Scholars comment on the 15th anniversary of Ukraine's independence

It has been 15 years since Ukraine declared its independence on August 24, 1991. In that time, Ukraine has followed a difficult path along the road of its democratic evolution. There have been setbacks as well as accomplishments for the nascent country.

The Orange Revolution of 2004 echoed a popular desire for change and, to a large degree, the people's commitment to democratic ideals. However, two years after the revolution, the government appears unable to live up to those high standards.

If anything can been learned from events in Ukraine over the past 15 years, it is that predicting its evolution as a democracy is no easy task. What lies ahead in the next 15 years for Ukraine? It is with exactly this in mind that The Ukrainian Weekly recently questioned Ukrainian scholars and experts.

What follows is the first of a two-part series in which scholars evaluated just how far Ukraine has come on issues of Ukraine's integration with Europe, its development of national identity, and the most recent developments in the government and Verkhovna Rada.

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Prof. Paul D'Anieri is the associate dean at the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Kansas. He is also an associate professor in the university's department of political science.

EUROPEAN INTEGRATION

Given Ukraine's past statements on joining European institutions, and since then its lack of movement in that direction, is there a future for Ukraine in Europe? Can Ukraine be taken seriously by Western European institutions? What steps must Ukraine take to be accepted by these institutions? What progress has been made?

There is a future for Ukraine in Europe, but only if Ukraine chooses that future, and makes the tough decisions needed to grasp that future. EU [European Union] membership is a distant possibility at best. But Ukraine can become a member of Europe in the broader sense by adopting the economic and political norms that are now taken for granted in Europe. Adopting much of the aquis comminautaire [the entire body of European laws] would be hugely beneficial to Ukraine whether it led to EU membership or not. Ukraine will be taken seriously by Western institutions only when Ukraine itself makes an irrevocable commitment.

Clearly, much of Europe is more skeptical about Ukraine's "Europeanness" than that of other countries, and, therefore, has not made the kind of promises to Ukraine that it made to others. Ukraine needs to stop complaining about this, and instead commit itself to going the extra mile. Not much progress has been made. After the Orange Revolution, Europe was ready to be won over by Ukraine, but that opportunity has been thoroughly squandered.

NATIONAL IDENTITY

The language issue: How important is it for Ukraine to find consensus on the issue of a national language? The use of language - Ukrainian versus Russian, whether in schools, textbooks, the government, etc. - has been and surely will continue to be a hot topic in Ukraine. Is resolving this issue critical for Ukraine? Can Ukraine develop a strong national identity while, at the same time, maintaining both the Russian and Ukrainian languages?

Ukraine does not need a consensus on national language, if by consensus we mean agreement on a single predominant language. Rather, it needs a consensus that tolerance of multiple languages and ethnicities is acceptable as long as there is commitment to the territorial integrity of the state.

I don't think that government policies intended to substantially change language use are likely to proceed. The tsars and then the Soviets used measures to suppress Ukrainian that were much more brutal than today's government will use to suppress Russian - and yet Ukrainian survived. My impression is that Ukrainianization programs have tended to backfire by increasing people's desire to continue using Russian.

Many countries have developed strong national identities with multiple languages, and while the challenges are not trivial, it appears that such a development is possible in Ukraine. Indeed, I would contend that a lot of progress has been made since 1991. The country is still regionally divided (as is the U.S.) but people across regions clearly view themselves as Ukrainians.

GOVERNMENT

It has been said that the people of former Soviet republics - Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, for example - would be best suited and governed by an authoritarian ruler. Considering that democrats and reformers, such as Viktor Yushchenko, have been unable to move Ukraine forward, while more revolutionary figures, such as Yulia Tymoshenko, have captured people's attention, but have also been unable to make political progress, can the current presidential-parliamentary system work in Ukraine? Or are events in the Rada over the past five months indicative of what lies ahead for Ukraine over the next 15 years?

I have real concerns about the constitutional arrangements agreed to in 2004, and I have expressed these long before the most recent crisis. One problem is that the executive is almost bound to be divided by conflict between president and prime minister. A second problem is that the basis for a strong united Parliament is still very shaky. The system is likely to function only when president and Parliament are controlled by the same party. But I don't see anything in recent events to indicate that democracy cannot succeed in Ukraine. Ukraine needs more democracy, not less.

THE MOST RECENT POLITICAL EVENTS

What does it mean for Ukraine to have Viktor Yanukovych as prime minister? What does this bode for Ukraine's domestic and foreign policies? What does Yanukovych's return to the position of prime minister mean to the political futures of Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko?

I don't know anyone outside of Ukraine who is enthusiastic about Yanukovych as prime minister. But it's too early to know what will result from his prime ministership. As PM, he and the coalition he leads will have to try to work with a president from an opposing party. Yanukovych will either have to make some compromises with Yushchenko, or fight a long series of battles with him. This might well result in stalemate, which is not what Ukraine needs, but that is not the same as Yanukovych being in total control, either.

Some have speculated that in certain areas of domestic economics and free trade, the Party of the Regions might promote liberalization. Similarly, we tend to assume that this coalition will be pro-Russian, but it's not clear exactly what their interests are in this area. The Party of the Regions voted unanimously for a bill on NATO exercises in Ukraine. If this new coalition can consistently pass legislation, it will be a major advance for Ukraine. The fear, of course, is that the Party of the Regions will use its influence to undermine the democratic progress that allowed its resurgence in 2006. This is a real possibility, especially if pro-democracy forces continue to be divided and inept.

The events of the past month seem to have buried Yushchenko politically - but, of course, Yanukovych himself seemed buried 18 months ago. Rarely has anyone squandered political capital as quickly as Yushchenko has.

Tymoshenko now may be in a position to unite the orange forces under her leadership. By leading the opposition, she may be able to put herself in a favorable position for a future election. The current problems in Ukraine are not due to a lack of democracy, or even to malicious forces, but rather to the divisiveness of the reform movement.

Marta Dyczok is associate professor at the departments of history and political science at the University of Western Ontario and fellow at the Center of European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at the University of Toronto. She is the author of two books, "The Grand Alliance and Ukrainian Refugees" and "Ukraine: Change Without Movement, Movement Without Change," and numerous articles. In 1991-1996 she lived in Ukraine working as a journalist and university lecturer, and returned in 2004 for her sabbatical, serving as an OSCE election observer and living through the Orange Revolution. Currently she is working on a book on mass media in contemporary Ukraine.

EUROPEAN INTEGRATION

I would re-phrase the question, "Is there a future for Ukraine in Europe?" since Ukraine is in Europe geographically, historically, in terms of culture, religion. The issue facing Ukraine's political and economic elites is how to integrate with institutions created by European Union members over the last few decades. Here I think the central issue is that relations between the EU and Ukraine have been largely declarative for the past 15 years, with both sides making polite statements but without much substance.

The EU has never really held out prospects for membership to Ukraine the way it did, for example, to Hungary and, in response, Ukraine has never seriously begun taking the necessary steps to meet the criteria in the acquis communautaire. There is a lot of public support for EU membership in Ukraine, but without any clear signals from Brussels. Ukraine's elites have not bothered to take the difficult steps towards integration.

This may change now that the EU has accepted formerly Communist countries into its midst, since the new EU states are much more interested in Ukraine than are the founding EU members. It was Poland and Lithuania that pushed the EU to mediate in Ukraine during the Orange Revolution, not France or Germany. If the hesitation over further enlargement can be overcome within the EU, the new configuration of membership might create the conditions for a more substantive dialogue.

NATIONAL IDENTITY

Ukraine's leaders have been very good at maintaining stability in a diverse society going through fundamental transformations over the past 15 years. What they have been less good at is forging a political identity which would unify all people living in Ukraine. Instead of building a democratic and political system where all citizens are equal before the law and rights are respected, a country where civic participation is encouraged and the decision-making process transparent, Ukraine's leaders created a corrupt oligarchic system where most Ukrainians feel alienated, even ashamed of their country. Some analysts have suggested that this was done deliberately, to keep society fragmented, divided and thus easier to control.

Within this context, the complex language issue is easily manipulated by cynical politicians. How can one know what [Leonid] Kuchma's views on the language question really are? He said one thing before being elected in 1994, and then did another. What does Yevhen Kushnariov really believe? He led the separatists in Severo-Donetsk during the Orange Revolution, yet a year and a half later began declaring that the only state language in Ukraine should be Ukrainian.

Politicians in all countries are cynical and manipulative, and former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien has gone down in history for saying, "only naïve people believe election promises." In some ways Ukrainian politicians are just behaving like politicians when they play the language card once again. Having traveled through most regions of Ukraine over the last 15 years, my very strong impression is that the language issue is much less divisive than these periods of tension would suggest.

GOVERNMENT

I'm afraid I would not agree that former Soviet citizens are more interested in authoritarian rulers - after all, not so long ago Ukrainians caught the world's attention by standing up against an authoritarian power grab during a presidential election. I would also question the rationale of using the countries which emerged from the USSR as a useful comparative framework. Estonia is very different from Uzbekistan, Ukraine is very different from Russia. They all share the Soviet legacy, but each has a different pre-Soviet history, and rather diverse political cultures.

For example, in Russia political technologists Gleb Pavlovskyi and Marat Gelman have been successful in shaping public opinion to elect certain candidates, such as [Vladimir] Putin in 2000, while in Ukraine the very same spin doctors have failed in two consecutive elections. By 2006 Ukrainian politicians turned to American PR companies.

It also seems an exaggeration to counter-pose Yushchenko the democrat with Tymoshenko the revolutionary - they both have democratic credentials and rather checkered pasts. Let's not forget which position Yushchenko held during the "Ukraine Without Kuchma" protests in 2000-2001.

I don't feel that the presidential-parliamentary system is inherently unstable. Rather, the difficulties in forming a stable parliamentary coalition in 2006 are the consequence of the divisiveness of the 2004 presidential election, and the failure of the Yushchenko team to reach out to the Yanukovych voters and re-unite the country after the dramatic events of the Orange Revolution.

Roman Solchanyk, Ph.D., is a former senior research analyst at the RAND Corp., where he worked as specialist on Ukraine and post-Soviet security issues. His new book, titled "The New Eastern Europe: Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova," will be published early next year.

EUROPEAN INTEGRATION

With regard to the first question, well I would think that there should be a European future for Ukraine. Whether there will be in our lifetime, or in my lifetime, is really quite questionable. I think the main problem is the attitude of what used to be known as Western Europe, the West European countries. Not only is it a question of so-called enlargement fatigue on the part of the European Union.

I think that there is a subjective element in all of this. Namely, that, obviously with the exception of the Baltic states and certainly Poland, I think there is a very strong, subjective trend in Europe today against the former Soviet republics, including Ukraine. I am convinced that the leadership of "old Europe" really views the former Soviet states as somehow illegitimate to the extent that they are not Europeans, that they have been perverted in some sense by the Soviet experience.

Ukraine should pursue the kind of legislation that would bring it nearer to European standards. And, obviously, they've got a long, long road ahead. On the one hand, yes, Ukraine should pursue those objectives, but maybe more important than the objective of adoption of a law that corresponds to European standards is to somehow overcome that discriminatory attitude against Ukraine in Western Europe.

NATIONAL IDENTITY

The language issue from my standpoint is a very complex and strange issue. On the one hand, if you look at public opinion polls in Ukraine you will learn that for a majority of people language issues are not important. They routinely fall at the bottom of a scale of things that are of concern to Ukrainians, and by Ukrainians I mean people living in Ukraine regardless of nationality. The problem with the language issue in Ukraine is that it has been highly politicized.

I don't think there is an easy solution to the language problem. It is not a question of passing a law. In fact, we already have a law that was adopted in 1989, but it has never really been enforced. There is a fissure, or rupture, in society that overlaps with regional attitudes, and there is a rather high correlation between language and those fissures. But a law, a better law, a more wide-ranging law, on language is not going to solve that problem. The problem has, unfortunately, been politicized.

I think, to some extent, we here in the diaspora put too much credence, too much importance on the language question, which does not correspond to the situation on the ground in Ukraine.

GOVERNMENT

I think that the idea that certain societies are more governable with a strong hand is extremely subjective. I think that the real problem is the continuing lack of development of normal state institutions in Ukraine. A concrete example is developing right now. There were amendments that were adopted to the existing Constitution - adopted in December 2004 - as a way of reaching compromise during the presidential elections. But there is complete disagreement among some political forces about what these amendments actually mean.

So, in spite of the fact that you have a Constitution, in spite of the fact that you have various laws, and so on, what you also have is a struggle between the executive branch versus the legislative branch, and that's played out in what we're seeing right now. It's an ongoing story in Ukraine about how institutions have not been optimized to the point where everyone agrees that, yes, this is what the president does, this is what Parliament does and this is what the judicial branch does.

THE MOST RECENT POLITICAL EVENTS

In some sense that's sort of speculative. If you remember, during the presidential campaign in 2004, the programs of Yushchenko and Yanukovych quite often overlapped to some extent. It was only toward the very end - right on the eve of the election - that Yanukovych suddenly introduced these sensitive issues of language and dual citizenship, very divisive planks in his platform.

So, on the one hand, I think there would be general agreement here in the West that Mr. Yanukovych is an odious figure, and not only because of his prior convictions and felonious behavior, so to speak. But what's interesting to me when one talks about Mr. Yanukovych is that he actually represents a large segment of Ukrainian public opinion, attitudes, beliefs and so on. I think it has often been neglected that he in fact did gain 44 percent of the vote in the repeat election. That is a considerable figure.

A second point that needs to be made is how the so-called Orange Revolution actually mobilized Yanukovych's supporters. It mobilized them in the sense that the events of November-December 2004 also consolidated - and this is obviously an ongoing process - that segment of Ukrainian society that shares Mr. Yanukovych's views.

And as far as the most recent developments are concerned - that is, the confirmation of Mr. Yanukovych as prime minister - observers and analysts appear to be seriously split as to whether this is "good' or "bad" for Ukraine. Clearly, we will have to wait and see how things play out. Personally, I have serious doubts that a document called the "Universal of National Unity" will produce the desired results. The driving force behind politics in Ukraine is power and money, which go together, not lofty ideals.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, August 13, 2006, No. 33, Vol. LXXIV

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