The Regional Factor in Contemporary Ukrainian Politics: Scale, Place, Space, or Bogus Effect?

Abstract

A U.S. political geographer, examining regional political divisions in post-independence Ukraine, argues that the debate between the school positing that regional cleavages are ebbing and that which holds that Ukraine has not yet become a political community is also fundamentally a geographic question regarding scale and place. Using two measures of political preferences, votes in the 1999 presidential runoff election and the political attitudes expressed in 1992 and 1996 Eurobarometer surveys, the regional effect in Ukraine is shown to be complicated by the nature of the political question and by local disparities from regional trends. New methods of analysis clarify these complications and challenge both schools of researchers to heed issues of measurement, technique, and geographic issues of scale. 11 figures, 4 tables, 61 references.