Influential allies and grassroots movement mobilization: Ukraine’s Maidan, 2013–2014

Abstract

Political allies, for example, parties, politicians, and civil society organizations, could be influential in grassroots mobilization. Yet, there are few empirical observations of whether and how these influential allies perform this role. I empirically examine the relationship between the influential allies and activists in Ukraine’s Maidan. I focus on mobilizing structures at the local level, that is, ‘local Maidans’, that arose in 2013–2014. In this mixed-methods study, I combine administrative and protest event data to generalize across cases, and I use interviews with activists, party members, and knowledgeable observers in Ukraine’s localities for conceptual and theoretical insights. The influential allies at the local level assisted in the mobilization of local Maidans across Ukraine. The presence of civil society organizations and opposition parties in localities, as well as interventions of local politicians created favorable conditions for mobilization, regardless of other factors such as the level of economic development.