In My Name: The Impact of Regional Identity on Civilian Attitudes in the Armed Conflict in Donbas

Abstract

This article examines the effect of shared group membership on civilian attitudes regarding insurgent forces during an armed conflict. We rely on the original survey conducted in eight towns of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in May–June 2015. Based on the bivariate and multivariate analysis of the survey results, this article finds that a sense of shared identity with rebel forces at the start of the armed conflict in Donbas had a strong independent effect on civilian views of insurgents. Those respondents who identified themselves as residents of the region were more likely to attribute ideational motives to insurgents, report no knowledge of civilian victimization caused by rebel forces, and feel secure in their presence. By contrast, respondents identifying themselves as Ukrainian citizens were more likely to attribute material motives to insurgents, indicate their responsibility for attacks against civilians, and feel intimidated during direct encounters with rebels. These findings point to broader significance of identity cleavages in explaining the Donbas conflict.

Why Fight? The Combatant Careers of the Anti‐Kyiv Fighters in the Donbas War1

“…• Ideological affinity: commitment to a particular ideology or a set of proto-political beliefs and the role of these beliefs in the framing of conflict events. Following Kudelia and van Zyl (2019), who claim that in cases of the mobilization of local populations, local identity functions like ideology, we also include local identity here. • Social networks: consistency of views and attitudes toward the conflict with family members and friends; peer pressure; network-related resources that facilitate or discourage joining armed groups; connections with other combatants.…”

“…These factors, taken from the literature on civil wars and specified based on the literature on Donbas conflict, are as follows: Economic incentives : expectations for economic gain or loss from participation and nonparticipation in the conflict related to an individual's economic status before the conflict. Ideological affinity : commitment to a particular ideology or a set of proto‐political beliefs and the role of these beliefs in the framing of conflict events. Following Kudelia and van Zyl (2019), who claim that in cases of the mobilization of local populations, local identity functions like ideology, we also include local identity here. Social networks : consistency of views and attitudes toward the conflict with family members and friends; peer pressure; network‐related resources that facilitate or discourage joining armed groups; connections with other combatants. Conflict dynamics : the impact of conflict events on the decision to join armed groups, including emotional reactions toward and subjective framing of these events. …”

Failing to Fight for the “Russian World”: Pre-War Social Origins of the Pro-Russian Secessionist Organizations in Ukraine

“…Covert deployment of Russian forces in a hybrid warfare does not exclude that there also was local initiative for rebellion. Domestic actors are mixed with both direct and indirect Russian military intervention (Kudelia and Van Zyl 2019, 802; Katchanovski 2016).…”

Renaming and Reclaiming Urban Spaces in Ukraine: The Perspective of Internally Displaced People

“…At the same time, the processes of rewriting the national biography in Ukraine are multifaceted, thus making it barely possible to distinguish between the causes and consequences of a certain phenomenon. Hence, recent research shows that “Ukraine has become more Ukrainian” over the past few years, as Ukrainian identity tends to prevail over the local and regional ones among the research participants (Arel 2018; D’Anieri and Kuzio 2019; Sasse and Lackner 2018; Mitchnik 2019; Kudelia and van Zyl 2019). However, it would be mere speculation to claim a particular reason for such “Ukrainization” of the nation, as the construction of a new national-patriotic narrative overlapped with the political upheaval and the external armed aggression.…”