State building and European integration in Ukraine

ABSTRACT

The article analyzes the impact on statebuilding as an aspect of Ukraine’s integration with the EU. The Euromaidan had a profound, yet hardly recognized, effect on EU-Ukraine relations, particularly in terms of the EU’s subsequent support of domestic reforms in Ukraine. Following the Euromaidan, the EU supported Ukraine’s aspirations to enter “economic integration and political association” by concluding an Association Agreement – an agreement which exceeded the capacity of the Ukrainian state to implement it. To increase this capacity, the EU has supported reform of public administration and has provided far-reaching assistance on capacity building in the government. This article posits that since 2014 European integration has become tantamount with (re)building the state structures in Ukraine. Therefore, the significance of European integration for Ukraine goes beyond the implementation of the Association Agreement and extends to root-and-branch reform of Ukrainian state structures.     

Ukraine’s national integration before and after 2014. Shifting ‘East–West’ polarization line and strengthening political community

ABSTRACT

This article addresses the question of Ukraine’s societal polarization along the East-West line and the state of cohesion and endurance of its political community. In both political and academic discourses, Ukraine is often characterized as a country split between Western and Eastern regional and societal parts belonging to some wider geopolitical and cultural entities. Moreover, the recent upheavals in the life of the country – Euromaidan Revolution, illegal annexation of Crimea and Russian-Ukrainian war in Donbas – have actualized the allegations about Ukraine as a feeble state structure on the brink of disintegration and collapse. The findings in this study challenge both of these claims and it is argued that Ukraine is not a deeply divided or failed state. In practice, the East-West political polarization line is not clearly defined, but to the extent that it does surface in the political and electoral contests, this line has been moving from west to east since the early 1990s. The shifting of the polarization line implies that political and cultural identities in Ukraine are not fixed and, at the same time, reflects a strengthening cohesion of Ukraine’s political and cultural space. These findings are confirmed by the improved and ever-increasing convergence of Ukrainian society following the Euromaidan and Russian military aggression.