During the keynote speech at the Kyiv Post Tiger Conference held on November 27th, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili labeled identity as the most important component to promote the democratic process in Ukraine. He defends this statement by declaring the Ukrainian, Georgian, and Moldovan identity as European.
Although identity does influence behavior, Saakashvili
places a stronger power in the European root rather than the national identity. Society needs to focus on the inherent European
values to encourage and enable a more democratic system. This attention to a European identity can
manipulate a nation into becoming more European. However, the creation and use of identity has
its limits.
In her book The
Politics of Becoming European, Maria Mälksoo discusses the ideological gap
between Eastern European nations and their Western neighbors. Mälksoo asserts that the East is conceptualized
as inferior – as ‘Europe, but not quite Europe’. History has created a distinct division in
the middle of Europe that countries such as Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the Baltic
states have attempted to bridge. But,
overcoming the past means reconstructing their identities. In order to gain accession into the EU, the
symbol of achieving ‘Europeanness’, one must embark in identity or security
politics. Reorienting Europe has less to
do with geography as it does with civil liberties, economics, and education. Aligning ideology within the Western
framework has been the standard for the past decade to ‘become’ European.
Although Saakashvili is accurate in advocating the
development of a more European identity, unfortunately Ukraine is ‘feeling’
less European. Surveys conducted by the
Kyiv International Institute of Sociology and Russian Research from 2000
throughout 2010 show that a European self-identity is declining. Significantly, the media has also noted the
shift in democratic values. Former US
Ambassador to Ukraine, Steven Pifer, warned in an interview that Ukraine was
moving backwards and branded recent movements in the government as
undemocratic. The compelling
correlation highlights the relationship between identity and democracy.
These conclusions lead me to wonder if Ukraine can become more democratic by building a European identity.
Resources:
“Saakashvili Talks Up EU Integration Path.” KyivPost. 29 Nov. 2012.
“We Have to Be in the European Family.” KyivPost. 29 Nov. 2012.
Maria Mälksoo.
The Politics of Becoming European:
A Study of Polish and Baltic Post-Cold War Security Imaginations. Routledge: New York. 2010.
Stephen White and Julia Korosteleva. “‘Feeling European’: the View from Belarus,
Russia and Ukraine.” Contemporary Politics. Volume 12(2).
2006. 193-205
Stephen White, Ian McAllister, and Valentina
Feklyunina. “Belarus, Ukraine and
Russia: East or West?” The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations. Volume
12. 2010. 344-367.
Natalya
Humenjk. “Стівен Пайфер: «На Заході є
загальне бачення, що сьогодні Україна вже не демократична держава»” (Steven Pifer: “In the West there is a
general view that today Ukraine is already not a democratic government”). Тиждень. 19 November 2012.
Nice post. Yes, I’m not sure about the whole argument regarding what it means to be ‘European’ or the suggestions that Europe is some sort of a superior civilization. For much of the 20th century, the inhabitants were doing their very best to slaughter each other. Some historians/philosophers have posited that the difference between, say Ukraine and Poland has to do with religion, specifically the type of Christianity which gained dominance in each respective country. There may be something to this, as these religious sentiments seep deeply into all aspects of culture.
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