Political party development in divided societies: the case of Ukraine

Vicki L. Hesli, University of Iowa
William M. Reisinger
Arthur H. Miller

Abstract

Theoretically, we are interested in how party development progresses in newly "democratic" polities. We have selected Ukraine as our case for empirical analysis. The research reported in this article is funded by the National Science Foundation and is based on 1995 and 1997 public opinion polls. The data reveal that voting decisions can be reasonably well predicted given knowledge of each individual citizen's regional place of residence, language use and national identification. Understanding party support in divided societies, however, is not so simple as would be implied in such a straightforward socio-demographic analysis. The most salient independent effect on vote choice in Ukraine is orientation toward the Russian Question, along with the effect of language and pocketbook evaluations. Therefore, we conclude that in addition to the effects of the electoral system, the influence of an expected international confrontation (with Russia) is influencing the emerging party system in Ukraine.