about the role of the state in identity politics should be treated as questions to be debated theoretically and studied empirically instead of assumptions made casually and left unexamined. Each essay begins with a common set of questions. Is it true that overcoming Ukraine's current cleavages is a prerequisite for holding the country together or for reforming it? How have the legacies of history constrained the state's nation-building project? What obstructing cleavages exist, and what sorts of national identity might provide a solid foundation for building an overarching Ukrainian national identity? Statistical analysis of mass attitudes, case studies on culture, education, the military, and foreign policy provide a detailed look at efforts to promote national identity, with surprising conclusions. Taken together the essays provide an overdue evaluation of the role of the state in nation building.

Ukraine

Ukraine PDF

Author: Taras Kuzio

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2002-09-11

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 1134693532

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Ukraine: State and Nation Building explores the transformation of Soviet Ukraine into an independent state and examines the new elites and their role in the state building process, as well as other attributes of the modern nation-state such as borders, symbols, myths and national histories. Extensive primary sources and interviews with leading members of Ukranian elites, show that state building is an integral part of the transition process and cannot be divorced from democratization and the establishment of a market economy.

Ukraine„Crimea„Russia

Ukraine„Crimea„Russia PDF

Author: Taras Kuzio

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2007-03-13

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 3898217612

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The Crimea was the only region of Ukraine in the 1990s where separatism arose and inter-ethnic conflict potentially could have taken place between the Ukrainian central government, ethnic Russians in the Crimea, and Crimean Tatars. Such a conflict would have inevitably drawn in Russia and Turkey. Russia had large numbers of troops in the Crimea within the former Soviet Black Sea Fleet. Ukraine also was a nuclear military power until 1996. This book analyses two inter-related issues. Firstly, it answers the question why Ukraine-Crimea-Russia traditionally have been a triangle of conflict over a region that Ukraine, Tatars and Russia have historically claimed. Secondly, it explains why inter-ethnic violence was averted in Ukraine despite Crimea possessing many of the ingredients that existed for Ukraine to follow in the footsteps of inter-ethnic strife in its former Soviet neighbourhood in Moldova (Trans-Dniestr), Azerbaijan (Nagorno Karabakh), Georgia (Abkhazia, South Ossetia), and Russia (Chechnya).

Democratic Revolution in Ukraine

Democratic Revolution in Ukraine PDF

Author: Taras Kuzio

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-09-13

Total Pages: 199

ISBN-13: 1317996488

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In 2000 a beheaded journalist was found in a remote forest near Kyiv. The corpse led to a scandal when it was revealed that it was that of a journalist critical of the authorities. The President was heard on tapes, made covertly in his office, ordering violence to be undertaken against the journalist. The scandal led to the creation of a wide protest movement that culminated in the victory of democratic opposition parties in 2002. The democratic opposition, led by its presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko, fought a bitter and fraudulent election campaign in 2004 during which he was poisoned. Widespread election fraud led to Europe’s largest protest movement since the Cold War which became known as the Orange Revolution, known after the campaign colour of the democratic opposition. This book is the first to provide a collection of studies surveying different aspects of the rise of the Ukraine’s democratic opposition from marginalization, to protest against presidential abuse of office and culminating in the Orange Revolution. It integrates the Kuchmagate crisis of 2000-2001 with that of the Orange Revolution four years later providing a rich, detailed and original study of the origins of the Orange Revolution. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics.

Understanding Ukrainian Politics: Power, Politics, and Institutional Design

Understanding Ukrainian Politics: Power, Politics, and Institutional Design PDF

Author: Paul D'Anieri

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-01-28

Total Pages: 307

ISBN-13: 1317452984

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Ukraine made headlines around the world during the winter of 2004-05 as the colorful banners of the Orange Revolution unfurled against the snowy backdrop of Kyiv, signaling the bright promise of democratic rebirth. But is that what is really happening in Ukraine? In the early post-Soviet period, Ukraine appeared to be firmly on the path to democracy. The peaceful transfer of power from Leonid Kravchuk to Leonid Kuchma in the election of 1994, followed by the adoption of a western-style democratic constitution in 1996, seemed to complete the picture. But the Kuchma presidency was soon clouded by dark rumors of corruption and even political murder, and by 2004 the country was in full-blown political crisis. A three-stage presidential contest was ultimately won by Viktor Yushchenko, who took office in 2005 and appointed Yulia Tymoshenko as premier, but the turmoil was far from over. The new government quickly faltered and splintered. This introduction to Ukrainian politics looks beyond these dramatic events and compelling personalities to identify the actual play of power in Ukraine and the operation of its political system. The author seeks to explain how it is that, after each new beginning, power politics has trumped democratic institution-building in Ukraine, as in so many other post-Soviet states. What is really at work here, and how can Ukraine break the cycle of hope and disillusionment?

Migration, Refugee Policy, and State Building in Postcommunist Europe

Migration, Refugee Policy, and State Building in Postcommunist Europe PDF

Author: Oxana Shevel

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2011-10-24

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 1139502336

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Why do similar postcommunist states respond differently to refugees? Why do some states privilege certain refugee groups, while other states do not? This book presents a theory to account for this puzzle, and it centers on the role of the politics of nation-building and of the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). A key finding of the book is that when the boundaries of a nation are contested (and thus there is no consensus on which group should receive preferential treatment in state policies), a political space for a receptive and nondiscriminatory refugee policy opens up. The book speaks to the broader questions of how nationalism matters after communism and under what conditions and through what mechanisms international actors can influence domestic polices. The analysis is based on extensive primary research the author conducted in four languages in the Czech Republic, Poland, Russia and Ukraine.

The Transition to National Armies in the Former Soviet Republics, 1988-2005

The Transition to National Armies in the Former Soviet Republics, 1988-2005 PDF

Author: Jesse Paul Lehrke

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-01-03

Total Pages: 266

ISBN-13: 1135108862

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This book looks at the militaries of the late-Soviet and post-Soviet republics. Beginning with the end of the Soviet era, it recognises that the successor states did not spring from nowhere, but inherited a legacy that influenced all that followed. The book discusses how politicians control the instruments that are the manifestation of the state’s monopoly on violence, and how society views and supports the military. By taking a bottom up empirical approach that examines the personnel, leaders, organisations and institutions, and their outlook and attitudes, the book presents a comprehensive picture of the armed forces, showing how the armed forces are very significantly shaped by the surrounding political and social environment. The book goes on to examine the armed forces in action, and highlights that to truly understand the militaries, studies need to go beyond looking at the static structures.

Nation, Region and History in Post-Communist Transitions

Nation, Region and History in Post-Communist Transitions PDF

Author: Peter W Rodgers

Publisher: ibidem-Verlag / ibidem Press

Published: 2012-05-25

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 3838259033

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Since independence in 1991, issues of nation and identity have become highly debated topics in Ukraine. This monograph explores not only how national identity is being (re)constructed by the Ukrainian state, but also the processes by which it is negotiated through society. The central argument of this work is that too much attention, concerning identity in Ukraine, has focused on markers of ethnicity and language. Instead, the author advocates a regional approach, engaging with the issue of how Ukraine’s regional differences affect nation-building processes. Following the tumultuous events of the ‘Orange Revolution’, the view of Ukraine as a country inherently ‘divided’ between ‘East’ and ‘West’ has (re)emerged to become a popular explanation for political events. The study outlines the necessity for academics, policymakers and indeed politicians to veer away from this simplistic ‘West versus East’ divide. The book advocates an analysis of Ukraine’s unique brand of regionalism not in terms of divisions, but in terms of regional differences and diversity. The author deconstructs the concept of ‘Eastern Ukraine’ by focusing on three Ukrainian localities, all adjacent to the Ukrainian-Russian border. The study examines how individuals provide ‘their’ own understanding of the place of their region within the wider processes of nation building across Ukraine. In doing so, the book develops a ‘regional’ approach to the study of identity politics in Ukraine.

Constructing the Narratives of Identity and Power

Constructing the Narratives of Identity and Power PDF

Author: Karina V. Korostelina

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2013-12-16

Total Pages: 267

ISBN-13: 073918394X

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Twenty years ago Ukraine gained its independence and started on a path towards a free market economy and democratic governance. After four successive presidents and the Orange Revolution, the question of exactly which national model Ukraine should embrace remains an open question. Constructing the Narratives of Identity and Power provides a comprehensive outlook on Ukraine as it is presented through the views of intellectual and political elites. Based on extensive field work in Ukraine, Karina V. Korostelina describes the complex process of nation building. Despite the prevailing belief in a divide between two parts of Ukraine and an overwhelming variety of incompatible visions, Korostelina reveals seven prevailing conceptual models of Ukraine and five dominant narratives of national identity. Constructing the Narratives of Identity and Power analyzes the practice of national self-imagination. Karina V. Korostelina puts forward a structural-functional model of national narratives that describes three major components, dualistic order, mythic narratives, and normative order, and two main functions of national narratives, the development of the meaning of national identity and the legitimization of power. Korostelina describes the differences and conflicting elements of the national narratives that constitute the contested arena of nation-building in Ukraine.

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