Inna Melnykovska a b c, Rainer Schweickert a b c & Tetiana Kostiuchenko a b c a Freie Universität Berlin & Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel

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1 This article was downloaded by: [Institutional Subscription Access] On: 08 August 2011, At: 04:29 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: Registered office: Mortimer House, Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Europe-Asia Studies Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: Balancing National Uncertainty and Foreign Orientation: Identity Building and the Role of Political Parties in Post- Orange Ukraine Inna Melnykovska a b c, Rainer Schweickert a b c & Tetiana Kostiuchenko a b c a Freie Universität Berlin & Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel b Kiel Institute for the World Economy c National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy Available online: 28 Jul 2011 To cite this article: Inna Melnykovska, Rainer Schweickert & Tetiana Kostiuchenko (2011): Balancing National Uncertainty and Foreign Orientation: Identity Building and the Role of Political Parties in Post-Orange Ukraine, Europe-Asia Studies, 63:6, To link to this article: PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.

2 EUROPE-ASIA STUDIES Vol. 63, No. 6, August 2011, Balancing National Uncertainty and Foreign Orientation: Identity Building and the Role of Political Parties in Post-Orange Ukraine INNA MELNYKOVSKA, RAINER SCHWEICKERT & TETIANA KOSTIUCHENKO BUILDING NATIONAL IDENTITIES WAS AT THE centre of post-communist transformation but the search for the appropriate mix of ethnic and civic components of a national identity, along with the redefinition of the Self and the Others, has been complicated by primordialism and post-colonialism (Cirtautas & Schimmelfennig 2010). While primordialism has been reflected in the plurality of regional and local identities and led to uncertainty about self-sufficiency of own national identities, a consequence of post-colonialism has been an inferiority complex, involving a willingness to attach national identities to post-imperial or modern supra-national identities. 1 However, a comprehensive analysis, integrating both features, is still needed. In addition, the literature concerning identity building concentrates on the elite, civil society and the population as internal drivers and the EU and Russia as external drivers. Thereby, it mostly neglects political parties as drivers of identity building, although they play a central role in post-communist countries. We argue that a focus on the role of political parties allows for a more comprehensive view of the interconnections between the main features of postcommunist identity building. Parties can formulate positions on national identity and foreign orientation and influence the preferences of the population on identity issues. In turn, through voting for a particular party during elections, the population can express its preferences on identity issues. Hence political parties can be assumed to play a central role in post-communist identity building. 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. 1 These features are discussed in scholarly literature. See, for example, Brubaker (1996), Chernetsky (2003), Kuzio (2002), Schopflin (1996), Smith (1998) and Tolz (1998). ISSN print; ISSN online/11/ ª 2011 University of Glasgow DOI: /

3 1056 INNA MELNYKOVSKA ET AL. Our essay seeks to demonstrate the interaction between the identity values of political parties and of the population, which become visible through the analysis of parties programmes and election results. We review the literature in support of our argument and show the relevance of political parties in identity building for Ukraine. We also provide empirical evidence based on an evaluation of party programmes during two consecutive elections for the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada,in 2006 and We develop indicators that measure uncertainty about national identity and orientation towards supra-national identities as articulated in party programmes. Relating these indicators to election results reveals the preferences of the population about national identity based on identity values manifested by the political parties. We conclude that, for the case of Ukraine, there is a strong link between uncertainty about national identity and orientation towards supra-national identities both in party programmes and as revealed by election results. This supports our view about the importance of political parties in identity building in a still largely undetermined setting in young post-communist democracies. Post-communist identity building the role of political parties National identity building has been one of the central processes of the post-communist transformation. National identities were expected to provide the foundations for the statehood of post-communist states and to promote their ability to persist as independent states (D Anieri 2002). 2 Thus, the post-communist states had to rediscover the national Self and to re-define the Others through restressing the similarities of the in-group and its differences with those outside the political community (Kuzio 2001). However, building post-communist national identities was complicated by the fact that most post-communist states (in particular post-soviet republics) had little experience of nationhood before they became members of the communist camp. Identities were therefore pre-national and below the level that is usually considered as necessary for constructing a nation as an imagined community (Anderson 1991). Furthermore, these states possessed a plurality of ethnic, local and regional identities and tend to be bundles of competing traditions gathered accidentally into concocted political frameworks rather than organically evolving civilizations (Geertz 1993, p. 240). In addition, the post-communist states (in particular post-soviet republics) have been regarded as post-colonial and therefore having inherited an inferiority complex that revealed uncertainty about the self-sufficiency of their own national identities (Chernetsky 2003; Kuzio 1998b, 2002; Riabchuk 2002). Although the post-soviet republics demonstrated different degrees and forms of the inferiority complex (in Ukraine, this complex was called little Russianism (Kuzio 1998a, p. 155)), they were similar in their willingness to attach their national identities to imperial or post-imperial supra-national identities, provided by elder brother Russia, and mainly Slavic or Eurasian in nature. 3 The willingness to attach themselves to the European supra-national 2 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). 3 In the Soviet identity projects, Russia was presented as an elder brother and became the main kinstate for the post-soviet republics.

4 IDENTITY BUILDING IN POST-ORANGE UKRAINE 1057 identity was intensified by regional integration processes such as the enlargements of the EU and NATO and the neighbourhood policies of both the EU and NATO (Franke et al. 2010; Gawrich et al. 2010; Melnykovska & Schweickert 2008, 2009). Hence, due to its primordial and post-colonial features, post-communist identity building, especially in post-soviet countries, suffers from two challenges. First, the main challenge of post-communist identity building was to define what components of national identity ethnic or civic did or would unite most members of a particular post-soviet nation and what components had to be given priority (Shulman 2002a; Wolczuk 2000). 4 Primordial local and regional ethnic identities had to be chosen to shape the concept of the nation and to forge integrated state identities without sufficient experience in democratic statehood and with a weak civic identity (Kuzio 1996; Tolz 1998). Second, the majority of the population in the post-communist countries link their national identities to a supra-national one mainly European, which is a civic rather than an ethnic identity (Neumann 2001). 5 For those countries that do not feel Asian (Ukraine, Belarus and most of Russia), the Eastern Slavic identity, which is based on the persistent myth of a common origin, joint descent and a continuity of the fate of the community, was another option as a supra-national identity (Wilson 2004). As a further complication, these attachments are not neutral but are closely connected with policies to promote democracy or stabilise autocracy. Moreover, the willingness to attach to supra-national identities is promoted by external drivers. It is widely recognised that the EU exercises normative, transformative and predominantly civic power (Manners 2006; Schimmelfennig & Sedelmeier 2005). However, as an influential kin-state, Russia is another key external driver in post-communist identity building (Aslund & Kuchins 2009). Russia has been exporting Eurasian or Eastern Slavic identities, especially in the former republics of the Soviet Union, the Near Abroad (Kagan 2008). Russia also influences the construction of civic identities by strengthening autocrats coercive state capacity and destabilising democratising states in the region (Ambrosio 2009; Tolstrup 2009). In the case of post-soviet countries, the EU and Russia therefore pull countries towards opposite foreign orientations, thereby increasing uncertainty about national identities. As for internal drivers, discourse between the political elite and presidential policies has been recognised as shaping mass attitudes towards national identity and as being the main sources of ethnic and civic nationalism (D Anieri & Kuzio 2002; Melnykovska & Schweickert 2008; Shulman 2002b; Wolczuk 2000). The role of the population and civil society in post-communist identity building has only recently been recognised in the course of the coloured revolutions (McFaul 2005). The diffusion of the coloured revolutions in post-communist countries allows for the potential of the population to be more actively involved. 4 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). 5 According to Habermas (1992), European identity is based on the values of peace, democracy, respect for human and minority rights, social justice and welfare.

5 1058 INNA MELNYKOVSKA ET AL. In this context, it is rather surprising that, despite the ability of parties to shape the national discourse on identity issues and the increased power of legislatures in the post-communist countries (Kailitz 2007), especially in Central Eastern Europe, the role of political parties in building national identities has gained little attention. There are many ways in which political parties are involved in building national identities. First, political parties are a critical element in translating existing identities into politics (McAllister & White 2007), as they represent public opinions in politics (Duverger 1954). Second, with the aim of attracting electoral voices, parties instrumentalise and politicise dominant cleavages by choosing values of identity in their electoral programmes (Sartori 1976). Third, political parties can construct national identities because they shape public discourse, educate and socialise people into political processes and contribute to national identity policies (Weber 1966). As a result, parties can influence the perception of national uncertainty and either strengthen or weaken a sense of national identity. Thus, building a national identity is a by-product of competition between parties over electoral voices and seats in national parliaments and public office (von Beyme 1984). The literature on political parties in post-communist states has paid little systematic attention to the effects of parties on national and regional identities. 6 Research on political parties has mainly concentrated on their roles in areas such as cleavage structures (Kitschelt et al. 1999; Rohrschneider & Whitefield 2009), democratisation (Lewis 2001), party identification (Miller & Klobucar 2000) and the effects of party competition on public support (Ray 2003; Steenbergen & Scott 2004). The European Union s impact on national party systems has been the subject of just a few studies (Enyedi & Lewis 2006; Poguntke et al. 2007; Vachudova 2008). These studies have confirmed that post-communist parties formulated their position on accession to the EU according to voters attitudes towards integration with the EU or under the influence of the EU s actors. However, there are some research results that are highly relevant in our context. Recent data show that voters have begun identifying themselves with parties. A majority of post-soviet voters identify with one party or another and share the attitudes and views of the political system and policies with party leaders (Miller & Klobucar 2000). This also means that the role of parties and the interaction of party programmes with popular preferences have increased in post-communist countries. Furthermore, research on ethnic cleavages demonstrates that ethnic nationalism, politically mobilised by parties, can work for, rather than against, democratic consolidation. Ethnic nationalism and democracy can go together provided that ethnic preferences are focused on ending foreign rule rather than fighting with other neighbouring ethnic groups (Beissinger 2008). Thus, whether the instrumentalisation of ethnic cleavages would aid or hinder the building of national identity depends on the way these cleavages are articulated by political parties. Elections have recently also become more frequent and fair in post-communist countries (Bunce & Wolchik 2006; Kalandadze & Orenstein 2009; Ambrosio 2007). In 6 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).

6 IDENTITY BUILDING IN POST-ORANGE UKRAINE 1059 turn, the political elite, whose power increasingly depends on the popular vote, has become more driven by popular attitudes. Together with research on the role of political parties, this implies that political parties should be central in analysing national identity building. Elections clearly provide a possibility for parties to shape the public discourse, influence public opinion on identity issues, and, thereby, help the population to reveal preferences about national identity. The case of Ukraine mapping identity clusters, identity building and the role of political parties A few researchers have already mapped identity clusters on the development of national identity, and explained its weakness and its regional variations in Ukraine (Wilson 2000; Wolczuk 2000; Kuzio 2001; Barrington & Faranda 2009; Rjabtschuk 2009). However, no specific attention has been given to the role of political parties in identity building or to the role of party programmes and elections in revealing the preferences of the population about a national Ukrainian identity. As visualised in Table 1, the challenges of post-communist identity building can be connected with the pronounced positions of parties with respect to national identities and foreign-policy orientation. Mapping the nexus between aspects of Ukraine s national identity (Table 1) allows us to discuss identity building in terms of ethnic and civic identities, the potential role of a European identity and the role of the political parties for matching the identity preferences of elites and the population. Clusters of ethnic and civic identity After the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was no convergence towards a homogenous Ukrainian ethnicity (Wilson 2002), and the heterogeneity of views about TABLE 1 THE NEXUS BETWEEN NATIONAL AND SUPRA-NATIONAL IDENTITIES AND POLITICAL PARTIES IN UKRAINE Notes: BYT, Block Yulia Tymoshenko; OU, the Bloc Our Ukraine ; PR, the Party of Regions; CPU, the Communist Party of Ukraine; PBL, the People s Bloc of Lytvyn; SPU, the Socialist Party of Ukraine. The borders between identities are blurred as shown by the dotted lines.

7 1060 INNA MELNYKOVSKA ET AL. what marks Ukrainian identity posed a considerable challenge in identity building in independent Ukraine (Barrington & Herron 2004). Apart from the ethnic identities of minority groups, 7 there are three Ukrainian ethnic identities that compete for the status of being a Ukrainian national identity (Table 1). Each of these ethnic identities is embedded in a broader set of beliefs and historical memories, as well as religious, linguistic and policy preferences, forming what are labelled national identity complexes in particular regions of Ukraine (Shulman 2004). 8 First, ethnic Ukrainian identity prevails in the western regions and stresses the values of individualism, freedom, democracy and tolerance. The dominance of these values is devoted to the historic heritage of the more liberal Austro-Hungarian Empire and to the later incorporation of these regions into the Soviet Union. Most representatives of this identity feel more comfortable speaking the Ukrainian language and articulate a strong sense of national pride (Nikolayenko 2008). They are also interested in day-to-day political affairs and are continuously active, both during and between elections. Ethnic Ukrainians are also strongly supportive of democratic and market reforms (Shulman 2005). Second, Eastern Slavic identity is common in the south-eastern regions and highlights the values of collectivism and patrimonialism, along with a preference for the Russian language. Eastern Slavic Ukrainians are largely inactive between elections, are less supportive of democratic and market reforms and are the main base of support for oligarchs and centrist parties (Kuzio 2005). Third, Soviet Ukrainian identity is the mixed identity dominant in the central regions. 9 In terms of ethnic components, Soviet Ukrainian identity is a hybrid (Pirie 1996) and reflects less clear ethnic components due to the melting of multiple ethnicities settled in central regions (Rjabtschuk 2009) and due to the erosion of linguistic and ethnic boundaries between Russophones and Ukrainophones (Wolczuk 2000). Soviet Ukrainian identity has its roots in Homo sovieticus, with a low valuation of culture and religion and with a specific mix of Ukrainian and Russian language surzhyk. Soviet Ukrainians often regret the breakdown of the Soviet Union but also support Ukraine s independence (Wilson 2002). Their historical memories are limited to Soviet times, but their historical consciousness represents the overlap of the mythology of the Soviet propaganda about the Ukrainian Soviet nation and the ethnic legends about Ukraine s attempts to achieve independence in previous centuries (Hrytsenko 1998). This group of mixed identity is regarded as the key to any potential majority in Ukrainian society. Despite a number of attempts to build an inclusive national identity, Ukraine is very far from being a homogenous ethnic entity (Barrington & Faranda 2009; Kulyk 2009; Lane 2008). Since Ukraine s independence these identities have overlapped and fused, leaving the vast areas between them often holding characteristics of both, although to 7 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. 8 Despite certain overlaps, the borders between these identities do not match with the religious, linguistic or regional borders. 9 Further sub-groups are distinguished within this identity group.

8 IDENTITY BUILDING IN POST-ORANGE UKRAINE 1061 varying degrees. Thus, these three identities have interacted, leaving many citizens of Ukraine holding double, very fluid and ambivalent ethnic identities. Furthermore and as a consequence of the Soviet identity-building projects, regarding oneself as Ukrainian does not mean having a preference for a Ukrainian national identity. Following Soviet traditions, people define themselves as Ukrainians due to their place of residence or due to paternal inheritance (Simonsen 1999; Wolczuk 2000). Thus, it was not a real national (ethnic or civic) but a passport identity (Wilson 2002). Hence, despite a substantial number of citizens who regard themselves as Ukrainians, the number of people with Ukrainian ethnic national identity is small (Riabchuk 2000; Wilson 1997, 2000). Civic national identity is strong only in the western regions of Ukraine where there is a dominance of Ukrainian ethnic identity. In the other regions, a civic national identity had to be built from scratch, as it could not rest on any stable historical or cultural core to develop powerful transcendent ideas of liberty, prosperity or welfare, a common social contract of reciprocal rights and obligations or constitutional patriotism (Wilson 2002). The Orange Revolution of 2004 marked a new stage in the development of Ukraine s civil society and ended the previous political era of the hybrid Soviet-type system (Stepanenko 2006). However, whether the Orange Revolution brought any change with regard to Ukrainian identity is a highly disputable issue. Some observers believe Yushchenko s active mass support was drawn by representatives of the ethnic Ukrainian rather than the eastern Slavic identity (Lane 2008; Rodgers 2006). David Lane (2008) remained sceptical because the events of the Orange Revolution, in his view, did not initiate and, consequently, did not integrate mechanisms creating solidarity the formation of a civic Ukraine but led to greater division between East and West Ukraine. Furthermore, Peter Rodgers (2006) argued that the Orange Revolution rather intensified than decreased divisions and Ukraine has become even more polarised. In contrast however, another group of scholars argues that the Orange Revolution gave birth to a political nation in Ukraine (Rjabtschuk 2009). 10 Andrew Wilson (2004, p. 210), for example, refers to Viktor Yushchenko s value-based campaign, which helped consolidate a new version of the national idea. Overall, there seems to be a consensus that any impact of the Orange Revolution implied a shift in national identity towards civic nationalism, which includes a positive attitude towards democracy and market reforms (Shulman 2005). However, this shift has been threatened by some groups within the Ukrainian political elite who emphasise ethnic differences in the population in order to gain votes in the enduring political crisis after the Orange Revolution. Because this led some parts of the population to reject everything that is connected with the definition of Ukrainian and national, the result was rather a deeper divide than convergence and, to some extent, a crisis of national identity. European identity as a uniting force? As is shown in Table 1, civic weakness and the ethnic divide are matched to some extent by the willingness to attach to opposing supra-national identities and opposing 10 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).

9 1062 INNA MELNYKOVSKA ET AL. foreign orientations, with only a part of the ethnic Ukrainians having a strong civic identity favouring self-sufficiency and neutrality. Due to the post-colonial legacy, the majority of Ukrainians attach national identity to supra-national identities. At the same time, there is widespread disagreement concerning cultural similarities with potential supra-national identities with which to attach, so called Ours in contrast to Others (Shulman 2004). In the Ukrainian case, the main candidates respectively for Ours and the Other are Europe (primarily the EU) and Russia. Ethnic Ukrainians stress large cultural differences between Ukrainians and Russians and thus Russia serves for them as the primary Other. A small part of ethnic Ukrainians see their identity as self-sufficient and therefore support Ukraine s neutrality and self-reliance. The majority of ethnic Ukrainians argue that Ukrainian culture is part and parcel of European culture. They thus support Ukraine s integration into the EU and NATO and are in favour of an attachment of their national identity to the supra-national European identity. For them, the linear progression of the primordial community into a nation state was frustrated by Russia s imperial aspirations, as this separated Ukraine from its European roots (Wolczuk 2000). Similarly, modern Ukrainian nationalism stresses the close relationship between Ukraine and Europe, which is regarded as even more central than the relationship with Russia (Rjabtschuk 2009). Furthermore, modern Ukrainian nationalism regards being attached to Europe and building a European identity as a way to strengthen the Ukrainian national identity. Being Ukrainian and being European are set as equal to each other (Table 1). The proponents of Eastern Slavic identity, on the contrary, stress the very similar historical and cultural development of the three Eastern Slavic peoples of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. They see Ukraine as a part of the Eurasian economic and cultural space and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). They believe Ukraine s future lies in closer cooperation with Russia and are proponents of attachment to the East Slavic supra-national identity. A European civic supra-national identity may potentially provide a way to unite a majority of Ukrainian citizens, regardless of their ethnic identity. By embracing Europe, Ukraine has a chance to both merge internal divisions and replace the previous supra-national community, the Soviet people (Wolczuk 2000). However, the literature on Neighbourhood Europeanisation, for example Gawrich et al. (2010) and Franke et al. (2010), has shown that the rather weak incentives under the ENP regime have not enabled the impetus for such a merger. Potential security threats, the presence of a large Russian minority and dependencies on gas supply imply at the same time that neglecting Russia as an important player is not possible. Hence, in a way, uncertainty about national identity stems from the need for external support and security threats. As a consequence, the majority of Ukrainians are uncertain about national identity and believe that Ukraine has no reliable external guarantees of its independence, sovereignty or territorial integrity. In addition, the perception of threat differs with respect to the source of the external threat, whether Russia or NATO (Razumkov Centre 2010). Hence, neither the West (the EU or NATO) nor Russia provides an easy solution, and foreign orientation in a country like Ukraine depends to a large extent on external factors.

10 IDENTITY BUILDING IN POST-ORANGE UKRAINE 1063 The role of political parties after the Orange Revolution Although the President of Ukraine continued to play an important role in identity building after the Orange Revolution, 11 political parties have gained influence in the parliamentary presidential system of Ukraine (D Anieri 2005). 12 Party programmes became a central part of pre-election campaigns and were widely distributed by the free media in Ukraine. The issue of national identities was one of the most discussed issues in the election campaigns of 2006 and 2007 (Herron 2008; Hesli 2006). Hence, the Orange Revolution has strengthened the position of political parties in Ukrainian politics and their ability to build a single Ukrainian national identity and to promote European choice. Besides representation of the people s interests and preferences in the parliament, party members have been able to polarise voters, instrumentalise existing cleavages of ethnic identities, and spread national uncertainty and stress the necessity of a particular foreign orientation (Dafflon 2008). As shown in Table 1, there is a substantial degree of clustering concerning national identity building and the two opposing orange and blue white political camps, and especially the major parties, which have positioned themselves at the borders between these clusters. Three parties can be clearly allocated to either orange or blue white forces. The Party of Regions (PR, Partiya Regioniv), led by former prime minister and 2004 presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych, represents the blue-and-white force, which was most closely associated with Kuchma s regime. The base of this party includes the eastern regions of Ukraine. Two partners in the Orange Revolution the Bloc Our Ukraine (OU, Blok Nasha Ukrayina ) and the Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko (BYT, Blok Yuliyi Tymoshenko) constitute the orange camp and their supporters are largely from western and central regions. None of these three parties won a majority of the vote, however, and even the voices of the two orange forces together were not enough to form a governmental coalition. This fact increased the importance of middle-range parties. These were the Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU, Komunistuchna Partiya Ukrayiny), the People s Bloc of Lytvyn (PBL, Narodnyy Blok Lytvyna) and the Socialist Party of Ukraine (SPU, Sotsialistychna Partiya Ukrayiny). Although these middle-range parties were too small to be treated as independent players, they possess a significant number of seats for 11 Immediately after independence, policies concerning national identity building were dominated by the presidency. Under the auspice of the presidencies of Leonid Kravchuk ( ) and Leonid Kuchma ( ) 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). 12 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.

11 1064 INNA MELNYKOVSKA ET AL. building situational majorities. Thus, these parties have increasingly gained importance among Ukrainian voters, who, in addition, became tired of the fighting between the three key parties. While the CPU is a natural ally of the PR, the latter two parties have taken positions depending on the situation and promised incentives. Hence, clustering concerning national identity was incomplete. The positions of parties remained flexible and borders between clusters were not sharply defined. This situation allowed the negotiation of short-term agreements, but coalitions remained highly unstable with national identity building being a prominent topic in the election debates. The position of parties has remained flexible and election outcomes highly uncertain with national identity building a highly relevant topic in the election debates. In the next section, we show how parties used the room for manoeuvre, offering specific positions with respect to the main features of identity building, concerning uncertainty about a national identity and foreign orientation. Revealed preferences party programmes and election results In order to analyse shifts in party programmes and the reactions of voters, we constructed two indicators in order to measure the two features of post-communist identity building: National Uncertainty and Foreign Orientation. For National Uncertainty based on Anthony Smith (1991), Benedict Anderson (1991) and Ernest Gellner (1983) we defined several groups of characteristics essential for a functioning nation state (for example, territorial integrity, economic welfare and national security). We assumed that National Uncertainty could be either expressed as supra-national European Identity or in terms of National Inferiority. Consequently, we constructed sub-indicators by analysing the party programmes for the number of appearances of the following rhetorical devices. First, the sub-indicator on European Identity was constructed as the number of cases where the terms Ukrainian and European were used simultaneously or where Ukraine was regarded as a European state. In addition, we counted instances where party programmes mentioned European standards as a blueprint for the development of the Ukrainian state. Second, concerning the sub-indicator National Inferiority, we assumed that this feature of uncertainty is represented by cases where party programmes mentioned the differences between Ukraine s regions; that Ukraine needs external support for its development; that Ukraine needs to pay attention to external threats; and that Ukraine s government should grant official status to the Russian language. We do not add together the figures for the two sub-indicators because National Uncertainty has a different quality when measured by either European Identity or National Inferiority. In the case of European Identity, the rhetoric may be based on rational considerations of building a national identity in accordance with the EU role model and would not necessarily imply inferiority. A general European or worldmarket orientation may alternatively be interpreted as economic rationality rather than uncertainty. Clearly, from an economic perspective, variants of capitalism may be implemented depending on country-specific circumstances. Nevertheless, an outward orientation is without an alternative for economic development. In the case of National Inferiority, plain evidence of inferiority would not be expected in party

12 IDENTITY BUILDING IN POST-ORANGE UKRAINE 1065 programmes. In this sense, party programmes may be treated as a piece of diplomacy, at least to some extent, implying that detecting one of the four sub-indicators actually indicates inferiority. We think labelling the overall indicator National Uncertainty strikes a balance between these somewhat extreme interpretations. 13 Next we look at Foreign Orientation. With regard to the post-colonial feature of post-communist identity building, the first indicator measures the link between Ukrainian national and a particular supra-national identity that was articulated through the foreign orientation of Ukraine proclaimed in the party programmes. Political parties want Ukraine to be politically and economically aligned with Russia (Russian Orientation) or Europe (European Orientation). For example, a Russian orientation was evident in the case of the programme that advocated entering the Single Economic Space (SES), joining Russia and forming a new Union of Independent States (consisting of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan, as well as other post-soviet states). A European orientation was found to exist in the documents of the parties or blocs declaring their desire to have Ukraine join the EU, NATO or the WTO. In contrast to National Uncertainty, the sub-indicators are comparable and allow for two aggregations. Total Foreign Orientation, the sum of Russian Orientation and European Orientation in party programmes, reveals a preference for any foreign orientation. In contrast, Net-Russian Orientation treats European Orientation as a negative value of Russian Orientation and reveals the overall preference in favour of an orientation towards Russia. We would expect that uncertainty about national identity should basically go along with a strong foreign orientation, either European or Russian. If party programmes are consistent, uncertainty stemming from a supra-national European identity should rather support a European orientation. This is in contrast to uncertainty that stems rather from national inferiority because it could justify both types of external orientation or a balanced multilateralism. In our evaluation, we concentrated on the main parties for which we could observe results for both elections: the Party of Regions (PR), the Block Yulia Tymoshenko (BYT), the Bloc Our Ukraine (OU), the Socialist Party of Ukraine (SPU), the Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU) and the People s Bloc of Lytvyn (PBL). As shown in Table 2, the party positions can be clearly distinguished, with major shifts in party programmes taking place between the 2006 and 2007 elections. Comparing the party programmes offers some confirmation that the parties reacted to the outcome of the 2006 election. In 2006, we observe that most of the parties were clustered around a rather neutral position with respect to their foreign orientation, with the OU as the only outlier playing an important role in the new parliament. Most parties reacted to the outcome of the 2006 elections within one year and the alternative trajectories became clearer. The BYT became more pro-european, while the OU moderated the European orientation and expressed a higher degree of national 13 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.

13 1066 INNA MELNYKOVSKA ET AL. TABLE 2 INDICATORS OF NATIONAL UNCERTAINTY AND ORIENTATION AND ELECTION RESULTS, 2006 AND 2007 PR BYT OU SPU CPU PBL Population* National Uncertainty European Identity National Inferiority Foreign Orientation European Russian Total Foreign Russian - European Election Results Notes: *values of the indicators as expressed in party programmes weighted by national election outcomes. BYT, Block Yulia Tymoshenko; OU, the Bloc Our Ukraine ; PR, the Party of Regions; CPU, the Communist Party of Ukraine; PBL, the People s Bloc of Lytvyn; SPU, the Socialist Party of Ukraine. Source: own calculations, based on election results presented by the Central Election Commission of Ukraine; available at: accessed 18 April 2011.

14 IDENTITY BUILDING IN POST-ORANGE UKRAINE 1067 uncertainty in its party programme. The People s Bloc of Lytvyn (PBL) appeared as one of the most confident parties regarding the self-sufficiency of Ukrainian national identity, and the strategy of its leader, Volodymyr Lytvyn, of being neutral in his foreign orientation, might explain why the PBL won more votes (the party received 2.4% in 2006 and 4% in 2007) than the SPU (with 5.7% in 2006 and 2.9% in 2007). Regarding the PR, it won nearly the same percentage of votes in the 2007 re-elections (32.1% in 2006, 34.4% in 2007), but its strategy towards national self-sufficiency seems to have moved one point closer to zero, which suggests the near absence of national uncertainty. Thus, it could be argued that, because two parties with a fairly low level of uncertainty (the PR and the BYT) gained the majority of votes both in 2006 and 2007, Ukrainians were more confident about national identity. Especially the BYT gained votes (22.3% in 2006 and 30.7% in 2007) by offering a clear European orientation in order to alleviate political and economic instability in Ukraine. We have so far only looked at party programmes and have shown that the changes made before the second of the two elections seem to be affected by the analysis of the previous election results. This implies that the indicators Foreign Orientation and National Uncertainty analysed above were actually relevant for the election outcome. However, the indicators shown in Table 2 also reveal some inconsistencies in party programmes or remain rather inconclusive with respect to the link between national uncertainty and foreign orientation. For example, the BYT switched to a clear European orientation without any move in uncertainty indicators and the OU put more emphasis on a European identity while not offering a clear European orientation. Weighting the indicators with the election results allows an examination of the preferences revealed by the population. It is evident that European Orientation was stronger than Russian Orientation in both elections. This difference became even larger in the second election due to a weakening Russian Orientation. This result is matched by an overall reduction in National Uncertainty, the effect of a stronger European Identity and a weakening National Inferiority. Hence, these empirical results confirm our hypothesis. Less National Uncertainty was to be the cost of a Foreign Orientation towards Russia in the first place. Somewhat surprising or inconsistent preferences manifested by political parties seem to be balanced out by the voting results. Further evidence on the link between National Uncertainty and Foreign Orientation is offered by examining the correlation of changes between 2006 and 2007 based on regional election results (Figure 1). There is a rather stable pattern of change underlying the shift in preferences. Voters that preferred less Foreign Orientation in 2007 did not change their position with respect to European Identity but with respect to National Inferiority. Consistent with our hypothesis, less National Uncertainty implied less Foreign Orientation, that is an increase in self-sufficiency. This result again supports the conclusion that European Identity and National Inferiority are two components of National Uncertainty that show quite different correlations with Foreign Orientation. The results also demonstrate that revealed preferences may be unstable to a significant extent in a post-communist country with a young democracy. During , a time when Russian foreign policy remained rather passive, this implied a shift

15 1068 INNA MELNYKOVSKA ET AL. Source: authors own calculations, based on election results presented by the Central Election Commission of Ukraine, available at: accessed 18 April FIGURE 1. CORRELATION BETWEEN ORIENTATION AND UNCERTAINTY, 2006/2007 towards either self-sufficiency in the east and south or towards European integration in the west and centre. It is reasonable to assume that changes in the external environment have a strong impact on revealed preferences on national identity. Summary and conclusions Our results reveal the potential role political parties can play in identity building in post-communist countries and the actual role they played in the case of Ukraine. We focused on two features of post-communist identity building: national uncertainty (the lack of confidence about self-sufficiency of national identities) and foreign orientation (the willingness to attach national identities to post-imperial or modern supra-national identities). Based on the presence of tactics and rhetorical devices in party programmes, we constructed indicators which allowed for a quantification of positions on identity building offered by the major political parties in Ukraine in the parliamentary elections of 2006 and We defined National Uncertainty as determined either by the presence of an alternative supra-national European Identity or by the presence of National Inferiority. In the case of Ukraine, this inferiority may be expressed by emphasising regional difference, the need for external help, the perception of external threats and the language question. In terms of Foreign Orientation, Ukraine is attracted by either Europe or Russia (European Orientation/Russian Orientation). Weighting indicator values with election results allows us to detect the reaction of voters to shifts in the balance between the major identity values in party programmes, and the revealed preferences of the population. Overall, our analysis of identity building in Ukraine showed the following: political parties changed positions on identity issues in the 2007 parliamentary election as a

16 IDENTITY BUILDING IN POST-ORANGE UKRAINE 1069 reaction to the 2006 election, when their programmes were clustered around a neutral position; the Foreign Orientation of the population decreased due to a strong decrease in the orientation towards Russia; lower Foreign Orientation was related to lower levels of National Uncertainty; European Orientation seems to be less dependent on National Uncertainty; and National Inferiority seems to support Russian Orientation. Considering that this is a first attempt to quantify the role of political parties for identity building in post-communist countries, policy conclusions should be drawn with some care. However, the robustness of the relationship between European Orientation and European Identity as well as between Russian Orientation on National Inferiority lends some support to the argument that the external environment matters for national identity building. During , when Russian foreign policy stayed rather neutral, a stronger offer for integration into Europe, which was missed badly, as we argued earlier (Gawrich et al. 2010; Franke et al. 2010), could have stabilised a European identity in Ukraine. Because Russian foreign policy became more active afterwards, this window of opportunity seems to have closed the former Orange coalition lost votes to the PR and regional elections in 2010 brought the rise of the right-wing extremist party Svoboda in the western regions. Hence, future research will have to focus on the impact of a changing external environment on national identity building. Freie Universita t Berlin & Christian-Albrechts-Universita t zu Kiel Kiel Institute for the World Economy National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy References Ambrosio, T. (2007) Insulating Russia from a Colour Revolution: How the Kremlin Resists Regional Democratic Trends, Democratization, 14, 2, pp Ambrosio, T. (2009) Authoritarian Backlash: Russian Resistance to Democratization in the Former Soviet Union (Farnham, Ashgate). Anderson, B. (1991) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London & New York, Verso). Arel, D. & Ruble, B. A. (eds) (2006) Rebounding Identities: The Politics of Identity in Russia and Ukraine (Washington, DC & Baltimore, MD, Woodrow Wilson Center Press & Johns Hopkins University Press). Aslund, A. & Kuchins, A. (2009) Russia: The Balance Sheet (Washington, DC, Peterson Institute). Barrington, L. & Faranda, R. (2009) Reexamining Region, Ethnicity, and Language in Ukraine, Post-Soviet Affairs, 25, 3, pp Barrington, L. W. & Herron, E. S. (2004) One Ukraine or Many?: Regionalism in Ukraine and Its Political Consequences, Nationalities Papers, 32, 1, pp Beissinger, M. R. (2008) A New Look at Ethnicity and Democratization, Journal of Democracy, 19, 3, pp Beyme, K. V. von (1984) Parteien in westlichen Demokratien (Munich, Piper). Brubaker, R. (1996) Nationalism Reframed. Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press). Bunce, V. J. & Wolchik, S. L. (2006) International Diffusion and Postcommunist Electoral Revolutions, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 39, 3, pp Chernetsky, V. (2003) Postcolonialism, Russia and Ukraine, Ulbandus: The Slavic Review of Columbia University, 7, pp Cirtautas, A. M. & Schimmelfennig, F. (2010) Europeanisation Before and After Accession: Conditionality, Legacies and Compliance, Europe-Asia Studies, 62, 3, pp Clem, R. S. & Craumer, P. R. (2008) Orange, Blue and White, and Blonde: The Electoral Geography of Ukraine s 2006 and 2007 Rada Elections, Eurasian Geography and Economics, 49, 2, pp