understanding the transformation of ukraine: assessing

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

1. Introduction

Although citizenship policy is a key element of nation-building in any state, citizenshippolicy has been a rather neglected area of Ukrainian studies. Just a handful of articles onthe citizenship problem and policy in Ukraine have been written,1 and, to my knowledge,there is no book-length treatment on the subject. This apparent scholarly neglect couldbe attributed to the fact that in the post-Soviet Ukraine citizenship issue turned out to bea “dog that did not bark.” Unlike in Estonia and Latvia, where initial citizenship laws dis-enfranchised a significant part of the non-titular populations from citizenship, in Ukrainethe first citizenship law embraced the so-called “zero option” and extended Ukrainian cit-izenship to all permanent residents of Ukraine. In subsequent years, the only aspect ofcitizenship policy that attracted media attention was the issue of dual citizenship, specif-ically Ukraine’s disagreements with Russia over it. Dual citizenship controversy found itsreflection in the press headlines in the early and the mid-1990s, but has since recededfrom the headlines and has not received much scholarly attention either. In sum,Ukrainian citizenship policy has been an understudied issue. This paper makes a caseagainst such neglect. It argues that important insights into the larger dynamic of

Citizenship and nation-building in Ukraine

by Oxana Shevel

Purdue University

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PAPER PRESENTED AT THE WORKSHOP

Understanding the Transformation of Ukraine:Assessing What Has Been Learned, Devising a Research Agenda

Chair of Ukrainian Studies

University of Ottawa (Canada)15-16 October 2004

DRAFT/NOT FOR CITATION■

1. English-language scholarly studies that focused explicitly on Ukrainian citizenship policies include Barrington1995 that has a chapter devoted to the Ukrainian case; Ginsburgs 1996; Jackson and Wolczuk 1997; Shevchuk1996; Shevel 2000; and Shevel 2002. Ukrainian-language studies have been written mainly by Ukrainian citizen-ship policy practitioners and have either focused on technical legal issues (e.g. Subotenko 1999), and/or have madepolitical arguments for certain policies (in particular, against dual citizenship – see Khandogii 1997 for an example).


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Ukrainian state and nation-building can be gained from the studying citizenship policy.This paper will thus first offer an analysis of Ukrainian citizenship policy and politicsover, and will then suggest ways in which the Ukrainian case in particular, and citizen-ship policy studies in general, can be integrated into broader social scientific researchagendas.

2. Citizenship policy and politics in independent Ukraine.

The “official” nation in the citizenship law

Citizenship policy has many aspects and can be studied from many angles. Legal policyscholars tend to scrutinize the citizenship laws’ compatibility with the international legalprinciples. Social scientists generally focus on the relative inclusively or exclusivity of cit-izenship laws, and analyzes reasons for cross-national variations in this regard. Who isincluded into the initial body of citizens in a new state? What criteria must subsequentapplicants for citizenship fulfill? Who is entitled to gain citizenship under simplifiedrules? Citizenship laws provide official answers to these questions, and by doing so delin-eate the official boundary between the “us” and the “other” of a given state. Citizenshiplaws thus define what can be called the “official” nation of a given state: the initial bodyof citizens and those who are entitled to become citizens under a simplified procedure.Let us consider how Ukraine defined its official nation, and why the official nation wasdefined this particular way.

Table 1 illustrates how the definition of the “official” Ukrainian nation hasevolved over the decade of Ukraine’s independence. As we can see, the citizenship lawdefines the nation by the territory of the states. This definition was reflected already inthe 1991 citizenship law, and was upheld and broadened in the subsequent editions of thelaw adopted in 1997 and in 2001.

Those who were born on theterritory of Ukraine, or atleast one of whose parents orgrandparents was born inUkraine

Those who were born on orpermanently resided on theterritory of Ukraine, and theirdescendents (children, grand-children)

Those who were born or permanently resided on theterritory of Ukraine, or atleast one of whose parents,grandparents, a full-bloodbrother or a sister, was bornor permanently resided on theterritory of Ukraine

1991 citizenship law April 1997 amendments 2001 citizenship lawto the 1991 law

TABLE 1 “OFFICIAL” UKRAINIAN NATION IN CITIZENSHIP LEGISLATION,

1991-2001


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The 1991 citizenship law, adopted when the Soviet Union was still legally in existence,2defined the “official” nation as those who, at the time of the law’s entry into force, werepermanently residing in Ukraine, who were not citizens of other states, and who did notobject to becoming citizens of Ukraine, plus those who have previously permanentlyresided in Ukraine but at the time of the law’s entry into force were abroad studying,working on state business, or serving in the armed forces.3

This group – those who were born, or had at least one parent or grandparent bornon the territory of Ukraine – has become the “official” Ukrainian nation, eligible toacquire citizenship under a simplified procedure. New edition of the citizenship lawapproved in April 1997 extended the “official” nation to include those who permanentlyresided (in addition to those born) on the territory of Ukraine, plus their children andgrandchildren.4 The latest edition of the citizenship law approved in January 2001 addedbrothers and sisters of those who were born or permanently resided on the territory ofUkraine to the “official” nation. The simplified procedure under which those defined asbelonging to the nation were eligible to acquire citizenship was been made simpler witheach edition of the law. Thus, the 1991 law exempted those who were born, or had atleast one of the parents or grandparents born on the territory of Ukraine, from 5 yearresidency requirement,5 the 1997 law exempted them from residency and languagerequirement,6 while the 2001 law additionally exempted this group from requirements topresent documentary evidence of the legal source of income and a proof of release fromprior citizenship at the time of application.7

Theories of citizenship policy and the Ukrainian case.

Ukraine’s citizenship law thus defined the official nation territorially. The question to askis why the official nation was defined this particular way. More generally, how does thepolitical elites arrive at a particular definition of the “official” nation? Scholars of citi-

2. Draft 1991 citizenship law was first debated in the Rada in July 1991; repeated first reading took place on12 September 1991; the law was approved on 8 October 1991 and entered into force on 13 November 1991.

3. Article 2 paragraphs 1 and 2 of the 1991 citizenship law, text of the law in Pravda Ukrainy, 14 November 1991.Under the 1991 law, the latter group (those studying, working on state business, or serving in the armed forces)could become citizens of Ukraine if they were not citizens of other states and declared their desire to become cit-izens of Ukraine within one year after the law’s entry into force. This deadline was extended to two years in January1993 and to five years in October 1994. See Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1993; Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1994.

4. Article 2 paragraph 3 of the 1997 law, for text of the law see Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1997a.

5. Article 17 paragraph 2 of the 1991 law.

6. Article 16 of the 1997 law.

7. Article 8 of the 2001 law. The 2001law still required these persons to present a proof of release from prior citi-zenship within a year after submitting citizenship application. For text of the law see Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy2001a.


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zenship policies have advanced hypotheses about factors that drive citizenship policies inmodern states. Following Rogers Brubaker’s seminal study of French and German citi-zenship policies, conventional wisdom today attributes variation in rules governingadmittance to citizenship to national identity.8 Or, to use Brubaker’s term, to historical-ly-formed and deeply-rooted “habits of national self-understanding”9 that are “prior toand independent of the [modern] state.”10 According to Brubaker, in modern states thesehabits of national self-understanding are the main source of citizenship laws, and the fac-tor explaining cross-national divergence.11

If we try to apply Brubaker’s theory to the Ukrainian case, however, we will imme-diately run into problem. Brubaker’s argument implies that each modern state has onehistorically-formed national identity (a particular “habit of national self-understanding”).This assumption is however an empirical matter. A “dominant habit of national self-understanding” may form historically in some states but not in others. In states such asUkraine, that emerge suddenly from the rubble of multinational empires, there may beno dominant habit of national self-understanding. Indeed, virtually all studies of the post-Soviet Ukraine make a point that the past rule of territories of today’s Ukraine by differ-ent empires and states, and resulting cultural, ethnic, linguistic and religious diversityacross today’s Ukraine, has prevented the emergence of a cohesive national identity ateither the elite or the societal level. Instead of one dominant “habit of national self-understanding,” competing “images” of the nation and myths of national origin and civ-ilization are propagated by different political forces and find resonance with differentsegments of the society.

In the absence of the dominant national identity in Ukraine, where can thesources of Ukrainian citizenship policy located? Analysis of the politics of Ukrainian cit-izenship policy to which I will now turn will show how Ukraine’s citizenship policy wasin a large measure shaped by the politics of national identity, but not in the mannerBrubaker’s theory posits. As we are about to see, citizenship policy in Ukraine was shapedby the ideological struggle between the left and the right who tried – but failed – to havethe citizenship law reflect their conceptions of national identity. Territorial definition ofthe nation contained in the Ukrainian citizenship law was a compromise, and not a reflec-tion of any existing national idea, as Brubaker’s theory posits. Put differently, the defini-tion of the official nation by the territory of the state resulted from the failure of the polit-ical forces who embraced competing conceptions of nationhood to reflect their preferred

8. Brubaker 1992.

9. Brubaker 1992, 187.

10. Brubaker 1992, 132.

11. Brubaker in particular argued that historically-formed civic and territorial understanding of the nation in Franceled to an inclusive citizenship law in modern time, while historically ethnic understanding of the nation inGermany led to an exclusive citizenship law.


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conception in the law. The definition of the official nation by the territory of the statecan thus be described as “civic nation by default” (rather than by design). Let us examinethe evidence on which these conclusions are based, and consider what this evidencereveals about the larger process of state and nation-building in Ukraine.

The Ukrainian right and the citizenship question.

The national question in the post-Soviet Ukraine has been contested intellectually andpolitically between the right and the left who embrace mutually exclusive myths ofnational origin and conflicting objectives for the future of the Ukrainian statehood. Untilits split in 1999, Rukh was the main political force on the right. The view of the right onthe state and the nation is close to a traditional ideal of a modern nation-state.Proponents of this view see today’s Ukraine as the state of the Ukrainian nation in thesame way that Poland is the state of the Polish nation or Germany the state of theGerman nation. The right emphasizes the historicity of Ukraine’s statehood by tracingits political lineage from the Kievan Rus, to the Cossack republic of the 17th century, andthe brief period of independent statehood in 1917-1921. At the heart of the right’s viewon the Ukrainian nation and the Ukrainian state is the emphasis on Ukraine’s andUkrainians’ distinctiveness, first and foremost from Russia and the Russians. Russia ispresented as the main “other” against which Ukrainian identity is defined, an occupyingempire (tsarist and later Soviet) from which Ukraine’s independence was finally regainedin 1991.

For the mainstream right, Ukraine is a democratic political community where therights of national minorities are upheld, but where the “the core” of the Ukrainian polit-ical nation is the Ukrainian ethnos. This view was elaborated by Rukh’s program alreadyin the late Soviet period. Specifically, Rukh concluded that,

“the national question in Ukraine is about the development of the Ukrainiannation, ethnic groups and national minorities, their integration into a commonsocial fabric (socium) of the republic the core of which are the people that gave thename to their nation-state.”12

For the right, the answer to the question “who belongs to the Ukrainian nation”was thus rather straightforward. If Ukraine is conceived as a democratic multinationalstate, all residents of Ukraine can be considered belonging to the political Ukrainiannation, while ethnic Ukrainians outside Ukraine, by virtue of their membership in theethnic Ukrainian nation that is the “core” if the state, must also be included in the defi-

12. Narodnyi Rukh Ukrainy za Perebudovy 1989, 18.


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nition.13 The right’s strategy on the citizenship issue was consistent with this under-standing of the nation. The right advocated a special approach to the ethnic Ukrainiandiaspora abroad in debates on citizenship legislation.

During the debate of the 1991 law, MPs from the right proposed to state in thelaw that the right to Ukrainian citizenship is extended to ethnic Ukrainians who live inthe west, and to Soviet citizens who have “ethnic Ukrainian” recorded in their Sovietpassports.14 During the debate of the 1997 law, MPs from the right proposed to exemptethnic Ukrainians from residency requirements.15 Examination of the stenographicrecords from citizenship law debates in the Rada over the years shows that, over time, theright has become less insistent on this issue. However, the right continued to make pro-posal to this effect each time the citizenship law was debated – most recently during thesecond reading of the 2001 citizenship law on 18 January 2001.16 None of these propos-als came to pass, which can be explained by the fact that electoral strength of the rightallowed it to control less than a third of parliamentary seats in the 1990s, and the left andthe center did not support these proposals.

The right’s preference for the content of the citizenship law was informed by theright’s conception of national identity that saw the Ukrainian ethnos as the “core” of thepolitical Ukrainian nation. The territorial definition of the nation reflected in the citi-zenship law was thus suboptimal for the right. Yet, the fact is that citizenship legislationthat contained broader, territorially-centered definitions of the nation was initiated andsupported by the right or the center-right.17 This fact might seem surprising at first

13. Perhaps somewhat more eloquently than it is expressed in Rukh’s programmatic documents, the idea that Ukraineis a political nation whose “core” is the Ukrainian ethnos has been expressed by academician Volodymyr Yevtukh,an intellectual of the national-democratic orientation and a one-time Minister of Nationality and MigrationAffairs: “I understand the nation-state in western term, not in ethnic but in a political sense. But in order to arriveto it we have to go through “this stage.” That is to say, that there has to be an ethnic core (etnoiadro) around whichrepresentatives of other ethnic groups would move. In our country the Ukrainian ethnos is such a natural core.”Yevtukh 2000, 35.

14. See statements by MP Ivanychuk in Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1991b, 48; MP Romaniuk in Verkhovna RadaUkrainy 1991b, 52; Vlohk, Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1991b, 94-95.

15. MP Yavorivsky made proposals to this effect between the 1st and the 2nd readings of the 1997 citizenship law. Lawdraft from 21 November 1996 incorporated this proposal in draft article 17 paragraph 3 (see Verkhovna RadaUkrainy 1996b, 11-12), but subsequent version of the draft law from 20 January 1997 dropped this provision (seeVerkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1997d, 13).

16. On 18 January 2001 MP Smirnov’s proposed to extend the right to simplified citizenship acquisition to personswho have at least one parent who was an ethnic Ukrainian. This proposal received just 99 votes (22%). SeeVerkhovna Rada Ukrainy 2001b.

17. The 1991 citizenship law prepared still in the Soviet period was a product of joint efforts of the inter-ministerialcommission and members of the parliamentary committee on human rights. After 1991, the executive and/or MPsfrom the right and center-right parliamentary factions were the authors of this legislation. The 1997 citizenshiplaw was prepared by the citizenship department of the presidential administration and presented to the parliamentby a center-right MP Volodymyr Iavorivsky. Presidential administration also authored the 2001 citizenship law,which was presented to the parliament by the head of Rukh MP Hennadii Udovenko and MP Roman Bezsmertnyi,then-representative of the Ukrainian president in the parliament.


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glance, but it really is not. Citizenship law that defined the nation by the territory of thestate also served to legitimize the state, and the right’s support for such a law as the sec-ond best option is not surprising for this reason alone. Secondly, although the territorialdefinition of the nation fell shot of the right’s ideal, it did not go against it. A broader def-inition of the nation was acceptable to the right because it was congruent to its idea of apolitical nation, and consistent with an additional acknowledgement of ethnic Ukrainiansas a group towards which the Ukrainian state has special obligations. Let us now consid-er the position of the left.

The Ukrainian left and the citizenship question.

The Ukrainian left, where the Communist Party of Ukraine has been the main politicalforce, embraces a myth of national origin and civilizational belonging very different fromthe one embraced by the right. The left correspondingly holds different views on theUkrainian state and nation. Whereas the right emphasizes the distinctiveness of Ukraineand the Ukrainians from Russia and the Russians, the left fails to see such a distinction.Competing with the right’s myth of Ukraine’s distinct origin and a European heritage isthe left’s myth of the common origin and continuity of fate of the three East Slavic peo-ple (Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians). The Ukrainian left’s conception of nationalidentity sees Ukrainians as a component of the single “Soviet people,” and/or constituentmembers of the “Slavic-Orthodox civilization.”18

It is important to realize a qualitative difference in the thinking on the nationalquestion between the left and the right. It would be incorrect to assume that theUkrainian left accepts ethnic nationalism and treats Ukrainians as part of the Russian eth-nic nation. Rather, the left embraces a meta-identity (such as an East Slavic, a Soviet, ora Slavic and Orthodox) into which a Ukrainian identity is subsumed. This reasoning isevident in the communists’ leader arguments that “the independence of Ukraine is per-fectly compatible with Ukraine remaining in the USSR,”19 and in his appeals for the cre-ation of an “Orthodox Slavic state.”20

Scholars of Ukraine sometime characterize the left as embracing a “civic” (asopposed to the right’s “ethnic”) conception of the nation. Some of the left’s strategies oncitizenship policy matters are consistent with this interpretation – in particular, the left’sopposition to grant ethnic Ukrainians a preferential treatment in citizenship law, and,arguably, the left’s efforts to eliminate knowledge of Ukrainian language as a require-

18. For an elaboration of the communists’ view on the national idea, see Symonenko 1996; also the 1998 electoral pro-gram of the Communist Party of Ukraine (text in Politychni Partii Ukrainy 1998, 81-111).

19. Symonenko 1996.

20. Leader of the Ukrainian Communist Party, Petro Symonenko, as quoted in Bojcun 2001.


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ments to get citizenship.21 However, the combined body of evidence from citizenshippolicy debates necessitates a conclusion that a characterization of communists and theirallies as proponents of “civic” nation-building in Ukraine is inaccurate and misleading.

Characterization of the left as favoring “civic” nationalism assumes that it favorsindependent Ukrainian statehood just as the right does, but sees its content differentlyfrom how the right sees it. If the communists and their allies indeed were “civic”Ukrainian nationalists, they should have championed a citizenship law that defined thenation territorially. The fact is that the left never initiated any citizenship legislation. Asdocumented above, all citizenship legislation was initiated by the right and/or the rightand the center. Moreover, the left actively oppose citizenship law all together from thevery beginning. As Pravda Ukrainy wrote during debates of the first law in the Rada,

“citizenship law has been the point of contention since this parliament began itswork [in March 1990]. The parliamentary opposition insisted on this law, empha-sizing that this would underscore sovereignty declared by Ukraine. TheCommunist majority resisted, and when the issue was discussed nevertheless itinsisted: only dual citizenship with the USSR.” 22

The left’s opposition to the citizenship law seems illogical if the left is perceivedas a supporter of a “civic” Ukrainian nation. If civic nation was what the left wanted, itshould have itself proposed a law that defined the nation territorially, rather than oppos-ing the very idea of citizenship law. The left’s position makes perfect sense, however, ifone is mindful of the fact that political forces’ positions on the citizenship law were aproduct of these forces’ national identity conceptions, and their resulting preference forthe Ukrainian statehood.

The left’s national identity conception saw Ukraine as a part of the “Slavic-Orthodox” civilization and/or a component of the “Soviet people.” On this view, inde-pendent Ukrainian statehood is an anomaly, and a proper state formation is some formof a joint state with Russia. Communists made no secret of the fact that such a joint state

21. MPs from the left have insisted on the elimination of language requirement from the citizenship law each time thelaw was discussed in the parliament. These proposals led to lengthy debates especially during the discussion of the1991 and the 1997 laws. See Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1991a, Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1991b, Verkhovna RadaUkrainy 1996a, Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1997b, Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1997c. The left failed to remove thelanguage requirement from the law entirely, but the language clause was made less rigid than what the rightfavored. In the 2001 law, the requirement is stated in Article 9 paragraph 5 as “command (volodinnia) of state lan-guage, or its understanding, in the extent sufficient for communication.” Since the 1997 edition of the law, thosewho belong to the official nation and are thus entitled to acquire citizenship under simplified rules are exempt fromthe language requirement.

22. Sokol 1991.


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was their geopolitical objectives.23 The left’s conception of national identity and resultingpreference for statehood made the question of the official nation of the Ukrainian statea tricky one for the Ukrainian left. The very question, “who belong to the nation of theUkrainian state” implies the normalcy of a situation where the Ukrainian state exists andfunctions like other states. The citizenship law that defined the official nation of theUkrainian state and did not provide for a dual citizenship with Russia did absolutelynothing for the left’s ultimate goal: a joint state with Russia and Belarus. If one is awareof this, the left’s lack of interest in the citizenship law makes sense. Failing to prevent cit-izenship legislation all together, the left’s strategy has been to push for dual citizenship.Dual citizenship blurs borders between national communities, and as such is an instru-ment that could bring closer the left’s ultimate goal of a joint state. 24 The left’s supportfor dual citizenship thus also makes sense.

The issue of dual citizenship was at the center of the citizenship law debate in1991, when it almost came to pass. The clause “dual citizenship is allowed” failed by justtwo votes.25 The final wording in the 1991 law was a compromise that allowed for a pos-sibility of dual citizenship under bilateral agreements.26 No such agreements ever mate-rialized, however. The executive branch, in particular the Citizenship Department of thePresidential Administration that has been in charge of the citizenship policy on day today basis, remained adamant on maintaining single citizenship. Ukrainian officialsdescribed preservation of single citizenship as a matter of national interests, and opposed

23. The 1998 electoral program of the Communist party endorsed “the recreation of the renewed family of brotherlypeople of the criminally-destroyed Soviet Union,” noting that “the first step in this direction should be the cre-ation of the Union of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus” (Politychni Partii Ukrainy 1998, 109). Before the 1999 presi-dential elections the Ukrainian Communist leader Petro Symonenko spoke of the “Orthodox geo-cultural space”and appealed for the creation of an “Orthodox Slavic State.” (Symonenko as quoted in Bojcun 2001). More recent-ly, in May 2000, Heorhii Kriuchkov, one of the key ideologues of the Ukrainian Communist party, argued alongsimilar lines: “our [Communists’] goal is … to recreate a brotherly union of peoples that until recently lived as onehappy family. The first steps on this road could be the creation … of a confederate-type Union of three Slavicstates: Ukraine, the Russian Federation, and Belarus.” Kriuchkov 2001, 115.

24. That proponents of dual citizenship perceived a connection between the single/dual citizenship issue and futureprospects of the Ukrainian statehood is evident, for example, from the 1998 electoral program of the Slavic Partythat stood for a union of Russia and Ukraine in a single state. The party program is forthright: “the introductionof the dual citizenship principle is the way towards one CIS citizenship.” Politychni Partii Ukrainy 1998, 71.

25. As verbatim report from the second reading of the 1991 citizenship law on 8 October 1991 shows, 224 MPs, 2 shortof the 226 needed, voted for the wording “dual citizenship is allowed.” Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1991a, 26.

26. Dual citizenship question dominated the debate in the Rada in 1991. After provisions that explicitly allowed andthose that explicitly did not allow for dual citizenship failed, a compromised wording was proposed. Article 1 of the1991 law read: “in Ukraine there is single citizenship. Dual citizenship is allowed on the basis of bilateral agree-ments.” Text of the 1991 Ukrainian citizenship law in Pravda Ukrainy, 14 November 1991. This compromise word-ing gained 302 votes, a Constitutional majority (voting results in Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1991a, 28). The com-promise was reached after MP Yemets, likely to appease supporters of dual citizenship and to encourage them tovote for the law, said that “the problem [of dual citizenship] will most likely arise in relations to Russia, and weprobably will sign such an agreement [on dual citizenship].” (Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1991a, 12).


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Russia’s proposal to conclude an agreement on dual citizenship.27 The turning point inthe dual citizenship debate was the 1996 Constitution that established single citizenshipas a constitutional principle.28 When the draft 1997 citizenship law came for debate, left-ist MPs raised the issue of dual citizenship, but this issue received far less attention thanin 1991.29 The right successfully used unambiguous constitutional provision on singlecitizenship as a legal argument against dual citizenship. The dual citizenship issue with-ered away by the time the 2001 law came up for debate. Only one leftist MP even raisedthe issue of dual citizenship during the first reading of the law on 18 May 2000, and hewas ignored.30

The outcome: civic nation by default.

The above discussion demonstrates why the territorial definition of the nation reflectedin the citizenship law is best characterized as civic nation by default. For the Ukrainianright, the territorial definition of the nation fell short of the objective to acknowledgethat ethnic Ukrainians are members of the “official” Ukrainian nation. For the Ukrainianleft, a territorial definition of the nation did even less. While a definition of the officialnation that did not single out ethnic Ukrainians was certainly more acceptable to the leftthan the one that did, the very fact of the citizenship law, and the definition of the offi-cial nation by the territory of the state in the law, did nothing for the left’s ultimategeopolitical objective of a joint state with Russia. The left and the right compromised onthe territorial definition. Neither the left nor the right had enough electoral support totranslate into law its first preferences (dual citizenship and explicit inclusion of ethnicUkrainians in the group eligible for simplified citizenship acquisition, respectively).

The territorial definition of the nation became the law also because it receivedsupport of the ideologically amorphous “center” (so-called party of power). The center(former communist nomenclatura and “red directors” who became the ruling elite ofindependent Ukraine) controlled over a third of the parliamentary seats in the 1990s.

27. For arguments of the Ukrainian elites against dual citizenship, in particular with Russia, on the ground that itthreatens Ukraine’s sovereignty see, for example, Lytvyn 2002; Khandogii 1997, 16-17; Lytvyn 2002.

28. Article 4 of the Constitution reads: “In Ukraine there is a single citizenship. The acquisition and loss of Ukrainiancitizenship is regulated by law.”

29. Specifically, Communist leader Petro Symonenko tabled a written amendment to retain the clause from the 1991law “dual citizenship is allowed on the basis of bilateral agreements,” but the committee rejected the amendmentas “violating the Constitution of Ukraine.” (See Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1996b, 3). Simonenko and Alekseievraised the issue of dual citizenship during the 1st and 2nd readings of the law in the parliament on 30 October 1996and 27 February 1997. See verbatim reports of parliamentary debates Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1996a, VerkhovnaRada Ukrainy 1997b.

30. The MP in question was Moiseienko from the ultra-left Progressive Socialist Party. See 17 May 2000 verbatimreports of parliamentary debate (Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 2000).


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The center favored Ukrainian statehood for pragmatic reasons: it was better to be a pres-ident of a country than a governor of a province. If they wanted to rule an independentstate, however, the state’s independence had to be justified and secured. One way to doso was by adopting citizenship law – itself a statehood legitimating mechanism. Definingthe nation by the territory of the state was further politically expedient for the centerbecause it allowed the center to maintain neutrality in the ideological debate on thenational question between the left and the right. The center could thus continue to castitself as an alternative to both “communists” and “nationalists,” and could protect itselffrom being painted as “anti-Russian” by the left or as “anti-Ukrainian” by the right.

3. Possible directions for future research.

This paper began with a contention that politics of citizenship policy can be a lens intothe larger process of nation and state-building. What does this lens reveal? I would arguethat the politics of Ukrainian citizenship policy offers a clear demonstration of how civicnationality policies may arise in the absence of civic national ideologies to inform thesepolicies. The evidence from the Ukrainian case also suggests an intriguing possibility thatweak and contested national identity is not necessarily an obstacle to nation-building, andmay even be conducive to civic nation-building. These insights from the Ukrainian citizen-ship policy and politics also suggest several potentially fruitful directions for future research.

One such research direction can be to investigate the relationship between nation-al ideas and state policies on the nation. More specifically, to theorize a possibility that statepolicies may cause, rather than be caused by, national ideas. As discussed above, citizenship lit-erature usually studies citizenship policies as a product of national ideas. Brubaker’s argu-ment depicts a bottom-up process: certain national self-understanding forms historically,and then affects citizenship policies. But perhaps causal arrows should be reversed? InUkraine civic citizenship policy emerged in the absence of corresponding national ideol-ogy. If a particular citizenship policy can emerge in the absence of supporting nationaldiscourse, a possibility that citizenship policy may influence identity discourse, ratherthan being influenced by it, should be considered. A possible causal chain may be as fol-lows. A citizenship policy that contradicts dominant identity discourses emerges. Oncethe nation is legally defined a certain way, the alternative definitions are de-legitimized.Over time, a national discourse to support the legalized definition of the nation develops(even if such a discourse did not initially exist), while national discourses supporting alter-native, now de-legitimized, definitions of the nation weaken (even if initially they werestrong). Eventually, the new national discourse gains acceptance, and a “habit of nation-al self-understanding” develop. This theoretical possibility draws attention to the impor-tance of the legislation on the national question as a factor that can influence nationalideas in a path-dependent way. A research agenda in this regard could be to theorize how,why, and when causal errors would point in one or another direction. Such a researchagenda also invites temporal and regional comparisons, which would integrate Ukrainianstudies into broader literatures.


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Another possible direction for future research can be to examine the temporaldynamic of citizenship policies, in particular the question whether a distinction between newand old states is a conceptually useful one. As one scholar remarked, “nationality law isalways a work in progress.” 31 Can the politics of citizenship be fundamentally differentin new and in old states? Much of the citizenship literature is in political theory and legalstudies, and it generally analyses citizenship policy as the question that is primarily aboutindividual rights (in particular the rights of settled immigrants). At the same time, as wesaw above, the politics of citizenship in Ukraine has been first and foremost about state-hood. The Ukrainian political elite saw a connection between how nation is defined inthe citizenship law – indeed between the very presence of the law itself – and the likelyand unlikely geopolitical future of the state. Given that citizenship legislation is always awork in progress, a potentially fruitful avenue for research could be to consider the ques-tion whether, and if so how, the politics of citizenship policy evolves as the state matures.Attention to the temporal dimension of citizenship politics can also invite more appropriatecomparisons, such as between the post-Soviet states and the inter-war Central European states.

Finally, the temporal dynamic of citizenship policy in the Ukrainian case alsodraws attention to the role of the international actors – another possible avenue for research.Scholars have investigated the role of international influences in the evolution of theLatvian and Estonian citizenship policies,32 but in countries where citizenship policieshave been less controversial international influences have also been important, and study-ing such influences can be instructive. In the case of Ukraine, international actors did notplay any role in the adoption of the 1991 citizenship law, but did play a noticeable rolewhen the subsequent editions of the law were discussed. The Council of Europe and theUN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) were particularly influential inprompting the Ukrainian government to revise the 1991 law. These organizationsobserved that many thousands of Crimean Tatars and other formerly deported peopleswho returned to Ukraine had difficulty obtaining citizenship under the 1991 law, andencouraged the Ukrainian authorities to remedy the situation.33 Due to the UNHCRlobbying, provisions facilitating access to Ukrainian citizenship by refugees were intro-duced in the 2001 law. Amendments to the citizenship law currently pending in theUkrainian parliament also appear to be prompted by international factors, in particularby Ukraine’s accession to the 1997 European Convention on Nationality in July 2003.34

31. Weil 2001, 32.

32. For example, Barrington 2000; Kelley 2004.

33. On the impact of international actors on the 1997 citizenship law in connection with the Crimean Tatar issue, seeShevel 2000.

34. The pending changes (draft law No. 4192 from 26 September 2003 prepared by the Rada Human RightsCommittee and the Citizenship Department of the Presidential Administration) are mainly of a technical nature,but the Reasoning (poiasniuvalna zapyska) that accompanies the draft explicitly states that Ukraine’s accession to the1997 European Convention on Nationality necessitates changing the law to bring it in accordance with theConvention. Texts of the draft law and of the Reasoning are available at http://www.rada.gov.ua.


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Research on the role of international factors in citizenship policies could consid-er the question whether international factors’ importance varies over time, in particularwhether in the post-Communist region it is more important now than it was in the early1990s. Cross-regional and temporal comparisons could also be illuminating. Is the poli-tics of citizenship policy in the post-Communist states that are legislating in the shadowof the Europeanization process different from the politics of citizenship policy in newstates elsewhere in the world (or from the politics of citizenship policy in the centralEurope between the two world war), and if so how exactly?35 In sum, documenting andtheorizing international influences could be a way to gain insights into the dynamics ofstate and nation building and of the post-communist transition, and into the comparativedynamic of state and nation building in different parts of the world at different times.

35. Scholars have begun to investigate the impact of Europeanization on citizenship policies (for example, Checkel2001).


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