The Ukrainian Party System

Victor Chudowsky

Institute on East Central Europe
Columbia University

March, 1996

An ongoing controversy in the study of transition concerns the extent to which the liberalization and democratization of the nations of Eastern Europe and the former USSR can be compared to nations in Latin America and Southern Europe. Philippe Schmitter and Terry Karl ₁ seem to be the foremost proponents of the view that, indeed, these nations can be compared: that sooner or later, as they marketize, they will fit into a broader matrix of democracies in Latin America, Western and Southern Europe. Others, such as George Schopflin, ₂ disagree, on the grounds that Communism has left a number of legacies which render comparison difficult -- particularly an atomized, politically amorphous populace susceptible to long-suppressed nationalist sentiment.

This paper compares the Ukrainian party system with Western party systems, and will reveal the main cleavages in the party system after four years of independence.

Some of the literature on political party systems in Eastern Europe and the former USSR provides an indication of what we may expect to find in the Ukrainian party system. Herbert Kitschelt asserts that party systems in Eastern Europe will depend on the economy, or roughly on the issue of privatization and marketization. ₃ Kitschelt's position is somewhat similar to that of Schmitter and Karl: changes in the economy will produce various types of economic cleavages, to which political parties will adapt accordingly. However, Kitschelt sees Eastern European postcommunist party systems as being fundamentally different from Western European systems. Western European systems are characterized by a major cleavage between pro-market/authoritarian rightist parties versus anti-market libertarian/leftist parties. In Eastern Europe, the defining cleavage should be between pro-market/libertarian parties and anti-market/authoritarian parties. In Eastern Europe, the amount of support for each "camp" depends on the level of industrialization. Therefore, Kitschelt predicts that countries such as Hungary or the Czech Republic should have stronger pro-market liberal parties, whereas Romania or Albania should maintain stronger support for the authoritarian, anti-market status quo. In addition, integral nationalism strengthens the authoritarians, further strengthening the status quo against liberals.

Evans and Whitefield ₄ point out several limitations to Kitschelt's approach. First, the distinct interest groups Kitschelt identifies certainly had common interests in the communist system, but is it axiomatic that they would have a common interest in moving toward a market system? There may in fact be considerable differentiation within these groups, as Kitschelt admits in the case of intellectuals and the nomenklatura. Second, Kitschelt argues that the market/nonmarket cleavage will develop over time, but for the present parties must draw on existing bases. If there are few pro-market cosmopolitans in a given society, a strong party of such will not develop, and Kitschelt's cleavage may not necessarily emerge. What Kitschelt is underestimating is the communist inheritance, which implies that the path toward a market will not be direct and in some cases may not happen at all. Third, ethnic and cultural cleavages may in fact be far deeper than the market/nonmarket cleavage, or may cut across it. Fourth, Kitschelt ignores the politics of the cult of personality.

Evans and Whitefield argue that party systems in Eastern Europe will depend on economic development, ethnic homogeneity, and the historic role of the state. In countries where there has been little progress toward the market (Belarus, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, and Slovakia) a clear market/nonmarket cleavage will not exist or will be unimportant, as the social bases for pro- or anti-market parties will not form. In countries with clear progress toward a market (Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic) there could well be a Western-style right/left cleavage. In countries with large minority populations (Estonia, Latvia, and Ukraine) ethnicity will be a major cleavage. In those countries which are newly independent (the Baltics, Ukraine, Belarus, and Slovakia), nation-building, or the development of institutions to support sovereignty, as well as the degree of "independence" from the former parent will be issues of importance.

The presence or absence of these issues in varying combinations in Eastern Europe and the former USSR results in the formation of quite different party systems. Therefore, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, with highly developed economies, few ethnic problems, and no need to go through the process of nation-building, should develop party systems close to those described by Kitschelt: pro-market, liberal cosmopolitan parties ver- sus authoritarian, anti-West left parties. A nation like Ukraine, which must move toward a market, build state institutions, and deal with ethnic issues, should develop a party system that is highly multi-dimensional, amorphous, and volatile. Countries with cleavages in two or three of these issue areas (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Bulgaria, Romania, and Slovakia) should have highly-volatile systems due to the lack of socio-economic bases produced by a market economy, and non-economic issues of ethnicity will also be important.

Some scholars also differ with Kitschelt on the nature of party systems in post-communist societies on the basis of difficulties in democratization and the formation of parties. ₅ In the Ukrainian case, no analysts as yet see the pro- and anti-market cleavage as being important, largely due to the lack of reform. Artur Bilous and Andrew Wilson ₆ assert that the only significant structural differentiation in Ukrainian society is between the privileged apparat and the amorphous society.

Most recent articles on Ukrainian politics have stressed that the main political cleavage between parties is an ethnic one, basically between the pro-Russian, leftist eastern oblasti and the pro-Europe, liberal and nationalist western oblasti. ₇ Larrabee ₈ predicts that this cleavage will become so great that civil war is possible. Sochor, ₉ however, disagrees. While regional and ethnic factors were important in the 1994 presidential election in Ukraine, they were overridden by economic issues.

It may therefore be simplistic, particularly in the case of Ukraine, to attribute major political cleavages to single issues such as ethnicity, region, pro- vs. anti-market, etc. I am more in agreement with Evans and Whitefield: the Ukrainian party system is dependent on many factors, and in the 1994 parliamentary elections and afterward, the main cleavages were over relations with Russia, as well as ethnicity, region, political culture and the economy. Cleavages between parties and factions will cut across one another, and various issues will be important at various times. Institutional factors also play a strong part in shaping the Ukrainian party system. While the left/authoritarian right/libertarian dichotomy certainly exists, there are other, perhaps more important valence issues, as per Evans and Whitefield. I argue that the main cleavage in Ukrainian politics is over what type of cultural, political and economic relationship Ukraine should have with the Russian Federation and the CIS. How political parties line up on this cleavage is somewhat, but not completely, determined by ethno-cultural and regional factors.

Concerning the issue of comparability with Western systems, my working model is Sartori's "polarized pluralism" from his classic work on party systems. ₁₀ The similarity between this model and East European party systems has been noted by Roskin, and its similarity with Ukraine by Bilous. ₁₁ This party system contains five or six major parties, with some parties forming a pragmatic center, with cleavages on the left and the right of the center. The left and right parties are often hostile, rather than loyal oppositions; such systems are characterized by their volatility and "centrifugal" tendencies. Ware ₁₂ has criticized Sartori for neglecting sociological and institutional factors in the development of party systems, but nonetheless, this model does have a superficial resemblance to the Ukrainian system: a large, pragmatic center dominated by the state administration, with a large left and a smaller right opposition. The ideological distance between left and right in Sartori's model is quite large, and this is true in the Ukrainian situation as well.

My methodology was to enter into a database basic biographic information on each member of the Ukrainian parliament elected in the spring of 1994: name, profession, nationality, party, party grouping, parliamentary faction, district, oblast, privatization, Russian as a second language, and each MP's campaign position on the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Each oblast was ranked according to two attributes: level of urbanization, and percentage of citizens who consider Russian their native language. ₁₃ Various manipulations of this data give us a clearer picture of the Ukrainian party system.

Public Opinion

A pre-election poll conducted by Kiev Mohyla Academy outlines some of the social bases of support for various political parties. ₁₄ First, a general aversion to political parties is evident: 46 percent of respondents had no preference between candidates nominated by parties over those who were not. In addition, 18 percent preferred independent candidates, while only 21 percent indicated a preference for party-affiliated candidates. Women were generally more politically conservative than men. Support for RUKH and other democratic parties was 50 percent greater among men than women, while the reverse was true of support for communists: women were twice as likely to support the communists than men. This feature is confirmed by Hesli and Miller, ₁₅ who found that women in Russia, Ukraine and Lithuania were generally more supportive of the established political order, and more skeptical toward reform. Support for democratic parties declined, and support for communists increased, the older the respondents. Communists also found their greatest base of support among those with low or medium levels of education, while educated voters favored democratic parties. Interestingly, however, respondents who called themselves "workers" favored democratic parties: 18 percent supported RUKH and 14 percent the Democratic Party of Ukraine, while only 3 percent favored communists. Respondents who called themselves "wage-earners" or "clerks" were more likely to favor the communists (14 percent) over democrats (10 percent). Support for democratic parties was greater in the west, and there were differences between Russian-speakers and Ukrainian-speakers: 14 percent of Russian- speakers voiced support for the Communist Party, while only 4 percent of Ukrainian-speakers did. On the other hand, 24 percent of Ukrainian-speakers supported democratic parties, while only 9 percent of Russian-speakers did.

The public's aversion to political parties is verified in various studies by Ukrainian sociologists, cited by Bilous. ₁₆ A 1991 poll showed that far more Ukrainians had positive feelings toward the president and cabinet of ministers than toward political parties, and of the parties recognized by at least half of the people (RUKH and the communists) feelings toward them were generally negative. A 1992 poll showed that 44 percent trusted the president, while 31 percent distrusted him. Only ₁₇ percent trusted RUKH, while 49 percent distrusted it. In addition, 12 percent trusted the communists, 31 percent distrusted them. In a 1992 poll showing levels of trust toward the communists and RUKH, the respondents were in general twice as likely to distrust both parties than to trust them. Another striking feature of Ukrainian public opinion is the overall lack of support for a market economy, which has been shown by Rose and Haerpfer.17 Ukrainians are in general more likely than their neighbors to believe that the state should run enterprises, and far more likely to believe that the Communist economic system was better than the current one. Only 23 percent favored a market economy. On political matters, 49 percent responded that they would not mind if parliament was disbanded, and 25 percent approved of authoritarian rule.

Election eve polls illustrate the main concerns of voters. A series of Democratic Initiative polls show that people's main concerns regarded economic survival ₁₈ -- 83 percent believed that the economy of the country was headed in the wrong direction, and more than 60 percent were "very concerned" about crime. Asked who to blame for the predicament, 84 percent answered the government, 26 percent blamed the communists, while only 11 percent blamed "enemies of Ukrainian independence." Asked which problem in Ukraine worries them most, citizens responded 1) the economy (68 percent), 2) relations with Russia (39 percent), and 3) crime (39 percent). Only 6 percent believed the Russian language issue was a major concern. A UNIAR poll had similar results: ₁₉ Food prices were the main concern of 45 percent of voters, followed by lack of income (34 percent) and crime (25 percent). Relations with Russia was a major concern for ₂₀ percent, while interethnic strife was the concern of only 4.1 percent. Language issues were no concern at all. Liudmyla Korol, a UNIAR analyst, concluded:

Economic and social problems absolutely predominate over Ukraine's political problems in the mind of the voters... political reforms, defense capabilities, and interethnic relations are not much of a concern for Ukrainian voters, occupying the last places in their list of priorities... Ukraine's relations with Russia are poignant. This issue is not strictly political, since the average person is interested in the kind of economic relations Ukraine will maintain with its northern neighbor.20

In summation, public opinion data shows that:

1) Ukrainians generally have negative feelings about a market economy.

2) Ukrainians are distrustful of political parties, and are more trustful of authority figures.

3) The less educated population, Russian-speakers, women, and the elderly were more supportive of the left, while the more educated, Ukrainian-speakers, younger people, and men were more supportive of democrats. Beyond this, the available data does not describe more specific social bases.

4) Language, ethnic, and regional issues were not main concerns of the public during the election -- thus, as will be shown later in this paper, candidates did not make these contested issues. Public opinion data shows that neither the market/anti-market issue, nor ethnic and language issues, were particularly salient with voters. Instead, their main concerns were the economy and survival.

Ukrainian Political Subcultures

Why have Ukrainian parties divided themselves geographically to the extent that they have? For a full explanation, we must turn briefly to the issue of political culture, an issue on which there seems to be little agreement with regard to Ukraine. Bilous and Wilson state flatly that Ukraine lacks a political culture; Sochor describes a political culture in which the public yearns for democracy in some sense, yet distrusts democratic institutions. Ukrainian political culture has been characterized by Kubicek as a yearning for a strong democratic leader, surrounded by experts, who can lead the country without resorting to the "iron fist." ₂₁ Clearly, a common Ukrainian political culture in the midst of transition is something of a moving target. Here I adopt Dahl's ₂₂ idea of political subculture; that is, a political culture with a specific ethnic, regional, linguistic or racial base. According to Dahl, countries with "subcultural pluralism" tend to have polarized party systems along Sartori's "polarized pluralism" model. Various authors have focused on three regional/historic political subcultures within Ukraine, which overlap with the polarized party system.

Western Ukraine has historically been a center for nationalist political groups, ranging from socialist to fascist. The area did not come under Soviet rule until 1939, and has always had a European orientation. In terms of religion, it is the center of the Uniate Catholic Church, the rites of which resemble Eastern Orthodoxy, but which swears allegiance to the Pope. Under Austro-Hungary the region was allowed a limited autonomy, and Ukrainian culture flourished, along with an array of independent political organizations. Occasional repression, however, fostered not only nationalism and the growth of cultural and youth organizations, but an intensely conspiratorial network of semi-underground paramilitary organizations which were given to sometimes violent internecine fighting. During World War II, some of these organizations, in particular two wings of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, fought against the Soviets. After the war, Lviv and the surrounding hills were sites of low-level guerrilla activity and sabotage against the Soviet regime. ₂₃

The East Ukrainian oblasti are highly-populated and include many centers of heavy industry and coal mining. Three phenomena which helped to shape the region politically are: 1) the construction of huge industrial cities in the Stalin era; 2) the related influx of ethnic Russians (before WWII) and Ukrainians (after WWII); and 3) continuous propaganda in the Soviet era about the new Soviet man and the elevated status given to the industrial workers by the Soviet regime, particularly those in Donetsk. Ethnic Ukrainians assimilated into Russian language and culture, and both the Russians and Ukrainians, being fairly new arrivals uprooted from their traditional roots, adopted (more so than in many places) a distinct "Soviet" culture. Since independence, the local Communist Party has proven to be quite strong. ₂₄ As Laitin ₂₅ has observed, the Russian working-class minorities in the newly- independent republics react strongly when they are suddenly introduced to a language and culture they had long thought provincial and backward. This is true of Eastern Ukraine as well -- political leaders in this region are extremely hostile to Ukrainian nationalism. One leader said of nationalists in general, "They want us to bark at each other like malicious dogs, want Russians to go against Ukrainians, Byelorussians against Tatars, and so on. They want to see interethnic slaughter." ₂₆ In Holos Ukrainy the communist faction calls the nationalist parties, including RUKH and the Republicans, "nationalist-fascists,"and leaders in Kharkiv suggested shooting nationalists Kravchuk, Chornovil and Khmara at a pre-election press conference. ₂₇

Finally, the last political culture which deserves attention is that of the holdover political-administrative elite in Kiev, which overlaps to a certain extent with the political culture of the "party of power." It consists of pragmatic, flexible, and anonymous members of various patronage and clientelistic networks who moved into position in the old regime. They are comfortable in both the Russian and Ukrainian languages and cultures. A theme running through the body of literature on the Ukrainian apparat and nomenklatura in the USSR is that of ethnic Ukrainians, working in the bowels of the Soviet party/state system, caught between 1) cooperating with the center and 2) some low level of cultural assertiveness and control over their economic resources. Rumbles of assertiveness in the ethnic Ukrainian apparat occurred in the 1920s, 1960s and 1970s. ₂₈ Prime examples of products of this political culture are former president Kravchuk and current president Kuchma, both of whom turned out to be far more nationalist in orientation than expected, given their long careers in the communist apparat and nomenklatura.

These three political subcultures are evident in the party system, and have a base; the right in the Ukrainian west, the left in the Russified east, and the powerful "party of power, or "center," geographically dispersed throughout the country and based in the administrative elite. Of the three, the "center" is the most powerful. Right and liberal parties hold only near 44, or about 10 percent, of the seats in the current parliament, while the communists hold less than 25 percent. The party system, therefore, is not characterized by a regional cleavage of left and right, but by two cleavages, as per Sartori's model: "party of power" vs. the left and "party of power" vs. the right. As will be shown, the huge group of independent deputies dampens conflict between the regional extremes of Ukrainian politics.

The Electoral Law

The electoral law passed by the ex-communist-dominated parliament in 1993 provided for institutional barriers to activity by independent political parties. ₂₉ According to a critique of the electoral law by the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), its majoritarian system represents a "throwback to the Soviet era," whereby the differing nomination process for party and non-party candidates favors those candidates who already have an established power base in each district -- namely local nomenklatura and heads of enterprises who are in a position to pressure employees to support them. ₃₀ Indeed, at the time of the passage of the law in 1993, opposition leaders vigorously protested and boycotted the parliamentary vote on the law. ₃₁ The 50 percent turnout rule interfered with the citizens' right not to vote, and was unwieldy in an election which had so many candidates (an average of thirteen per district). The CSCE observer team also brought up evidence of district gerrymandering (in the nomenklatura's favor) and observed several irregularities, although they judged the election to be reflective of the will of the people. However, in this election, parties were in effect relegated to a secondary role as either opponents of, or cooperators with, the large group of independent deputies representing state interests.

Election Results

The 1994 elections were a rather thorough housecleaning of the Ukrainian parliament, or Verkhovna Rada: while one-third of the deputies ran for re-election, only 66 deputies were re-elected. The three rounds of voting yielded the following results:

< /tr>

Party		# seats		% of parliament
Non-party		218		53.8
Communist Party of Ukraine		90		22.2
RUKH		20		4.9
Agrarian Party		18		4.5
Republican Party		11		2.7
Socialist Party		15		3.7
Democratic Party		3		.74
Congress of Ukrainian
Nationalists		5		1.2
Party of Labor		6		1.4
Democratic Rebirth		6		1.4
New Wave		3		.74
Organization of Ukrainian
Nationalists		3		.7
Civic Congress		3		.7
Social Democrats		2		.5
Christian Democrats		1		.2
Conservative Republican
Party		1		.2

For the sake of brevity, I will group these parties (and non-party MPs) into seven categories:

The Communist Party was outlawed by former President Kravchuk in August 1991, in the wake of the coup and Ukraine's declaration of independence. It was re-legalized in 1993, and registered as not being the successor to the former Communist Party of the Soviet Union. However, it favors a state-run economy, restoration of the former USSR, and Russian as a second official language.

The Socialist party consists mostly of former communists who simply renamed themselves after former President Kravchuk outlawed the party in August 1991. This party is against privatization, and favors subsidies to industry and a planned economy. The Socialists favor close integration (economic, political, and military) with Russia and other ex-USSR countries in a strong Commonwealth of Independent States. They support Russian as the second official language, and want a federal system of government which devolves power to oblast assemblies.

The Agrarians or Peasant Party press for more subsidies to the agricultural sector. They favor at least economic cooperation with CIS countries, but take no party position on language.

Liberal parties are RUKH, the Republicans, New Wave, and the Christian Democrats. These parties generally favor Western European parliamentary democracy for Ukraine. Since independence, the original united opposition movement RUKH has splintered into some of these parties. They are pro-market, want to leave the CIS in favor of integration with Europe, and are concerned with the revival of Ukrainian language and culture. They are against a federal system.

The Center is occupied by Democratic Rebirth, the Democratic Party of Ukraine, the Party of Labor, and the Social Democrats. This is a diverse group, and some of these parties were formed by splits within the liberal camp. The Party of Labor, Democratic Rebirth, and the DPU were formed by associates of Leonid Kuchma's former "Inter-Regional Group" of deputies. They favor close economic, but not political or military ties with Russia, as well as economic reform. They are not preoccupied with language and cultural matters, and some favor a federal system.

Right parties are the Conservative Republicans, the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists, and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. These are integral nationalist parties which favor an authoritarian regime and are staunchly anti-communist and anti- Russian. They favor a limited free market, but their main concerns are cultural issues and a strong, unified state.

Non-party members of parliament (NPMPs) are those who have not run on a party platform. They are commonly known as the "party of power," or the ex-communist apparat and nomenklatura. Bilous and Wilson assert that "it is not in the interests of either the president, the leaders of the military-industrial complex, the heads of the collective farmers, or those who work in the government executive to associate themselves with any party." ₃₂ Bilous calls them the "state-bureaucratic elite," and characterizes them as follows:

They have not formalized any party ties, but instead have formalized ties with the party/state bureaucracies, and their ideological positions are quite diverse. Their ideological orientation has a concealed character, and the order of the day for them is in the direction of self-preservation in changing conditions through pliable actions and strategies... therefore the analysis of the stances and political perspectives of the state/governing elite can't necessarily be found in their value orientations, but in their concrete, practical actions. ₃₃

Ideologically, according to Bilous, they run the gamut from far left to far right. The majority, however, favor membership in the CIS as an economic structure, reject any political/military union with the CIS or Russia, favor a unitary rather than federal system, and favor a strong military. Their positions on these issues are rather easy to ascertain because they were the positions of former president Kravchuk, who was "head" of this party. The spring 1994 election wiped away a good portion of Kravchuk's party of power, and replaced it with a slightly different group of non-party MPs, whose attributes I will analyze in the next section.

Here then, is the breakdown of the new parliament according to these classifications:

35 15

Party/Group	# of seats	% of seats
non-party (NPMP)	218	53.8
Communist	90	22.2
liberal	8.7
Agrarian	18	4.5
Socialist	3.7
center	17	4.2
right	9	2.2

In correspondence with Sartori's model, I place the NPMPs and the small number of center parties, about half of the parliament, at the center of the party system. On the right I would place the liberal and right parties (one tenth of the parliament), and on the left the Communist, Agrarian, and Socialist parties, which account for more than a third of the seats. This is still a rough model -- given that more than half of the deputies in the parliament (NPMPs) do not identify themselves by party, it is impossible to understand the major cleavages in Ukrainian politics without understanding some of the attributes and political positions of this group.

Attributes and Characteristics of the Parties in Parliament

One of the attributes of a stable, developed party system is a degree of party unity. This section will test how unified the parties are, and whether parties act cohesively as parties once their members are in office. In a number of cases, candidates ran as members of a certain party, only to later join an independent parliamentary faction -- or they ran as independents, joining a faction after election. Bilous and Wilson charge that this is a common practice, harmful to the development of parties, and that there is very little party discipline. The parties are highly unstable and have little control over their membership; the democratic forces in particular are quite prone to splintering. This analysis of the previous parliament does not seem to hold true for the current one, however.

Once the new parliament took office, parliamentary factions were formed. By examining the memberships of these factions, we can gauge the degree of party discipline as well as whether parties and candidates are in fact practicing "truth in labeling" when they run for office. In addition, we can learn a little bit more about the NPMPs.

Official factions must consist of members of only one party, while so-called "political groups" can be of diverse membership. The latter are groups of like-minded deputies from the NPMPs and smaller parties. ₃₄ These factions are: 1) the communists, 2) RUKH, and 3) the socialists. The political groups are: 4) the Center Group (allies of President Kuchma), 5) Agrarians of Ukraine, 6) Reforms, 7) Unity (favoring close ties with Russia and other CIS countries), 8) Statehood (proponents of a strong unitary state), 9) Inter-Regional Group (also Kuchma allies), and 10) Independents (a diverse membership which includes extreme rightists). A number of deputies, as of March 1995, had not joined factions. On the basis of aggregate campaign platform positions of the MPs, the factions may be grouped as such:

< td>

Leftist (171 seats)		# of seats		Center (170 seats)		# of seats
Communists		90		Center		35
Socialists		28		Unity		34
Agrarians		53		Inter-regi onal		31
				Reforms	36
				Independents< /td>		25

Liberal/nationalist (58 seats)
RUKH	27
Statehood	31

Simple contingency tables derived from the database show which deputies joined which factions. The major parties (Communist, Socialist, and RUKH) joined their corresponding factions. All of the RUKH members elected joined the RUKH parliamentary faction, 95 percent of the communists joined their faction, and 93 percent of the socialists joined their faction. Agrarians were next most unified, with 88 percent of their party members in their faction, but some joined Unity. Small center and liberal parties like the Democratic Party of Ukraine, Democratic Rebirth, Civic Congress, and the New Wave (NW) were not disciplined, spreading their small numbers across two or three centrist and liberal factions.

NPMPs were represented in every faction, but the centrist (Unity, Reforms, Inter-Regional, and Center) and Agrarian factions attracted most of them. The Agrarian faction absorbed 16 percent of NPMPs, Center attracted 16 percent, Independents, 10 percent, Interregional, 12.4 percent, Reforms, 13 percent, and Unity, 14 percent. Few independents went to the communist, socialist, or Rukh factions.

Bilous's analysis of NPMPs in the previous parliament still seems true in the new parliament. While it is impossible to pin them down ideologically, it is clear that they gravitate toward the center -- 65 percent of them joined Unity, Inter-Regional, Center, Reform, or Independents. An additional 16 percent joined the Agrarian faction, and the remaining one- fifth spread themselves out among the remaining factions or did not join one. Very few NPMPs joined the Communist, RUKH, or Socialist factions. NPMPs, then, stay away from the extreme left and right wings of the party system, and seem to favor agricultural interests. The 170 NPMPs form the "center" of the Ukrainian party system, if we treat the factions as proto-parties.

Professional Backgrounds

The professional backgrounds of the deputies, if not fully informing us about the social bases of the Ukrainian parties, can at least reveal the major interest groups represented by the parties. Lane and Ross ₃₅ undertook a similar study of the occupational and generational background elites in the Supreme Soviet after the 1989 elections in the USSR, and found that the new interests represented helped undermine unity of the government and the position of the traditional apparat. With data on professions, we can see which occupational groups are powerful players in Ukrainian politics. The following shows the occupational groups in parliament and the top party groups of which they are members:

< td>np, Com., Agrarian

Profession		# seats		% seats		Party Membership
state administration		103		25.4		non-party (np)
academic		56		14		np, liberal
head of collective farm		49		12.1
state enterprise employee		32		7.9		Com., np, center
head of state enterprise		30		7.4	< /td>	np, Com., Socialist
teacher		28		6.9		Com., np, liberal
business		12		3	< br>	np, center, liberal

A cross-tabulation derived from the database illustrates the breakdown of party groups by occupation. Only one party has a majority of its deputies from a single occupational group: the Agrarians, 72 percent of whom are heads of collective farms. The Communist and Socialist Parties draw heavily from employees in the state sector (administration, officials and employees of state enterprises) and academics. NPMPs and centrists hold various professions, with a predominance of state administrators, while the right and liberal parties draw strongly from academics, teachers, and local politicians. In addition, 73 percent of the state administrators, the largest occupational group in parliament, are in the NPMP group. Academics, the next largest group, are diverse, spreading themselves out among the left, independent, and liberal parties. Collective farm heads are NP and left, while enterprise heads are further to the left, with some NPs.

It seems that the most powerful party-identified occupational group are the heads of collective farms, who dominate the Agrarian party. The largest occupational interest groups in the Ukrainian parliament, i.e., state administrators, collective farm heads, and enterprise heads, are basically centrist and leftist in their political orientation. They are still very much the "nomenklatura," who represent specific state constituencies. What is most interesting is that businesspeople, who constitute a real interest group and who theoretically would be in opposition to the left, have not formed a powerful pro-reform party or parliamentary faction of their own. From this section we can conclude that a strong pro-market opposition resting on a specific social or interest-group base has yet to challenge the statist nomenklatura, heads of enterprises and collective farms.

Regional and Ethnic Bases of the Parliamentary Parties

Ukraine is a divided country in terms of language and ethnic identity. Historically, Ukrainian has been the language and culture of the country peasant, while Russian and Polish have been the languages of the cities. Ukrainians who moved to the cities adopted the language of the rulers, namely Russian. Today, the western and central regions are predominantly Ukrainian-speaking, while Kiev, the east, and the south are Russian-speaking. Only in Crimea, however, are ethnic Russians a majority; elsewhere in the east and south, Ukrainians have adopted the Russian language. Laitin ₃₆ has argued that Russified, urban, assimilated Ukrainians now identify more closely with the imperial center (Russia) and that the major political cleavage in Ukraine will be between the nationalists and assimilationists. Arel, Solchanyk, and others have also argued this to be the case.

This section will investigate the relationship between ethnicity, region and party identification by members of parliament. Two hypotheses will be tested: 1) Russified areas of Ukraine will be more wary of Ukrainian nationalism, and will therefore vote for parties that seek to restore a close relationship with Russia, namely the left parties, and 2) Ukrainian areas of Ukraine will be more nationalist.

In the database, the 26 Ukrainian oblasti were ranked according to percentage of Russian-speakers and percentage of urban dwellers, using census data. Next, data on the urban/rural and language ranking of oblasti were cross-tabulated with data on the party membership of deputies elected from each oblast: the percentage makeup of each parliamentary delegation, by party. As we move from Russian-speaking to more Ukrainian-speaking oblasti, the following is evident: 1) support for communists decreases, and 2) support for the liberal democratic parties increases. Agrarian support is strong only in the Ukrainian-speaking regions of the east.

Support for right parties is weakest and limited to the west, and there was no evident pattern for the Socialists, NPMPs and center, except that NPMPs won the most seats and their support was fairly evenly distributed.

If the data ranking oblasti on a language scale are replaced with data ranking oblasti on a urban-rural scale, somewhat similar results are found. The conclusions we can draw from the data is that the more Ukrainian an oblast is, in terms of its ruralness and the percentage of Ukrainians, the more it supports liberal and right parties, at the expense of the Left parties. However, Kiev has a high percentage of Russians and is the most urban oblast, and Lviv is roughly in the middle of both measures, yet both behave in a very "Ukrainian" way -- their parliamentary delegations are liberal and nationalist. At the other end of the scale, the Russian-speaking oblasti are supportive of left parties. Support for the Agrarians, which should increase the more rural an oblast is, suddenly drops off when the Dnieper river is crossed to the west.

It should be noted here that it would be simplistic to assert that ethnic Ukrainians are voting liberal or right while Russians vote left. The large number of independents complicates this matter. Ethnic Russians are in the majority only in Crimea (71 percent Russian). So, in Communist Party strongholds such as Luhansk (38.7 percent Russian), Dnipropetrovsk (17.2 percent) or Donetsk (37.5 percent), given the 50 percent rule for election of deputies, ethnic Ukrainians in these regions are voting heavily Communist. Many of these voters consider Russian to be their native language. While Luhansk is 38.7 percent ethnic Russian, 62 percent of the residents of that oblast consider Russian to be their native language.

This brings us to yet another factor which influences political outcomes in Ukraine: region. A few eastern oblasti and Crimea are responsible for much of the leftist representation in parliament, and the western oblasti and the city of Kiev are responsible for many of the liberal and right seats in parliament:

Eastern oblasti		Com		Socialist		Liberal		Right
Crimea				5
Donetska		22		3
Luhanska		16		1
Kharkivska		6		2		1
Zaporizhka		7		1
Total		60		12		1
% of party in
parliament		62%		50%		.3%		0%

Western oblasti		Com		Socialist		Liberal		Right
Kiev city				4
Lvivska				9		4
Ternopilska						5		1
Zakarpatska						1
Ivano-Frankivska						2		1
Hmelnytska		1				2		1
Rivninska						6< /td>
Vinitska		1
Volynska						1
Zhytomyrska		3
Total		5		2 < /td>		29		6
% of party in
parliament		4%		14%		90%		100%

In sum, we see that ethnic, urban/rural, and regional factors combine to polarize Ukrainian parties on a rough geographic basis: liberal and right parties in the more rural Ukrainian west, and left parties in the more Russian and Russian-speaking urban east and south. This confirms the main points of Solchanyk, Arel, Wilson and others -- the Ukrainian party system is formed on the basis of ethno-linguistic and regional attachments. However, region is a factor only at the extreme ends of the political spectrum, among the Communist, Socialist and nationalist parties, which do not, by themselves, dominate parliament. We must include the NPMPs in any discussion of the party system, not only because of their sheer numbers, but also because they were elected in every oblast. The NPMPs act as a buffer between the polar opposite, regionally-based parties; therefore, ethnicity and region does not fully explain the nature of cleavages in this party system.

Issue Cleavages

If ethnicity and regionalism form the main cleavages between Ukrainian political parties, then we should consider these as central issues in the 1994 parliamentary election campaign. In this section, I coded the campaign position of each member of parliament on three issues: what type of relationship Ukraine is to have with the Commonwealth of Independent States, Russian as a second official language, and marketization of the economy. The information was taken from the official positions of the major parties and factions, and from the campaign platforms and flyers of the non-party candidates and members of smaller parties (36). We will now be able to see which issue played a greater role in determining which faction a member of parliament joined. In other words, which issue determined how the parliamentary parties lined up? What is the greatest cleavage among parties?

By far, the largest issues both in the minds of voters and in campaign platforms were lawlessness and the economic crisis -- every platform mentioned these issues. Since a sensible candidate cannot be in favor of crime and depression, we can leave them out of the analysis. On the issue of marketization/privatization, campaign flyers indicated that the deputies, as candidates, took the following positions:

%

Position		#
No opinion/not mentioned:		7		21
Against privatization:		156		38.5
For privatization:		162		40

Of course, caution is necessary in determining positions; many deputies called for "equality of all forms of property" which I coded as against privatization. Usually, those who stood for privatization wanted rapid moves toward a market economy and/or granting the right to own, buy and sell land.

On Russian as a second official or state language:

%

Position		#
No opinion/not mentioned		211		52
No		54		13.3
Yes		140		34

Now, on the issue of what type of relationship to have with the CIS and/or the Russian Federation:

%

Position		#
No opinion/not mentioned		108		26
Against CIS membership		53		13
Pro-economic membership		137		33.7
Full union/restore USSR		108		26.6

Of the three above issues, we can determine what was most important to each candidate, and to the voters, by looking at the "no opinion" category in each of the above. The language issue was the least important, as more than half of the candidates did not discuss language in their often lengthy platforms; privatization was the most important.

Now we test the relationship between these issues and the newly-elected deputy's parliamentary faction membership. This not only takes into account party membership, but it also gives us an idea of how parliament will behave, as the factions contain many independent deputies. The relationship is measured with statistical values called the contingency coefficient and Cramer's V, which measure the degree of association between categorical variables in a contingency table, the value 1 meaning perfect association. All three tests were statistically significant.

Association between issue and faction membership

faction and. . .	contingency coefficient	Cramer's V
Russian language	.71	.73
CIS	.77	.71
privatization	.67	.64

At first glance, it would appear that between the issues of privatization and Russian language, the latter is more closely associated with faction membership, with a slightly higher contingency coefficient and Cramer's V score. However, we must remember that in the Russian language issue, we are dealing with a far smaller number of cases -- half the number of the other two. The strength of this association is due almost entirely to the principled position of the Communist and Socialist Parties in supporting the official use of Russian. On the issues of CIS and privatization, we have both high associations and a large number of cases, as these were much more salient campaign issues.

Therefore, it is the issue of the CIS first, then the issue of privatization, which most divides and separates political parties and parliamentary factions -- more so than the language issue. All three issues are important, however, and somewhat related:

Related Issues	contingency coefficient	Cramer's V
CIS and Privatization	.61	.54
CIS and Russian	.75	.81
Russian and Privatization	.56	.48

There is an association among these issues, but the statistics cannot tell us whether they are positive or negative in nature. Deputies who favor the CIS also tend to favor Russian, while the relationship between the other two sets of issues is more complex. Again, the association between the CIS and Russian issues is due largely to the Socialists' and Communists' principled support for Russian as an official language and for a close union with Russia. Among non-leftists who favored only economic membership in the CIS, almost 80 percent had no opinion on Russian, while only 19 percent favored Russian. There are also a good number of pro-privatization deputies who support the CIS. In short, the CIS issue is not only all-encompassing, but very complex, because it is connected with ethnicity, regionalism, the economy, foreign policy, and state-building. This complexity is something the issues of privatization and the Russian language lack.

Conclusion

On the issue of the pro-market/anti-market cleavage, the results produced in this paper generally support Evans and Whitefield's hypothesis over Kitschelt's. The Ukrainian party system is not forming a cleavage between pro-market libertarians and anti-market authoritarians, although some elements of this cleavage are present. In the Ukrainian case, there are several factors which militate against this cleavage forming: 1) the electoral law, 2) a parliament heavily dominated by state interests, 3) lack of economic reform and public hostility toward a market economy, and 4) businessmen are not joining or forming parties.

Instead of a bipolar pro- and anti-market cleavage, we find regionally-based pro- and anti-market parties which revolve around a large group of non-party deputies. These deputies wield a great deal of power and serve as a pragmatic "buffer" between the two "poles." They are holdover elites from the Soviet era who form the single most powerful interest group represented in the parliament: the state administration. As such they have a strong interest in retaining the power they gained at the expense of the former center (Moscow) and in maintaining a unitary state with as much political, military and economic independence as possible, but they are willing to negotiate and associate when circumstances dictate.

On the surface, if we consider the NPMPs to be a "center," then the Ukrainian party system does resemble Sartori's model of polarized pluralism. The applicability of Sartori's model, however, ends there. First, there is the weakness of true centrist parties. Centrist parties with real roots in the electorate fared poorly in the 1994 elections. The "center" described in this paper is not a powerful party or group of parties, but merely what Sartori might call a "tendency" among the state bureaucratic and enterprise elite. Centrist parties in Western Europe are not usually made up of employees and administrators of the state! In fact, we may even question whether Ukraine has a party system in the Western sense at all. Perhaps we are merely confronted with regionally-based, weak right and stronger left parties reduced to cajoling and threatening the non-party state "center" of the holdover nomenklatura. Or, the system's "center" can be seen as a large extension of the state into the legislative sphere, unknown in the West.

Another problem is a lack of the social stratification and differentiation among the population that is produced by marketization -- Sartori's model is drawn from the experience of market countries such as Weimar Germany, France and Italy. Unlike these countries, the bases of Ukraine's right and left parties are from regional political subcultures, not specific social bases and interests formed as the result of capitalism. Public distrust of parties and the election law also conspire to relegate parties to a rather peripheral role in parliament, while assigning a central role to state and enterprise interests.

In addition, the results produced in this paper show that while region and language are important, they were not the main issues which formed the party system's cleavages and the party factions in parliament. The issues of the CIS and privatization played this role. The full relationship between the issues of privatization, the CIS, language, and other issues is a highly complex one, and must be explored in further research.

The Ukrainian party system is shaped by ethno-cultural factors, regional factors, foreign policy questions, marketization, factors related to state-building, and of course the legacies of communist rule: statism, low levels of trust, and weak new political parties. Therefore, like Evans and Whitefield, I advocate the pursuit of richer and more complex explanations of Ukrainian parties, beyond the usual explanations of language and region. In addition, the "center," overwhelmingly representing state interests, is not readily comparable to European or Latin American centrist parties, as it is the unique result of decades of state and party control over the economy and society.