During the “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine, the second
largest country in Europe came close to a violent break-up similar to that in
neighboring Moldova, which witnessed a violent secession of the Transdniestria
region. Numerous elections, including the hotly contested 2004 presidential
elections in Ukraine, and surveys of public opinion showed significant regional
divisions in these post-Soviet countries. Western parts of Ukraine and Moldova,
as well as the Muslim Crimean Tatars, were vocal supporters of independence,
nationalist, and pro-Western parties and politicians. In contrast, Eastern
regions, as well as the Orthodox Turkic-speaking Gagauz, consistently expressed
pro-Russian and pro-Communist political orientations. Which factors –
historical legacies, religion, economy, ethnicity, or political leadership – could
explain these divisions? Why was Ukraine able to avoid a violent break-up, in
contrast to Moldova?
This is the first book to offer
a systematic and comparative analysis of the regional political divisions in
post-Soviet Ukraine and Moldova. The study examines voting behavior and
political attitudes in two groups of regions: those which were under Russian,
Ottoman, and Soviet rule; and those which were under Austro-Hungarian, Polish,
Romanian, and Czechoslovak rule until World War I or World War II. This book
attributes the regional political divisions to the differences in historical
experience. This study helps us to better understand regional cleavages and
conflicts, not only in Ukraine and Moldova, but also in other cleft countries.
The author:
Ivan Katchanovski is a
Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Political Science at the University
of Toronto. He received his Ph.D. from the School of Public Policy at George
Mason University, Arlington/Fairfax, VA, and is co-author of Paradox of
American Unionism: Why Americans Like Unions More Than Canadians Do, but Join
Much Less (Cornell University Press, 2004). His articles have appeared in Europe-Asia
Studies, International Journal of Public Administration, Journal
of Labor Research, Journal of Public Policy, and Obshchestvennye
nauki i sovremennost’.
The foreword author:
Dr. Francis Fukuyama is Professor of International Political Economy at the
Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins
University, Washington, DC.