Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T14:16:31.026Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

In My Name: The Impact of Regional Identity on Civilian Attitudes in the Armed Conflict in Donbas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 November 2019

Serhiy Kudelia  and
Johanna van Zyl
Serhiy Kudelia*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Baylor University, Waco, Texas, USA
Johanna van Zyl
Affiliation:
Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas, Dallas, Texas, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines the effect of shared group membership on civilian attitudes regarding insurgent forces during an armed conflict. We rely on the original survey conducted in eight towns of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in May–June 2015. Based on the bivariate and multivariate analysis of the survey results, this article finds that a sense of shared identity with rebel forces at the start of the armed conflict in Donbas had a strong independent effect on civilian views of insurgents. Those respondents who identified themselves as residents of the region were more likely to attribute ideational motives to insurgents, report no knowledge of civilian victimization caused by rebel forces, and feel secure in their presence. By contrast, respondents identifying themselves as Ukrainian citizens were more likely to attribute material motives to insurgents, indicate their responsibility for attacks against civilians, and feel intimidated during direct encounters with rebels. These findings point to broader significance of identity cleavages in explaining the Donbas conflict.

Keywords

political violenceinsurgencyregional identityDonbasUkraine
Type
Special Issue Article
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 47 , Special Issue 5: Special Issue on the Donbas Conflict , September 2019 , pp. 801 - 821
Copyright
© Association for the Study of Nationalities 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Balcells, Laia. 2017. Rivalry and Revenge: The Politics of Violence during Civil War. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bates, Robert. 1974. “Ethnic Competition and Modernization in Contemporary Africa.” Comparative Political Studies 6 (4): 457–484.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bates, Robert. 1983. Essays on the Political Economy of Rural Africa. Berkley, CA: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barrington, Lowell, and Faranda, Regina. 2009. “Reexamining Region, Ethnicity, and Language in Ukraine.” Post-Soviet Affairs 25 (3): 232–256.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beissinger, Mark R. 2013. “The Semblance of Democratic Revolution: Coalitions in Ukraine’s Orange Revolution.” American Political Science Review 17 (3): 574–592.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bekeshkina, Iryna. 1994. “Stavlennia naselennia Skhodu i Pivdnia Ukrainy do problem nezalezhnosti, porivnial’ni otsinky sytuatsii u Rosii i v Ukraini.” Politychnyi Portret Ukrainy 9: 44–49.Google Scholar
Berman, Eli and Matanock, Aila M.. 2015. “The Empiricists’ Insurgency.” Annual Review of Political Science 18: 443–464.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bormann, Nils-Christian, Cederman, Lars-Erik, and Vogt, Manuel. 2017. “Language, Religion, and Ethnic Civil War.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 61 (4): 744–771.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Roger, and Kulik, James. 1977. “Flashbulb Memories.” Cognition 5 (1): 73–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bukkvol, Tor. 2016. “Russian Special Operations Forces in Crimea and Donbas.” Parameters 46 (2): 13–21.Google Scholar
Cederman, Lars-Erik, Gleditsch, Kristian, and Buhaug, Halvard. 2013. Inequality, Grievances, and Civil War. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chandra, Kanchan. 2012. “Attributes and Categories: A New Conceptual Vocabulary for Thinking about Ethnic Identity.” In Constructivist Theories of Ethnic Politics, edited by Chandra, Kanchan, 97–131. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chandra, Kanchan. 2012. “How Ethnic Identities Change.” In Constructivist Theories of Ethnic Politics, edited by Chandra, Kanchan, 132–178. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collier, Paul, and Hoeffler, Anke. 2004. “Greed and Grievance in Civil War.” Oxford Economic Papers 56 (4): 563–695.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cox, Gary W. 1997. Making Votes Count: Strategic Coordination in the World’s Electoral Systems. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galeotti, Mark. 2016. “Hybrid, Ambiguous, and Non-linear? How New is Russia’s ‘New Way of War’?” Small Wars & Insurgencies 27 (2): 282–301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
General’na Prokuratura Ukrainy. 2017. Rezul’taty rozsliduvannia Ilovais’koi trahedii. https://www.gp.gov.ua/ua/news.html?_m=publications&_t=rec&id=213793Google Scholar
Giuliano, Elise. 2015. “The Social Bases of Support for Self-Determination in East Ukraine.” Ethnopolitics 14 (5): 513–522.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giuliano, Elise. 2018. “Who Supported Separatism in Donbas? Ethnicity and Popular Opinion at the Start of the Ukraine Crisis.” Post-Soviet Affairs 34 (2–3): 158–178.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gubarev, Pavel. 2016. Fakel Novorossii. Piter.Google Scholar
Habyarimana, James, Humphreyes, Macartan, Posner, Daniel, and Weinstein, Jeremy. 2007. “Why Does Ethnic Diversity Undermine Public Goods Provision?” American Political Science Review 101 (4): 709–725.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hale, Henry. 2010. “Ukraine: The Uses of Divided Power.” Journal of Democracy 21 (3): 84–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hardin, Russel. 1997. One for All: The Logic of Group Conflict. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hepp, Urs, Gamma, Alex, Milos, Gabriella, Eich, Dominique, Ajdacic-Gross, Vladeta, Rössler, Wulf, Angst, Jules, and Schnyder, Ulrich. 2006. “Inconsistency in Reporting Potentially Traumatic Events.” British Journal of Psychiatry 188 (3): 278–283.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hierro, Maria Jose, and Gallego, Aina. 2016. “Identities in Between: Political Conflict and Ethnonational Identities in Multicultural States.” Journal of Conflict Resolution, published online December 30: 1–26.Google Scholar
Horowitz, Donald L. 1985. Ethnic Groups in Conflict. Berkley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Humphreys, Macartan, and Weinstein, Jeremy M.. 2008. “Who Fights? The Determinants of Participation in Civil War.” American Journal of Political Science 52 (2): 436–455.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ishchenko, Volodymyr. 2016. “Far right participation in the Ukrainian Maidan protests: an attempt of systematic estimation.” European Politics and Society 17 (4): 453–472.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Judah, Tim. 2015. In Wartime: Stories from Ukraine. London: Allen Lane/Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Kalyvas, Stathis. The Logic of Violence in Civil War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kalyvas, Stathis. 2008. “Ethnic Defection in Civil War.” Comparative Political Studies 41 (8): 1043–1068.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katchanovski, Ivan. 2014. “What do citizens of Ukraine actually think about succession?” The Washington Post. July 20. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/07/20/what-do-citizens-of-ukraine-actually-think-about-secession/?utm_term=.e712d95c3be0Google Scholar
Katchanovski, Ivan. 2016. “The Separatist War in Donbas: A Violent Break-up of Ukraine?” European Politics and Society 17 (6): 473–489.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kofman, Michael, Migacheva, Katya, Nichiporuk, Brian, Radin, Andrew, Tkacheva, Olesya, and Oberholtzer, Jenny. 2017. “Lessons from Russia’s Operations in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine.” RAND Corporation Report.Google Scholar
Kononov, Illia. 2005. Donbas v Etnokulturnyh Koordynatah Ukrainy (sociological analysis). Doctoral Dissertation Thesis. Taras Shevchenko Luhansk National Pedagogical University.Google Scholar
Kononov, Illia, and Khobta, Svitlana. 2014. Zvit za Resul’tatamy Doslidzhennia “Zhyttevi Svity Skhodu i Zahodu Ukrainy.” Taras Shevchenko Luhansk National Pedagogical University.Google Scholar
Kornilov, Dmitriy. 2012. “Otchaiannaia respublika.” Blog Vladimira Kornilova: http://kornilov.name/otchayannaya-respublika/Google Scholar
Kotyhorenko, Viktoret al. 2014. Donbas v Etnopolitychnomu Vymiri. Kyiv: Kuras Institute of Political and Ethnonational Studies.Google Scholar
Kudelia, Sergiy. 2019. “How They Joined? Militants and Informers in the Armed Conflict in Donbas.” Small Wars & Insurgencies 30 (2): 279–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kul’chytskyi, Stanislav, and Yakubova, Larysa. 2016. Trysta Rokiv Samotnosti: Ukrains’kyi Donbas u Poshukah Smysliv i Bat’kivshchyny. Kyiv: Klio.Google Scholar
Kuromiya, Hiroaki. 1998. Freedom and Terror in the Donbas: A Ukrainian-Russian Borderland, 1870s–1990s. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kuzio, Taras, and D’Anieri, Paul. 2018. The Sources of Russia’s Great Power Politics: Ukraine and the Challenge to the European Order. E-International Relations Publishing.Google Scholar
Laitin, David. 1995. “National Revivals and Violence.” European Journal of Sociology 36 (1): 3–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laitin, David. 1998. Identity in Formation: The Russian-speaking Populations in the Near Abroad. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Laitin, David. 2000. “Language conflict and violence: the straw that strengthens the camel’s back.” European Journal of Sociology 41 (1): 97–137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, Janet. 2016. “How Does Ethnic Rebellion Start?” Comparative Political Studies 50 (10): 1420–1450.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lyall, Jason, Blair, Graeme, and Imai, Kosuke. 2013. “Explaining Support for Combatants during Wartime: A Survey Experiment in Afghanistan.” American Political Science Review 107 (4): 679–705.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matsuzato, Kimitaka. 2017. “The Donbass War: Outbreak and Deadlock.” Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization 25 (2): 175–200.Google Scholar
Matveeva, Anna. 2016. “No Moscow Stooges: Identity Polarization and Guerilla Movement in Donbass.” Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 16 (1): 25–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCauley, John. 2014. “The Political Mobilization of Ethnic and Religious Identities in Africa.” American Political Science Review 108 (4): 801–816.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Melvin, Neil. 1995. Russians beyond Russia: The Politics of National Identity. London, UK: Royal Institute of International Affairs.Google Scholar
Mitrokhin, Nikolay. 2015. “Infiltration, Instruction, Invasion: Russia’s War in Donbass.” Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society 1 (1): 219–249.Google Scholar
Nair, Gautam and Nicholas, Sambanis. 2019. “Violence Exposure and Ethnic Identification: Evidence from Kashmir.” International Organization 73 (2): 329–363.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Osipian, Ararat L., and Osipian, Alexandr. 2006. “Why Donbas Votes for Yanukovych: Confronting the Ukrainian Orange Revolution.” Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization 14 (4): 495–517.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Osipian, Alexandr. 2015. “Historical Myths, Enemy Images, and Regional Identity in the Donbass Insurgency (Spring 2014).” Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society 1 (1): 109–140.Google Scholar
Pechenkina, Anna, Bausch, Andrew W., and Skinner, Kiron. 2018. “The Pitfalls of List Experiments in Conflict Zones.” Civil Wars 20 (3): 408–435.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Petersen, Roger. 2001. Resistance and Rebellion: Lessons from Eastern Europe. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Petersen, Roger. 2012. “Identity, Rationality, and Emotion in the Processes of State Disintegration and Reconstruction.” In Constructivist Theories of Ethnic Politics, edited by Chandra, Kanchan, 387–421. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Portnov, Andrii. 2015. “Post-Maidan Europe and the New Ukrainian Studies.” Slavic Review 74 (4): 723–731.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Group, Rating. 2012. “Kil’ka rys ukrains’kogo patriotyzmu.”Google Scholar
Group, Rating. 2014. “Dynamika patriotychnykh nastroiv.”Google Scholar
Regan, Patrick. 2009. Sixteen Million One: Understanding Civil War. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Reisinger, Heidi, and Golts, Aleksandr. “Russia’s Hybrid Warfare. Waging War Below the Radar of Traditional Collective Defense.” NATO Defense College. Research Paper 105. November 2014: 1–12.Google Scholar
Robinson, Paul. 2016. “Russia’s Role in the War in Donbass, and the Threat to European Security.” European Politics and Society 17 (4): 506–521.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenfeld, Bryn. 2016. “A Case-Control Method for Studying Protest Participation and Other Rare Events: An Application to Ukraine’s Euromaidan.” 2016 Convention of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, November 17–20.Google Scholar
Sambanis, Nicholas, and Shayo, Moses. 2013. “Social Idenfication and Ethnic Conflict.” American Political Science Review 107 (2): 294–325.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sasse, Gwendolyn. 2003. “The ‘New’ Ukraine: A State of Regions.” In Ethnicity and Territory in the former Soviet Union: Regions in Conflict, edited by Hughes, James and Sasse, Gwendolyn, 69–100. New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Shulman, Stephen. 1999. “Asymmetrical international integration and Ukrainian national disunity.” Political Geography 18 (8): 913–999.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Siegelbaum, Lewis, and Walkowitz, Daniel J.. 1995. Workers of the Donbass Speak: Survival and Identity in the New Ukraine, 1989–1992. New York, NY: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Staniland, Paul. 2012. “Organizing Insurgency: Networks, Resources and Rebellion in South Asia.” International Security 37 (1): 142–177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stoll, Heather. 2013. Changing Societies, Changing Party Systems. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strasheim, Julia. 2016. “Power-sharing, commitment problems, and armed conflict in Ukraine.” Civil Wars 18 (1): 25–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toft, Monica Duffy. 2005. The Geography of Ethnic Violence: Identity, Interests, and the Indivisibility of Territory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Uppsala Conflict Data Program. Ukraine. http://ucdp.uu.se/?id=1#country/369Google Scholar
Wilson, Andrew. 1995. “The Donbas between Ukraine and Russia: The Use of History in Political Disputes.” Journal of Contemporary History 30 (2): 265–289.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, Andrew. 2002. “Elements of a theory of Ukrainian ethno-national identities.” Nations and Nationalism 8 (1): 31–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, Andrew. 2016. “The Donbas in 2014: Explaining Civil Conflict Perhaps, but not Civil War.” Europe-Asia Studies 68 (4): 631–652.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wimmer, Andreas. 2013. Ethnic Boundary Making: Institutions, Power, Networks. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, Crawford. 1993. The Rising Tide of Cultural Pluralism: The Nation-State at Bay? Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Zhukov, Yuri. 2016. “Trading Hard Hats for Combat Helmets: The Economics of Rebellion in Eastern Ukraine.” Journal of Comparative Economics 44 (1): 1–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zimmer, Kristen. 2007. “Trapped in the Past Glory. Self-identification and Self-symbolisation in the Donbass.” In Re-Constructing the Post-Soviet Industrial Region: The Donbass in Transition, edited by Swain, Adam, 97–121. London, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Kudelia and van Zyl supplementary material

Kudelia and van Zyl supplementary material

Download Kudelia and van Zyl supplementary material(File)
File 44.1 KB