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Introduction: Regional Diversity, Decentralization, and Conflict in and around Ukraine Read chapter Read first chapter

2020 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

2. Regionalism in Ukraine: Historic Evolution, Regional Claim-Making, and Centre–Periphery Conflict Resolution

Author : Oksana Myshlovska

Published in: Decentralization, Regional Diversity, and Conflict

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

This chapter examines the historical constitution of the present territory of Ukraine and its administrative-territorial system, identity and regional cleavages and the evolution and dynamics of claim-making and center-periphery contention related to them in different regions, namely Transcarpathia, Crimea and Donbas, since the late 1980s. It examines different forms of accommodation of claims such as an asymmetric state structure in the case of Crimean autonomy, power devolution, free economic zones, subsidies and budget disbursements, power-sharing at the national level, and local and regional legislation on historical memory and languages. Beyond the widely acknowledged role of external intervention in the escalation of conflict in eastern Ukraine in 2014, the chapter focuses on the long-term nonviolent contention related to regional cleavages prior to the escalation of the conflict and political exclusion. The chapter shows that while there has been an increasing identification with Ukrainian citizenship and support for decentralization since 2014, important regional differences in terms of historical memories, attitudes to the Euromaidan, and the nature of the ongoing conflict remain and may be loci of vulnerability to future regional mobilizations. The effect of the ongoing reforms in decentralization and democratic governance on the resolution of center–periphery conflicts and the accommodation of regional claims remains to be seen.

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previous chapter Introduction: Regional Diversity, Decentralization, and Conflict in and around Ukraine
next chapter Navigating Ethnopolitical Disputes: Ukraine’s Constitutional Court in the Tug-of-War over Language
Footnotes
1
Donbas is a shortening from “Donetsk Coal Basin,” which encompasses parts of eastern Ukraine (partially Donetsk, Luhansk, Dnipropetrovsk, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts) and of the Rostov region in Russia. In this chapter, it is used to define Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
 
2
Another relevant region where similar processes of regional contestation and mobilization took place is Bukovyna (Kruglashov 2010–2011), however, it is not studied in the present chapter.
 
3
Left and right banks of the Dnieper, which runs roughly north–south through present-day Ukraine.
 
4
The 2014, 2015 and 2017 surveys covered only the government-controlled areas.
 
5
Euromaidan—see Chap. 1, fn 1.
 
6
“Dyke pole”—romanized version of the Ukrainian for “Wild Fields,” a historical term used in Polish–Lithuanian documents of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries.
 
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Metadata
Title
Regionalism in Ukraine: Historic Evolution, Regional Claim-Making, and Centre–Periphery Conflict Resolution
Author
Oksana Myshlovska
Copyright Year
2020
Book
Decentralization, Regional Diversity, and Conflict

Print ISBN: 978-3-030-41764-2

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-41765-9

Copyright Year: 2020

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41765-9_2