Political unity of Ukraine
Why could Ukraine not steer clear of intra-state conflict? How did the lack of political unity dissolve Ukraine (2014)? What was missing?
Two questions guide this essay:
How can the intensity of political unity be sustained?
Why did sustaining political unity in The Ukraine fail?
Back to the beginning of The Westphalian Order
From 1991 and onwards an entity named The Ukraine was sought constituted as a semi-presidential constitutional republic. Ukraine was finally independent, we say, and had statehood recognized by The United Nations. But what do we speak about, when we talk about ‘The Ukraine’? Around the time of The Peace of Westphalia (1648) there is no trace of The Ukraine.
On the territory today referred to as Ukraine, we find the Crimean Khanate subjected to the Ottoman Empire, but primarily we see the territory of the commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania. In 1640ies the landowning elite on this geographic location is Polish speaking and catholic, ruling through an administrative class largely consisting of Jews. Serfdom leads to polarization and marginalization; some of those who manage to drop out of this social stratification become Cossack, mounted warriors, raiding and finding free space southeast of the Dnieper River.
Proto-Ukrainians
Socially, we find cleavages along the lines of religious and linguistic differences. Cossack armed contingents worked extremely well in battles for Poland-Lithuania, but they were not recognized by the Poles and ended up shifting loyalty. As the grip of Poland-Lithuania loosens, a Cossack uprising kills half of the Jews employed by the Polish aristocracy and the uprising turns into intra-state conflict in which the polish army turns up to restore order. In 1654 Cossacks team up with the Tsardom of Muscovy, and here we can begin to construct references between a nation that could be understood as Ukrainian and a political form under which, members of a Ukrainian nation are subjected to shifting political forms on shifting geographic locations. All this just to say that in the 19th and 20th century, the sources of Ukrainian nationalism is stretched back to the days of the Cossacks, shedding off Polish hegemony. This understanding of Ukraine as the emergence of Ukrainians in the borderland between Poland-Lithuania and Ottoman Empire, and the complexities involved in such reconstruction, gives us a hint, that Ukrainian political unity is far from unproblematic. Like any nation-state seeking room in the post-Westphalian political order, both state, territory and national sentiment undergo changes and comes in a variety of forms and expressions.
Analyzing political unity
Concerning political unity of The Ukraine (1991 - 2014), we speak of The Ukraine Question. Polity analysis focuses on 4 aspects of political unity. In our perspective polity develops as the political form find ways to deal with the challenges set by its political condition. We name these developments as institutionalizations, i.e., the instigation and sustenance of societal institutions that regulates elements of the political condition. This may be a bit clearer as you get along with the analysis, but to commence, what you should realize, is that political unity is essential to polity since without it, polity fragments, and, is no more: When polity cannot sustain the intensity of political unity it falls apart by the deterioration of the political form and the effect that has on the political condition, i.e., polity descends into internal conflict, what we call intra-state conflict.
Four aspects of political unity
The four aspects of the polity that express the containment of the intensity of political unity are:
1) Reinforced unity, the ability to enforce unity by deployment of armed forces to sustain the territory of the state, through institutions such as police, army and other institutionalization of the security apparatus.
2) Mass formation, the sufficient proliferation and institutionalization of an ideology, to the effect of people believing that they are part of polity and experience a sense of belonging to polity.
3) Elite formation, setting up institutions that can secure that polity is ruled without groups and individuals in society becoming enemies.
4) Civic homogeneity, the broad acknowledgement of the right to protection by the political form for members of the polity and acknowledgement of the right of competing elites to rule under the auspices of the constitution.
These aspects of polity development are ordered: 1) and 2) you need to have, 3) is very nice to have, and 4) is nice to have, but needs a firm advancement of the other three to evolve. Think of four bricks that shall be placed on top of each other 1, 2, 3, 4; if the first two bricks are broken or not very big or hardly there at all, then placing the third and fourth brick on top will be impossible and the tower of bricks will fall.
Reinforced unity
To be able to form a mass around an ideology in polity, there must be polity hence there must be sovereignty around which a people can understand themselves to be part of society. Following the agreement of co-habitation in society there is an organization of armed forces that are subjected to this agreement. Think of a civil war where there is one faction standing on the battlefield after the fighting, and since the fighting is over, a social peace can be instigated through a proclamation of polity, eventually under the rule of the leader of the army, a king or a president or the like. Often some kind of policing unit is installed to enforce the code of laws and the rule. When this policing force is not sufficient in guaranteeing social peace, then the full force of polity can be sought assembled to meet the challenges of disorder. If unity cannot be reinforced, the there is intra-state conflict. As the autonomy of the Donbas regions could not be suppressed, these turned seperatist.
Unity of polity
This is the nature of reinforced unity: If polity cannot sustain political unity by subduing those who oppose it in a way, that may break it apart, then sovereignty has ceased, and intra-state conflict is immanent. Such disorder may be the source of transformation, so there is nothing normative about it, but descriptively, if the state cannot defend itself from breaking apart, then it will break apart due to polity divisions and group grievances turning into violation between groups. In modern constitutionally founded nation-states, reinforced unity is instigated by the declaration of a state of exception, in which government suspends the constitution for the armed forces to act without constraints in reinforcing unity. If there is an equally strong force meeting the armed forces in this effort, then there is intra-state conflict. Reinforced unity has been challenged in Ukraine from the beginning since the army was never strong enough to impose a homogeneous monopolization of violations on the territory, and since 2014 Ukraine has been in intra-state conflict.
Mass formation
Inception of political constitution is a magical moment for polity often heralded as a historical event of mythic proportions, described in the national history as ‘Independence Day’ or ‘Constitution Day’ or ‘National Day’ or the like. To say it plainly: In the moment of inception the people become the people by acting as a people subjecting to the political constitution thus forming a society of individuals and groups. In the social order of polity, there are cleavages of all sorts: between rich and poor, skilled and unskilled, people of different descend and with different interests. Some of these cleavages can become polarized, for instance when languages are forbidden, or ethnicities become disenfranchised.
Map 1 Ethno-linguistic cleavages Ukraine around 2011
Differences of ability, identity and interest is formed into a common identity for political unity to be sustained under the idea of communality in polity: ‘we all belong to this society and our differences can be understood as differences within society.’ The institutionalization of mass formation takes place through recorded history, participation in political events, and indoctrination into a common ideology, for instance, nationalism. Here the effect of a political myth is very important in answering the question: why are we the same? This feeling of sameness and belonging to polity is very important for the legitimization of polity, a point that is stressed by the fact that a nation-state is rarely established without some people being willing to give their life in the process of the creation of such polity.
Ideological unity
The idea of a nation is complex. It refers to the mythical origin of a collective that lives on in the present as an ‘imagined community.’ In the nation state it conflated with the political community of a polity where the nation becomes the reference to the locus for the belonging of the citizen. ‘I am Ukrainian,’ one might say and in 2011, where the term Ukrainian included at least a handful of ethnicities in and from The Ukraine (see Map 1). The Ukraine was prone to regionalism and Ukrainian politics became increasingly dominated by representation of regional identities as a vehicle for forging consensus on the understanding of the nation. Complex. When a new polity is formed, it often experiences a nationalistic moment where the togetherness of a people finds celebrative forms that may be stunning to outsiders, perhaps unaware of such moment in their own political history. National identity is taught in school and reinforced through church and family and moments of civic religious nature. The moment of inception of polity in the case of Ukraine endured until the deal with Russia concerning WMD and Crimea and the affirmation of the written constitution (1996). When nationalism is ingrained in the population, the mass formation is completed through a civic ideology, such as ‘democracy’ or ‘communism.’ In Ukraine the nation was formed through a transformation from ‘communism’ to ‘democracy.’ The Ukraine never came to a widespread homogeneous understanding of what it meant to be Ukrainian and the thus weakly founded sovereignty led to a political condition in which the state, i.e., The Ukraine, was unable to battle corruption and regionalism and since the procedures in the written constitution about leadership selection quickly became undermined, polity was off to a rough start. Both political constitution and state were challenged.
Elite formation
To govern a polity with some success society must form an elite with knowledge and skills for taking decisions on a societal level and to carry out administrative tasks. For polity to sustain political unity it is important that there is a degree of identification between people and leadership as well as representation of the members of the polity as a collective on which behalf decisions are taken and caried out. Here some sort of civic religious event can mark this connection of identity and representation. Think of ‘we love the king day’, where the people acknowledge the king by cheering or bowing their heads in quiet acquiescence, or think of the new president, swearing on oath of office, or the presentation of a government after an election. An elite must supplement itself and thus secure its duration and this may lead to intense competition between individuals and groups.
Unity of elites
Society is paralyzed if it cannot make collective decisions. Hence, it is paramount that the elite manages to balance identity and interest to the effect of forming an efficient hierarchy. When elites become pitched against each other to the extent of polarizing polity, pitching masses against each other in the battle for the right to decide we speak of elite fragmentation.
Map 4 Presidential election results Ukraine 2010
After the so called ‘orange revolution’ (2004) the Kuchma regime, that had ruled during the inception of the political constitution, became delegitimized, but the regime that followed was unable to command loyalty of the central administration and secure leverage for The Ukraine in balancing its newly founded autonomy. The dream of closer ties to the EU, that was the magic bullet promised by the new ‘revolutionary’ elite, turned out to be an illusion and the new westward elite had troubles balancing the relation to the big neighbor in east, Russia. In a polarized atmosphere, Ukraine managed to endure a presidential election that was recognized as free and fair by the international observers, where the former governor of Donetsk, Yanukovych, won over the incumbent prime minister, Timoshenko. Note how the electorate is divided along the east / west cleavage (see Map 4). Ukraine is intensely polarized at this point with elites opposing each other with radically different ideas about what policies should be sought implemented.
Civic homogeneity
A polity that has developed strong sovereignty and a healthy elite formation can come to a level of civic homogeneity where there can be peaceful transition of power between different groups. In such case the political culture endured is that there is recognition of the right to rule by other groups. Such recognition can be institutionalized to the extent that the administration persist intact with heads of departments and all employees remaining the same, after an election, while new ministers enter from the rivaling party. In The Ukraine (1991 - 2014) there was no level of civic homogeneity and corruption was rampant throughout the central and regional levels of administration.
Unity of recognition
When there is a high degree of mutual recognition amongst members of the political elite, trust can develop between leaders of different parties, and this may in turn lead to governments reaching broad consensus on fundamental issues for the benefit of societal development. While elite consensus on foreign policy is very useful for the sake of leading a consistent policy vis a vis neighboring polities and great powers, elite consensus on domestic issues is harder to reach and often healthy competition can be more beneficial for societal development than broad coalitions. In The Ukraine, there was no such thing as recognition between the highly fragmented elite and the polarized electorate (see Map 4). Instead of recognizing each other, the westward elite renounced the incoming regime by accusing them of election fraud, and the eastward regime threw the leader of the westward regime in jail, the same day election results were announced. Four years later, the leader of the eastwardly turned regime fled after a coup d'état (2014).
Ukrainian political unity
The new regime was supported by the superpower but was unable to reinforce unity as polity descended into intra-state conflict (2014). Inconsistent mass formation and outright elite fragmentation in the end led to the political constitution dissolving, landing polity in seemingly unending regional divisionism, and polarization along the lines of brown vs. rest in Map 1.