Paul D’Anieri - Politics And Society In Ukraine

POLITICS AND SOCIETY IN UKRAINE

Alexander J. Motyl , Series Editor

Politics and Society in Ukraine, Paul D'Anieri,
Robert Kravchuk, and Taras Kuzio

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Estonia: Return to Independence, Rein Taagepera

Paul D'Anieri
University of Kansas
Robert Kravchuk
University of Connecticut
Taras Kuzio
University of North London

Westview Series on the Past-Soviet Republics

First published 1999 by Westview Press

Published 2018 by Routledge
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
D'Anieri, Paul J., 1965
Politics and society in Ukraine / Paul D'Anieri, Robert Kravchuk,
Taras Kuzio.
p. cm. (Westview series on the post-Soviet republics)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8133-3537-X (hc). ISBN 0-8133-3538-8 (pbk.)
1. Post-communismUkraine. 2. Political cultureUkraine.
3. UkrainePolitics and government1991 . 4. UkraineSocial
conditions1991 . 5. Social changeUkraine. I. Kravchuk, Robert S.,
1955 . II. Kuzio, Taras. III. Title. IV. Series.
JN6635.D36 1999
306. 2 09477'09049dc21 99-30503
CIP

All photos courtesy of authors

ISBN 13: 978-0-8133-3538-4 (pbk)

Publisher's Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this book but points out that some imperfections from the original may be apparent.

Despite the flowering of scholarship on Ukraine since its independence in 1991, there has not yet been an attempt to provide a coherent overview of Ukrainian political institutions and the political process in Ukraine. For several years, events moved so quickly that to try to cover them in a book-length study was an invitation to immediate obsolescence. Moreover, many of the basic subjects of such a study, such as the structure of the constitution, were unresolved in Ukraine until relatively recently. Since the adoption of the Ukrainian constitution in 1996 and the introduction of a new currency that year, however, the fundamentals of the independent state are now in place in Ukraine. This is not to deny that much is still in flux but rather to assert that an overview of Ukrainian political structures and processes is now both possible and needed. This book aims to fill that need.

The book is deliberately written from an eclectic theoretical approach rather than by advancing a single theory or interpretation of events. This reflects not only the ambiguity of the subject but the varied backgrounds of the authors: D'Anieri was trained in government and international relations, Kravchuk in public administration, and Kuzio in Ukrainian area studies. We hope that this plurality of perspectives enriches the book as much as it has our own discussions. Although all three authors contributed to the various chapters and all take responsibility for the final product, each took responsibility for the drafting of various of the original chapters, and this division of labor should be made clear: D'Anieri drafted (politics and civil society).

The authors would like to acknowledge the support of the institutions and people who made this project possible. We especially thank Rob Williams of Westview Press, whose combination of support and patience was essential to bringing the project to completion. Paul D'Anieri wishes to thank those at the Harvard Ukrainian Research InstituteDirector Roman Szporluk, Executive Director Jim Clem, and Librarian Ksenya Kiebuzynskiwho provided a wonderful atmosphere for the original drafting of these chapters when D'Anieri was a visiting professor there in the summer of 1998. Robert Kravchuk wishes to acknowledge support from an NSF-COBASE grant, which was instrumental in his work on this project. Taras Kuzio wishes to acknowledge the support of the Centre for Russian and East European Studies at the University of Birmingham, where, while working on this project between 1995 and 1998, he was on a research fellowship funded by the Leverhulme Trust.

We especially thank our families, who endured patiently as we locked ourselves away to work on this project.

Ukraine: Territorial Administrative Structure

Ukraine is important to the West largely because it is seen as the "keystone in the arch" of security in Central Europe. Ukraine is important geopolitically in several ways. First, by putting a powerful state between Germany and Russia, Ukraine ameliorates the security dilemma that led to two wars in the first half of the twentieth century. Second, to the extent that the West continues to feel insecure about a potential threat from Russia, Ukrainian independence creates a strong, independent state through which Russia would have to go before it could renew its threat to the states lying to the west of Ukraine. Third, Ukraine's independence from Russia has positive implications for Russia itself and for Russia's relations with the rest of the world, a notion expressed most clearly by Zbigniew Brzezinski: "It cannot be stressed strongly enough that without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire." Finally, Ukraine is key in a more negative sense: If a state of its size and strategic location should fall into instability, that instability would reverberate throughout the nascent democracies of East-Central Europe.