Don Juan: A Universal Theme in Ukrainian Drama

This article uses the University of Calgary Gorbachev Foundation Public Policy Project (UCGF99) as a case study for exploring the challenges of international participation in promoting reform of the content and context of public policy in postcommunist Russia. Drawing on evidence from a series of interviews with Russian and Canadian participants, it focuses on how cultural and power issues played out in UCGF99’s work. Because public policy stands at the juncture between state and society, public policy reform is an ideal rubric for exploring how values accompany aid and the way that the culture of the receiving society shapes the implementation of that aid. The interviews reveal an inherent tension between the ideal of egalitarian co-operation and the reality that the work done by the partnership was dedicated, ultimately, to the “reform” of one side by the other. They also highlight the extent to which reform is a process of translation: as concepts and international models make the transition to another society, their own cultural specificity becomes apparent, as does the challenge of translating them in a manner meaningful to the society undergoing “transition.” This article focuses on two related questions of translation: how issues of language, culture and power played out in the “consultant” structure of UCGF99 partnerships, and the concrete challenges of transforming Russian political culture using Canadian models.     

Elites and popular nationalism

Much current theory concerning nationalism holds that elites commonly create or cause popular nationalism. In part, that thesis may be due to an overwhelming emphasis in research on nationalism on positive cases: cases where nationalism has appeared, ignoring cases where it has not. In this article, I challenge the thesis by showing numerous historical cases in which elites have promoted nationalisms that ordinary people have not adopted, or in which ordinary people have adopted a nationalism before it was taken up by elites. Even if elites do not create popular nationalism, however, they can and do shape its expression in a variety of ways, such as organizing it, providing relevant information, or providing opportunity or incentive for it. I show this through historical examples.     

Demographic changes and nationalism

This article examines the different characteristics of the many peoples inhabiting what used to be the Soviet Union and communist Eastern Europe, including Yugoslavia. The differences among these nationalities, or ethnic groups, are illustrated using the example of demographic modernization, showing how different peoples have or have not passed through the demographic transition process. The author looks at ethnic differences in mortality, fertility, natural increase, and migration, as well as economic and social inequalities among ethnic groups. The prospects for inter-ethnic conflict are assessed.     

A Burkean analysis of China Is Not Happy: a rhetoric of nationalism

As a sequel to China Can Say No, China Is Not Happy is the bestseller of 2009 in China. The book praises China's post-80s generation for their act of patriotism, condemns the West, in general, and the United States, in particular, for exploiting the Chinese and for causing a global economic crisis. It also criticizes the Chinese liberal elite and overseas returnees for being Western-influenced mental slaves and traitors. The authors of the book call for an abandonment of “literary tone”, advocate a tough stand against Western countries, and envision China as the leader of the world through its economic and military power. This paper examines the major themes and belligerent rhetoric employed in the book through an application of Kenneth Burke's rhetorical concepts of identification, terministic screens, and representative anecdotes. The author of this paper contends that such use of rhetoric demonstrates the language habit of China's political discourse in its modern history, escalates blind nationalism, and widens the gap in intercultural understanding between China and the US.     

Castells' Catalan routes: nationalism and the sociology of identity

Castells' analysis of the rise of a global network society and information age is underpinned, paradoxically, by a nationalist vision with organic links in a Gramscian sense to Catalan nationalism. This leads to various weaknesses in his theory, especially an over-emphasis on language and nation at the expense of class. Exploring the specifically Catalan origins of his work, and testing its adequacy there, helps us to understand Castells' broader approach. Discussion of Castells has perhaps overlooked his commitment to nationalism because the sociology of identity sometimes unwittingly adopts what Billig has called a banal nationalist perspective. A stricter distinction between the different meanings of the term identity would help sociology to avoid arguments, such as that of Castells, that risk becoming determinist, teleological or both. The article concludes by asking whether the 'sociological imagination' has been alert enough to its banal nationalist form, facilitated by its intimate relationship with the state, its concern for policy relevance and methods of data gathering.     

Ukrainian Euromaidan protest: Dynamics,causes, and aftermath

In 2013–2014, Ukraine experienced an extraordinary episode of contentious politics, later called Maidan, Euromaidan, or the Revolution of Dignity. It was triggered by the government's refusal to sign the Association Agreement with the European Union, and grew into a nation‐wide social movement that demanded respect for human rights, a change of the political regime, and an end to endemic corruption. Protesters both in the capital and in the regions demanded deeper democracy and justice over the perceived harmful actions of the government. Following the unprecedented use of violence, leaving nearly a hundred dead, Euromaidan resulted in a change in the political regime, a return to pro‐European foreign policy, and an Antimaidan counter‐movement. Reacting to Kyiv events, Russia annexed Ukrainian Crimea and fueled a military conflict in eastern Ukraine. This article presents a short history of Euromaidan and a survey of the growing literature that has examined its conditions, dynamics, and outcomes.     

A visibility analysis of the scientific production of Ukrainian economists: 1969-94

Despite the prestigious contributions of Ukrainian economists in the past, most particularly with Mikhaı̈l Tuhan-Baranovsky and even more so with Eugen Slutsky, there is no single indication of the scientific production of contemporary economists either in Ukraine or in the Diaspora. This study attempts to fill that gap by using the 1969-3/1995 EconLit data-base to establish the visibility of all identified economists with Ukrainian descent active in academic, governmental or private areas. The members of the Editorial Board and the Advisory Board of the Ukrainian Economic Review were also examined in order to provide reference to a benchmark group. The method of analysis applied the usual norms of measurement, taking into account the co-authorship factor to adjust for effective productivity in refereed journals.     

Self,other and world: Discourses of nationalism and cosmopolitanism 1

Abstract

Cosmopolitanism has been understood as a postnational identity. This conflates the distinction between nation and nationalism. Most accounts of cosmopolitanism emphasise its legal form (e.g. Habermas’ constitutional patriotism) or its cultural dimension (transnational communities) or its political (e.g. democratic cosmopolitanism). This paper argues for a civic dimension to cosmopolitanism, conceived of in terms of discourses of self, other and world. This is tied to a notion of nations without nationalism.     

Beyond Petliura: the Ukrainian national movement and the 1919 pogroms

On the basis of largely unused archival materials in Kyiv, this article re-examines the responsibility of the Ukrainian People’s Republic (UNR) for the pogroms of 1919. It consciously puts aside the question of Symon Petliura’s personal guilt, preferring to concentrate on the broader responsibility of members of the Ukrainian national movement for propagating antisemitic stereotypes and engaging in anti-Jewish violence. This approach reveals a widely held belief among members of the UNR that they were fighting a Jewish Bolshevik enemy. This led to pogroms but also probably prevented the UNR from punishing its soldiers who had perpetrated them. Despite the declarations by UNR figures condemning pogroms and the creation of an organ to investigate them, there were apparently very few, if any, convictions, at least in 1919, the year of the worst pogroms.