[BRIEF NOTE] On eastern European Titoism
Dec. 2nd, 2010 05:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldOne of analyst Andrew Wilson's more recent essays, "Eastern Europe’s Tito Option", presents a rather more subtle view of the foreign policy alignments of the eleven post-Soviet and non-Russian countries outside of the European Union. Are they aligned with Europe? Are they under Russian hegemony? Neither, Wilson argues. They have agency, and are choosing not to ally with one bloc or the other country, but rather to try to balance the two sides off.
The thing about Titoism is that even in its original Yugoslav form, it was never a stable ideology. It dependeed: the popularity of local communism; the ability of the Yugoslav government to resist Soviet pressure; Western interest in supporting an anti-Soviet country in the Balkans; a dynamic world economy capable of taking Yugoslavia along with it; and, finally, a stable bipolar distribution of power in Cold War Europe that let Yugoslavia integrate with western Europe enough to adopt a semi-capitalist economy and labour market closely integrated with capitalist Europe while retaining enough socialist features to have cordial enough relations with Moscow. In the 1980s, when Titoist economic models became unsustainable, the system staggered; in the 1990s, when the Cold War came to an end, the whole structure collapsed. How much more unstable are Titoist regimes that lack the relatively profound routes and supportive international environment of Tito's Yugoslavia? The whole system, as Wilson describes it, seems at best metastable, depending on things continuing to work.
Later in his essay, Wilson suggests that European policies--directed towards the Eu's Eastern Partnership associates, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova in the Europe proper, and Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan in the Caucasus--should try to incentivize a shift towards the Union. He specifically suggests that Europe should "Finlandize" Ukraine into a more Europe-aligned orbit, "Serbianize" Georgia enough for that country to abandon irredentism for cultivating its own garden, and "Francoize" Belarus so as to ensure a post-Lukashenko transition to more pluralistic politics and economics. (I assume that Wilson also would include the United States, maybe even Canada, in his analysis.)
This sort of gradualist approach, subtle, is certainly better than trying to push immediately for everything. The idea of Titoism does work inasmuch as it presumes a sort of neutrality, if not between ideological blocs then between internal divisions. As Wilson earlier suggested about Ukraine, drawing from his 2002 The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation, neither a strong Russian alliance drawing support from the east nor strong anti-Soviet/Russian hostility derived from the west is likely to keep Ukraine, largest of all the Eastern Partnership states, functioning well. A more moderate, and geographically central, "Dneiper nationalism," would serve that country best.
Is it in anyone's interest to try to precipitate a breakdown of the Ukrainian state by forcing it to go one way or another? Softly, softly, whoever you are.
irst, these are new states whose sovereignty was often contested at their birth in 1991, and that have remained weak. Their independence was a result of the USSR’s collapse, and, while some had national revolutions, in most Soviet elites and political culture remained entrenched. Corruption is rife, state capture by powerful vested interests is the norm, and institutional effectiveness and capacity for reform are weak.
Second, they have the economies of weak states. With the crucial exception of energy-rich Azerbaijan, they have few natural resources or high-value manufactures, and have large agricultural sectors. They also depend on economic rents or Russian derivatives rather than adding value themselves – Ukraine makes profits from gas transit, Belarus from oil refining.
[. . .]
The emulation effect that spurred Central European reform in the 1990’s is not working farther east. Unlike the EU accession candidates of the 1990’s, the states of Eastern Europe and the Caucasus have little incentive or capacity to adopt the Union’s body of law, the acquis communautaire, and move up the value chain.
Third, although they would no doubt protest loudly at such a description, states like Ukraine are better thought of as balancers rather than joiners. Playing a game of balance between Russia and the West allows the elite to remain in power, and to preserve the oligarchical economy in an otherwise harmful equilibrium of semi-reform.
Indeed, local leaders are modern-day Titos, unable or unwilling to join either Europe or Russia. But both Russia and the West are sufficiently interested that they feed the game of balance with enough resources to enable local leaders to fend off rivals and excuse their own lack of reform.
Some are reluctant balancers. Moldova’s current government, the Alliance for European Integration, might be a lot more pro-European if it had not seen how Russia treated supposedly pro-Western governments in Georgia and Ukraine before it. Some play the game with relish – ironically, Belarus’s President Aleksander Lukashenka is suddenly something of a regional role model in this regard.
The increasing role of other powers in the region – Iran and Turkey, but China above all – gives local leaders even more wriggle room, particularly because, as Lukashenka said in characteristically unguarded fashion during a visit to Beijing, “China’s investment has never had any political strings attached.”
The thing about Titoism is that even in its original Yugoslav form, it was never a stable ideology. It dependeed: the popularity of local communism; the ability of the Yugoslav government to resist Soviet pressure; Western interest in supporting an anti-Soviet country in the Balkans; a dynamic world economy capable of taking Yugoslavia along with it; and, finally, a stable bipolar distribution of power in Cold War Europe that let Yugoslavia integrate with western Europe enough to adopt a semi-capitalist economy and labour market closely integrated with capitalist Europe while retaining enough socialist features to have cordial enough relations with Moscow. In the 1980s, when Titoist economic models became unsustainable, the system staggered; in the 1990s, when the Cold War came to an end, the whole structure collapsed. How much more unstable are Titoist regimes that lack the relatively profound routes and supportive international environment of Tito's Yugoslavia? The whole system, as Wilson describes it, seems at best metastable, depending on things continuing to work.
Later in his essay, Wilson suggests that European policies--directed towards the Eu's Eastern Partnership associates, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova in the Europe proper, and Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan in the Caucasus--should try to incentivize a shift towards the Union. He specifically suggests that Europe should "Finlandize" Ukraine into a more Europe-aligned orbit, "Serbianize" Georgia enough for that country to abandon irredentism for cultivating its own garden, and "Francoize" Belarus so as to ensure a post-Lukashenko transition to more pluralistic politics and economics. (I assume that Wilson also would include the United States, maybe even Canada, in his analysis.)
This sort of gradualist approach, subtle, is certainly better than trying to push immediately for everything. The idea of Titoism does work inasmuch as it presumes a sort of neutrality, if not between ideological blocs then between internal divisions. As Wilson earlier suggested about Ukraine, drawing from his 2002 The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation, neither a strong Russian alliance drawing support from the east nor strong anti-Soviet/Russian hostility derived from the west is likely to keep Ukraine, largest of all the Eastern Partnership states, functioning well. A more moderate, and geographically central, "Dneiper nationalism," would serve that country best.
Wilson went on to distinguish eight possible identities within this middle group. The first is the Soviet identity, to which up to 30 percent of the population identifies (at least in part). Wilson noted that these people regret the passing of the USSR and oppose Ukrainian independence. However, he suggested that "Soviet" may function as shorthand for other sorts of identities, such as Eurasianism or pan- (East) Slavism. Eurasianists see Ukraine as historically part of the Eurasian economic and cultural space. Pan-Slavism goes further, focusing on Ukraine's contribution to Russian culture and disregarding the west Ukrainian experience.
Wilson posited that a form of "Dnieper nationalism" may arise from this position. He described this as nationalism that is Ukrainian but based on Kyivan rather than Galician traditions. People ascribing to this identity are able to at once express the idea of a common east Slavic origin and still maintain their separate existence. This can be distinguished from Kievocentrism, in Wilson's view, in that the latter emphasizes a pan-Slavism centered on Kyiv as the inheritor of Rus' culture.
Wilson said some scholars have argued that Kievocentrism is countered by the "Creole nationalism" of the Russophone population. That is, Russophones as a newly post-colonial population are unsympathetic to Ukrainian culture. Local identities, in Wilson's view, may also be salient in Ukraine. In particular, he points to the Donbas and southern Ukrainian identities as prevalent forces. Finally, Wilson differentiates Galician nationalism, which views Western Ukraine as an agent of national unity and keeper of the true faith of Ukraine.
Wilson then introduced data from a survey conducted in March 1998 that sheds light on issues of national identity and the "other Ukraine." He noted that the surveys revealed little support for an exclusivist model of Ukrainian identity: almost 58 percent of respondents felt that legal citizenship or self-identification was sufficient to be considered Ukrainian.
Wilson also discussed respondents' views on historical events that are controversial to different nationalist mythologies. He showed that support for key elements of the Ukrainian nationalist mythology was nearly always lower than the number of ethnic Ukrainians, and often less than the Ukrainophone Ukrainian segment of the population. For example, Wilson reported that a plurality of respondents fell somewhere between the Ukrainian and Russian nationalist views of Kyivan Rus', noting that there was no clear division amongst the Eastern Slavs at that time.
[. . .]
Wilson claimed that according to this analysis, rapid Ukrainization based on the narrow traditions of west Ukraine is unlikely to occur. He emphasized that this broad middle group could be a swing vote in Ukrainian politics. He concluded by outlining three possible scenarios for Ukraine: a Canada-like state with its own Russophone or Ukrainophone Quebec; slow Ukrainization leading to a consolidation around Dnieper nationalism; or a continuation and redefinition of the overlapping identities that currently make up the "other Ukraine."
Is it in anyone's interest to try to precipitate a breakdown of the Ukrainian state by forcing it to go one way or another? Softly, softly, whoever you are.
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