Order as an expansion of the European Security Community and its threat to the emerging national identities of Eastern Europe. The enlargement of the EU and NATO, as well as the more assertive policies of Russia toward the countries of the former USSR, has made countries such as Ukraine a buffer between East and West. The re-emergence of “cold peace” rhetoric in place of the former Cold War rhetoric has relegated Ukraine, a country once called a “lynchpin of European security,” to the uneasy role of geopolitical buffer. At the same time, hybrid war waged by Russia on Ukraine as a nation-state since 2014 magnifies the threat to societal security as well as state security. With Ukrainian public opinion divided regarding the ability of power-holders to achieve victory and peace because of perceived corruption, the threat of a re-integration with the Eurasian Economic Union and the Russian supra-state nationalist project is existential.
The formation of new political and national identities in Ukraine must therefore be examined in the context of the establishment of a new European order hailed by the West and the new “multi-polar,” “post-West” world order promoted by Putin’s Russia. In Ukraine, profound popular disappointment with debt-fueled, market economic reforms favoring the oligarchic clans more than the relatively poor majority, and the implications of the customs restrictions that accompany EU enlargement may pose a threat to the Ukrainian national identity. To what extent do myths of a Ukrainian “Golden Age” harmonize with the idea of a “People’s Europe” if they do not bring jobs and prosperity?
On the one hand, pro-independence, nationalist elites promote the idea of the EU and NATO integration as a part of the Ukrainian national idea; on the other hand, some studies suggest that threats to Ukrainian national identity from a nationalist (neo-imperialist) Russia and the lack of a real prospect of joining the security community of the NATO-led Western Alliance escalates the security dilemma in Ukraine and might even lead to resolution in policies of nuclear deterrence, following the examples of India and Pakistan.
Threats to national identity threaten “societal security” which, as previously mentioned, is a dimension of state security linked to collective identity. Chapter 3 describes the identity process of the Ukrainian political elite, analyzing the election manifestos of presidential candidates as well as strategic documents relating to Ukrainian military doctrines and national security. This is related to existing studies of both Ukrainian mass national consciousness and possible future directions of the development of Ukrainian national identity. The analysis addresses the question of whether the legacy of Soviet thinking about nation/state-building and the new Western political and military dominance in Europe influences the way Ukrainians think of their future, in terms of national dignity, well-being, and security.
The concept of “societal security” was introduced originally by a group of scholars from the European Security Group at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Research in Copenhagen (1993). It was designed to draw attention to the significance for International Relations theory of identity politics:
Security studies have traditionally been concerned about relationships amongst collectivities, and we have shown that one can remain within this tradition and yet include completely new dynamics and insights through the elevation of society to the status of a referent object beside the state (Buzan et al 1998, 186).
In general, the issues raised by notions of societal security reflect threats to or influences upon social identity: it is about situations in which societies perceive a threat in identity terms. The authors admit that although a national identity is not necessarily dominant among other constructions of social identity, in specific situations it mobilizes and organizes the other identities around itself. These are first of all situations of threat, either real or imagined.
The concept of societal security is interlinked with the older concept of “security community” introduced by Karl Deutsch (1970). Deutsch’s “security community” is a community in which, over a long period of time, war becomes unimaginable or implausible among its members. The creation of a “security community” depends to a large extent, therefore, on social perceptions. A community in which war is not likely, but where preparations for war are nevertheless made as a precaution is called a “No War Community.” The notion of “societal security,” it is argued, is useful for monitoring conditions under which nationalism might call for war. These include migration, horizontal and vertical competition among peoples of the same region, and depopulation of a country. The political rhetoric and the actual policies of ruling elites, however, are still a decisive factor, as war is only one among many available policy options.
Together, Chapters 2 and 3 will clarify how theories of nations and nationalism developed in the FSU, and how they have affected nationality policy in the Newly Independent States (NIS) of the FSU, particularly in Russia and Ukraine, the two biggest countries of the region. A strong inclination toward primordialism in post-Soviet scholarly works as well as policy planning led to the dominance of ethno-geopolitics in the academic and political circles of some countries of the former USSR. Just as the theoretical notion of “societal security” was meant to draw attention to the lack of understanding of relations among societies, as opposed to states, in the West, ethno-geopolitics draws attention to relations among “imagined” ethnic communities in Eastern Europe.
Chapter 4 examines how ethno-geopolitics developed within the discipline of Soviet Ethnography, and how it continues to influence thinking among post-Soviet scholars and policy makers in Russia and Ukraine. Soviet Ethnography, which reached its zenith under the “leadership” of academician Yulian Bromley in the 1970s and 1980s, is now largely ignored in the West. However, it still provides an important framework for Russian and Ukrainian academic thought and policy planning.
The “socio-spherical” approach that dominated Soviet Ethnography was close to the “modernist” paradigm in the Western tradition. But it also featured elements of “primordialism.” “Modernist” and “primordialist” approaches in the Western tradition encompass other schools of thought such as “instrumentalism,” “functionalism,” “constructivism” and “perenniallism,” and logically could be related to what in Soviet terminology was called “socio-spherical” and “bio-spherical” approaches.3
As the current literature on nationalism in Eastern Europe emphasizes, Soviet ethnography was not only an academic discipline, but also a tool to justify and fortify Soviet nationality policy. It might be seen as having directly influenced the creation and “constitutionalization,” not only of numerous Soviet nationalities, but also ethno-national borders from the oblast level up to the republic or, in the case of Russia, the federation level. The heritage of such academic thinking and policy is now often deemed responsible for the ferocious conflicts in the Northern Caucasus and, even, for the disintegration of the Soviet Union as a whole. Yet there has been little research on the extent to which Soviet Ethnography continues to influence current academic thought in Russia and Ukraine. The influence of Western theories in this area has been limited and academic traditions today in Russia and, to a lesser degree, Ukraine are influenced by the “bio-spherical” theories developed by Lev Gumilev and the “new Eurasians.” The latter only dramatized the old Soviet paradigm and, to a great extent, led to the revival (or creation) of ethno-geopolitics.
Chapter 4 examines the relationship between Soviet Ethnography and Soviet nationality policy, and compares it to the current vision of Russian and Ukrainian policy makers and scholars. It also examines the methodological foundations of ethno-geopolitics as a theory, and the implications of ethno-geopolitics as a policy concept.
The Cossack revivals in Russia and Ukraine will be the focus for examining inter-ethnic conflicts within the FSU. Chapter 4 therefore provides a historical background of Cossack movements in Russia and Ukraine. In doing so, it illuminates the relationship between ethno-geopolitical discourse, paramilitary movements and the assertion of national identity.
One of the reasons for the growth of the Cossack movements, as
