Separatism

This paper analyzes changes in regional electoral behavior and attitudes towards separatism and foreign policy orientation in Ukraine after the “Orange Revolution” and the “Euromaidan,” which turned into a violent internal conflict and one of the biggest international conflicts involving Western countries and Russia. The research question is whether the regional divisions concerning domestic politics, separatism and foreign orientation have changed significantly in Ukraine since the “Orange Revolution” in 2004 and the “Euromaidan” in 2014. This paper employs comparative and statistical analyses of voting results of the 2012, 2007, 2006, and 2002 parliamentary elections, and the 2014, 2010, and 2004 presidential elections, to examine effects of historical legacies, ethnicity, language, age, and economic factors on regional support for pro-nationalist/pro-Western and pro-Russian/pro-communist political parties and presidential candidates. The study also analyses support for separatism in Crimea and Donbas after the “Orange Revolution” and the “Euromaidan.” It uses a brief survey, conducted for this study by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) in April and May 2014, to examine determinants of pro-separatist attitudes. The paper also employs Razumkov Center and KIIS surveys to analyze changes in 2002-2014 in regional preferences for joining the European Union (EU), NATO, and a union with Russia. The analysis shows that Ukraine after the “Orange Revolution” remained divided along regional lines in terms of support for political parties and presidential candidates and attitudes towards joining the EU, NATO, and a Russia-led union. After the “Euromaidan,” such divisions in foreign policy orientation and, to a lesser extent, support for presidential candidates and political parties remained. A significant rise in separatist sentiments helped to fuel separatist takeovers of power in Crimea and Donbas and Russian military intervention in these regions.

Analysis of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) response to separatist movements demonstrates that their reaction varies from violent repression - as in the case of Xinjiang – to cooperation and support – as in the case of Taiwan. Somewhere in between is the reserved response afforded to Tibet, that the CCP refuses to negotiate with at all. Throughout this paper I will examine each separatist movement in detail; the history, actions of separatists and the CCP’s response, and argue that although the government asserts a blanket ‘no separatism’ policy, its response to each incident reflects the value of the region to China. I propose that if affording a region with independence was the most cost effective method of dealing with the conflict, China would surely promote it.

In 2010, Myanmar (Burma) held its first elections after 22 years of direct military rule. Few compelling explanations for this regime transition have emerged. This article critiques popular accounts and potential explanations generated by theories of authoritarian “regime breakdown” and “regime maintenance”. It returns instead to the classical literature on military intervention and withdrawal. Military regimes, when not terminated by internal factionalism or external unrest, typically liberalise once they feel they have sufficiently addressed the crises that prompted their seizure of power. This was the case in Myanmar. The military intervened for fear that political unrest and ethnic-minority separatist insurgencies would destroy Myanmar’s always-fragile territorial integrity and sovereignty. Far from suddenly liberalising in 2010, the regime sought to create a “disciplined democracy” to safeguard its preferred social and political order twice before, but was thwarted by societal opposition. Its success in 2010 stemmed from a strategy of coercive state-building and economic incorporation via “ceasefire capitalism”, which weakened and co-opted much of the opposition. Having altered the balance of forces in its favour, the regime felt sufficiently confident to impose its preferred settlement. However, the transition neither reflected total “victory” for the military nor secured a genuine or lasting peace.

This is the media article Dr Calzada wrote for BERRIA newspaper in Basque after two weeks of field work research interviewing, politicians, academics and activists on the #Indyref between Edinburgh and Glasgow from 11th to 22th August 2014.

How do normative principles and empirical research inform standards for the constitutional design of secession procedures? The problem is particularly thorny since contemporary cases of secession always involve conflicts in which some rights-holders find their legitimate interests frustrated. Beginning with a set of widely shared normative assumptions and current empirical findings, this paper argues in favor of a plebiscitary, constitutional provision permitting secession under certain qualifications and circumstances, which are spelled out and defended. It argues that existing moral theories of secession converge on this institutional solution once the relevant empirical evidence is considered.

The 2014 annexation of Crimea by Russia and the subsequent Russia-backed unrest in Donbas resonate with the events around the so-called "German mediatization" of the early 1800s. Russia is playing with sovereignity, at once de-mediatizing Ukrainian regions (endowing them with more independence) and mediatizing them (stripping them of their newly found sovereignty within Russia). This curiously coincides with the mediatization of the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian conflict in the sense adopted in media and communication studies.

The results of the 2010 federal elections in Belgium show a growing divide between the French-speaking south (Wallonia) and the Dutch-speaking north (Flanders) of the country. In the north, the Flemish nationalist party New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) achieved a landslide victory with its campaign for complete political autonomy for Flanders. Never in the history of Belgium has Flemish nationalism been politically stronger than today. A secession of Flanders from Belgium is no longer considered an unimaginable scenario. The N-VA has its roots in the “Flemish Movement,” a collective term for a plurality of people and organizations that have pushed for greater Flemish autonomy since Belgium achieved independence in 1830. This article presents an analysis of this movement, its ideology, goals, achievements and relevance to the current political crisis.

The recent political crisis in Ukraine in late November 2013 – February 2014 attracted the attention of the world community and became known as the Euromaidan. After the ousted president Yanukovych fled to Russia in late February 2014, Russia immediately intervened into Ukraine by annexing the Crimea and fueling separatism and unrest in South-Eastern Ukraine which was renamed in official Russian propaganda as “New Russia”. These claims to “return” the Crimea and “New Russia” to Russia along with financial, media and military support of the pro-Russian secessionists led to the anti-Ukrainian insurgency in the Donbass in spring-summer 2014.
Donbass is still terra incognita for many Ukrainians and the broader international community. The main aim of this lecture is to show how regional identity emerged and developed in the Donbass during last 150 years, and why identity of the residents of the region is still different from identity of Ukrainians in Central and Western regions. It addresses such crucially important characteristics as roots, culture, the concept of the Donbass character and the role of mass media in shaping public opinion. This regional diversity could be explained as result of different models of identity building, based on different socio-economic structure and its perception, different perception of imperial and Soviet past, and different myths of “golden age”. This lecture considers these stereotypes, the history of their development, and their influence on the electoral campaigns in 2004 and later. The lecture examines how the misperception of the Orange Revolution of 2004 in South-Eastern Ukraine influenced the events of 2014 in the Donbass.
The main aim of this lecture is to answer three major questions:
1. What reasons caused political crises of 2004 and 2013-2014 and could cause such crises in the future?
2. Why residents of South-Eastern Ukraine – recently identified by Russian president as Novorossiya (“New Russia”) – are dramatically divided in their perception of current crisis, new government, and Russia’s intervention in Ukrainian politics?
3. Why secessionist insurgency happens in Donbass? Who are the insurgents? Why they receive support from many locals there? Who are the figures behind the scene?
Special attention will be given to national, supranational and regional identities in contemporary Ukraine and their uses in politics by local elites and official Russia’s propaganda.

This article examines the perceived interdependence of territorial rights and social identity in colonial Kenya. In the early 1960s, attempts to win full autonomy for a narrow strip of Indian Ocean coastline – the Protectorate of Kenya – encouraged an exclusivist discourse of autochthony. To establish their historical ownership of the coast, both political thinkers who supported and decried coastal separatism emphasized the correlation of race, ethnicity, religion, and physical space. Through competing claims to ‘the soil’, all parties articulated a dually integrative and divisive language of citizenship. As a result, autochthony discourse exacerbated tensions within coastal society, fortified divergent visions of the postcolonial nation, and highlighted reductive definitions of the coast as either maritime or continental in orientation.

A representative survey, which was conducted by Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KMIS) in all regions with the exception of Crimea as a part of its Omnibus survey from April 29 till May 11, 2014 for my academic study on political regionalism in Ukraine, provides the latest and exclusive data on separatism in the one of the largest European countries in the midst of both a major internal conflict and the biggest post-Cold War conflict between the West and Russia. The survey shows that only the minority of residents of Ukraine (14%) support different forms of separatism, while the majority (53%) favors preserving the current status of their region within unitary Ukraine but with expanded powers. The survey results confirm that the majority of residents of Donbas now back different forms of separatism (54% overall and 61% excluding undecided). There is also significant but varying levels of support for separatism in three neighboring Eastern regions (15%) and in the South (10%). In all other major historical and geographic regions of Ukraine, separatist feelings are marginal or not detectable by the national poll. Specifically, the survey confirms that Rusyn separatism in Transcarpathia lacks significant public support, but the number of the respondents there was insufficient to determine the level of separatist attitudes among its Hungarian minority. This poll shows that the separatist attitudes do not necessarily mean preference for outright secession from Ukraine and formation of independent state or joining another state, which basically means Russia. Autonomy as a part of federal Ukraine is preferred by many separatists, including in Donbas. But regional autonomy with introduction of a federal system of government has currently no visible support in Western Ukraine and it has a marginal support in the Center. Minorities of the respondents in all regions back preserving the current status of their region with existing powers in unitary Ukraine. Preserving current status of their regions within unitary Ukraine but with expanded powers has a majority support in all regions, with the exception of Donbas.
     
The survey also indicates that the presidential elections scheduled for May 25 are unlikely to resolve the lack of the central government legitimacy in Donbas. Some 70% of the respondents in this region say that they either would not go to vote or do not know/unsure which candidate to support. Just 5% residents of Donetsk and Luhansk Regions express the intention to vote for Petro Poroshenko, an oligarch who previously switched his allegiances between the Party of Regions and pro-Western nationalist parties. He currently leads the presidential race with 33% of the national support, which puts him far ahead of other candidates. 

The survey results show that views expressed by the Russian government and media concerning widespread popular support for separatism in all Eastern and Southern Ukraine are unfounded. Crimea and Donbas are not representative of the entire South-East, because they have the much larger ethnic Russian populations and history of separatism. Overall, ethnic Russians in Ukraine are split on the issue of separatism. Similar percentages of ethnic Russians and people with mixed Russian and Ukrainian descent support preservation of the current unitary system (40%), mostly with expanded powers and different separatist options (44%), including joining Russia (18%). In contrast, only 24% of Russian speakers, who include many ethnic Ukrainians, favor secession from Ukraine or regional autonomy in federal Ukraine. 

However, the survey also confirms that the representation of separatism in Donbas by the Ukrainian and the Western governments and the media as small groups of armed Russian agents and local “terrorists,” who lack popular backing in this region, and therefore can be defeated by force is mistaken. In this case, crucial policy decisions in Ukraine, the US, Canada, the EU countries, and Russia are based on misunderstanding or lack of understanding of the regional Ukrainian politics and public preferences. An autonomous Donbas in a unitary state could be a model acceptable by people in different regions. The experience with similar models adopted in  Gagauzia in Moldova and in Crimea in the beginning of the 1990s suggests that this compromise solution might work, even though it cannot guarantee preserving country’s unity in the long run.
 
The survey also shows that during the current conflict, like in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the “Orange Revolution,” it is incorrect to view public opinion in Ukraine concerning separatism as static. This poll, which indicates significant rise in separatist attitudes, was held from April 29 till May 11, 2014 in the midst of the mass burning of pro-Russian separatists in Odessa by the Right Sector and football ultras, the killings of pro-Russian protesters in Mariupol and Krasnoarmisk by special government battalions organized with participation of this far right organization, and unrecognized referendums supporting self-proclaimed republics in the Donetsk and Luhansk Regions. And last but not least, it demonstrates the need for academic research of such politically controversial but crucial issues in the Ukrainian and global politics. There were political scientists specializing in Ukraine who were warning about possibilities of civil war and break-up of one of the largest European countries before and soon after the current crisis began in November of 2013.

The status of Ukrainian as the sole state language of Ukraine has been challenged by various post-Soviet political forces since it was established in 1989 and enshrined in the Constitution in 1996. Since President Viktor Yanukovych came to power in February 2010, the President and the Party of Regions have put forward several initiatives to promote the Russian language at the expense of Ukrainian as well as the minority languages of Ukraine. Paradoxically, their most important instrument has been the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. However, the Russian language in Ukraine does not meet the criteria of a regional or minority language according to the Charter nor do those politicians who struggle for the “rights of the native Russian language” in the name of Russkiy mir represent the democratic values upon which the Charter is built, as perfectly reflected by the history of the unconstitutional language law of 2012.