An Aligning Election and the Ukrainian Political Community

Abstract

This article begins by relating the 2010 presidential election to preceding presidential elections in Ukraine. It demonstrates that this is the first time in Ukraine’s two decades of national independence that strong continuity has been present across successive elections in the territorially aggregated basis of support for the same leading candidate, or between such a candidate and a political mentor. From this perspective, the 2010 election is the country’s first aligning election. The article investigates the social and economic correlates of regional voting patterns in 2010, finding that identity-based variables based on section (macro-region) and language are the strongest predictors, although economics is also of some relevance. It goes on to compare the 2010 contest in this respect with the elections of 1994, 1999, and 2004, showing that identity politics lost in salience as of the late 1990s and then resurged. The reasons for this reversal have to do with the elite’s habit of relying on identity messages to compete for high office and the penetration of the Ukrainian political space by international actors, Russia in particular.

Capturing ethnicity: the case of Ukraine

“…We see this quite clearly in the case of Ukraine, where at least three dimensions of ethnic identity are argued to be thick enough to be a driving force behind political competition in Ukraine but do not align perfectly (Shevel 2002). First, many accounts portray a Ukraine cleaved primarily by language use, with politics revolving most fundamentally around a competition between Ukrainophones and Russophones (Arel 1995;Laitin 1998;Bilaniuk 2005;Wolczuk 2006;Colton 2011;Kulyk 2011Kulyk , 2013Charnysh 2013). Other studies describe the most essential ethnic divide as being centered around self-declared nationality, in particular whether one identifies mainly with the categories of "Ukrainian," "Russian," "Crimean Tatar," or something else.…”

Gerrymandering Ukraine? Electoral Consequences of Occupation

“…How have the annexation of Crimea and occupation of parts of the Donbas reconfigured the Ukrainian electorate? Timothy Colton argued that the 2010 presidential election was an "aligning election," in that it consolidated "strong continuity…across successive elections in the territorially aggregated basis of support for the same leading candidate…" 13 That electoral alignment has now been undone. With Russia having annexed Crimea, it seems certain that residents of Crimea will not vote in Ukrainian elections for the foreseeable future.…”

Intraregional Variability and Place-Specific Electoral Behavior in Ukraine

“…Most of the research on regional differences in electoral preferences in the country is based on a binary opposition between East and West (S. Birch & Wilson, 1999;Brooks, Nieuwbeerta, & Manza, 2006; R. S. Clem & Craumer, 2008;Riabchuk, 2015), artificial division of Ukraine into decided by scholar number of regions Barrington & Herron, 2004;R. Clem & Craumer, 2005; R. S. Clem & Craumer, 2008;Colton, 2011;Holdar, 1995;, use of administrative borders at oblast level for the shape of historical regions (Sarah Birch, 2000; Haydukiewicz, 2011; Katchanovski, 2006), use of administrative units as a key for statistical analysis and interpretation of electoral results in Ukraine (Brooks et al, 2006;Hinich, Khmelko, & Ordeshook, 1999;Khmelko, Semenova, Teleshun, & Titarenko, 2011;Shevel, 2015). Consequently, the concept of region in electoral studies of Ukraine should be reviewed considering existing geographical theory of region-ascontext, blurred and fluid territorial shapes of regions, and correspondence between region and place.…”