Citizenship and Nation-Building in Ukraine

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Citizenship and nation-building in Ukraine

by Oxana Shevel Purdue University

■ 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DRAFT/NOT FOR CITATION ■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. Introduction Although citizenship policy is a key element of nation-building in any state, citizenship policy has been a rather neglected area of Ukrainian studies. Just a handful of articles on the 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 could be attributed to the fact that in the post-Soviet Ukraine citizenship issue turned out to be a “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 Ukraine the first citizenship law embraced the so-called “zero option” and extended Ukrainian citizenship to all permanent residents of Ukraine. In subsequent years, the only aspect of citizenship policy that attracted media attention was the issue of dual citizenship, specifically Ukraine’s disagreements with Russia over it. Dual citizenship controversy found its reflection in the press headlines in the early and the mid-1990s, but has since receded from the headlines and has not received much scholarly attention either. In sum, Ukrainian citizenship policy has been an understudied issue. This paper makes a case against such neglect. It argues that important insights into the larger dynamic of

1. English-language scholarly studies that focused explicitly on Ukrainian citizenship policies include Barrington 1995 that has a chapter devoted to the Ukrainian case; Ginsburgs 1996; Jackson and Wolczuk 1997; Shevchuk 1996; Shevel 2000; and Shevel 2002. Ukrainian-language studies have been written mainly by Ukrainian citizenship policy practitioners and have either focused on technical legal issues (e.g. Subotenko 1999), and/or have made political arguments for certain policies (in particular, against dual citizenship – see Khandogii 1997 for an example). INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

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 politics over, and will then suggest ways in which the Ukrainian case in particular, and citizenship policy studies in general, can be integrated into broader social scientific research agendas.

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 policy scholars tend to scrutinize the citizenship laws’ compatibility with the international legal principles. Social scientists generally focus on the relative inclusively or exclusivity of citizenship laws, and analyzes reasons for cross-national variations in this regard. Who is included into the initial body of citizens in a new state? What criteria must subsequent applicants for citizenship fulfill? Who is entitled to gain citizenship under simplified rules? 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. Citizenship laws thus define what can be called the “official” nation of a given state: the initial body of 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 was defined this particular way. Ta ble 1 illustrates how the definition of the “official” Ukrainian nation has evolved over the decade of Ukraine’s independence. As we can see, the citizenship law defines the nation by the territory of the states. This definition was reflected already in the 1991 citizenship law, and was upheld and broadened in the subsequent editions of the law adopted in 1997 and in 2001.

TABLE 1 “OFFICIAL” UKRAINIAN NATION IN CITIZENSHIP LEGISLATION, 1991-2001

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

Those who were born on the Those who were born on or Those who were born or territory of Ukraine, or at permanently resided on the permanently resided on the least one of whose parents or territory of Ukraine, and their territory of Ukraine, or at grandparents was born in descendents (children, grand- least one of whose parents, Ukraine children) grandparents, a full-blood brother or a sister, was born or permanently resided on the territory of Ukraine

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The 1991 citizenship law, adopted when the Soviet Union was still legally in existence,2 defined the “official” nation as those who, at the time of the law’s entry into force, were permanently residing in Ukraine, who were not citizens of other states, and who did not object to becoming citizens of Ukraine, plus those who have previously permanently resided 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 born on the territory of Ukraine – has become the “official” Ukrainian nation, eligible to acquire citizenship under a simplified procedure. New edition of the citizenship law approved in April 1997 extended the “official” nation to include those who permanently resided (in addition to those born) on the territory of Ukraine, plus their children and grandchildren.4 The latest edition of the citizenship law approved in January 2001 added brothers and sisters of those who were born or permanently resided on the territory of Ukraine to the “official” nation. The simplified procedure under which those defined as belonging to the nation were eligible to acquire citizenship was been made simpler with each edition of the law. Thus, the 1991 law exempted those who were born, or had at least one of the parents or grandparents born on the territory of Ukraine, from 5 year residency requirement,5 the 1997 law exempted them from residency and language requirement,6 while the 2001 law additionally exempted this group from requirements to present documentary evidence of the legal source of income and a proof of release from prior 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 ask is why the official nation was defined this particular way. More generally, how does the political 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 on 12 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 citizens of Ukraine within one year after the law’s entry into force. This deadline was extended to two years in January 1993 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 citizenship within a year after submitting citizenship application. For text of the law see Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 2001a.

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zenship policies have advanced hypotheses about factors that drive citizenship policies in modern states. Following Rogers Brubaker’s seminal study of French and German citizenship policies, conventional wisdom today attributes variation in rules governing admittance to citizenship to national identity.8 Or, to use Brubaker’s term, to historically-formed and deeply-rooted “habits of national self-understanding” 9 that are “prior to and independent of the [modern] state.” 10 According to Brubaker, in modern states these habits of national self-understanding are the main source of citizenship laws, and the factor 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 one historically-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 as Ukraine, that emerge suddenly from the rubble of multinational empires, there may be no 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 different empires and states, and resulting cultural, ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity across today’s Ukraine, has prevented the emergence of a cohesive national identity at either 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 civilization are propagated by different political forces and find resonance with different segments of the society. In the absence of the dominant national identity in Ukraine, where can the sources of Ukrainian citizenship policy located? Analysis of the politics of Ukrainian citizenship policy to which I will now turn will show how Ukraine’s citizenship policy was in a large measure shaped by the politics of national identity, but not in the manner Brubaker’s theory posits. As we are about to see, citizenship policy in Ukraine was shaped by the ideological struggle between the left and the right who tried – but failed – to have the citizenship law reflect their conceptions of national identity. Territorial definition of the nation contained in the Ukrainian citizenship law was a compromise, and not a reflection of any existing national idea, as Brubaker’s theory posits. Put differently, the definition of the official nation by the territory of the state resulted from the failure of the political 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 France led to an inclusive citizenship law in modern time, while historically ethnic understanding of the nation in Germany 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 state can thus be described as “civic nation by default” (rather than by design). Let us examine the evidence on which these conclusions are based, and consider what this evidence reveals 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 and politically between the right and the left who embrace mutually exclusive myths of national origin and conflicting objectives for the future of the Ukrainian statehood. Until its split in 1999, Rukh was the main political force on the right. The view of the right on the 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 the same way that Poland is the state of the Polish nation or Germany the state of the German nation. The right emphasizes the historicity of Ukraine’s statehood by tracing its political lineage from the Kievan Rus, to the Cossack republic of the 17th century, and the brief period of independent statehood in 1917-1921. At the heart of the right’s view on the Ukrainian nation and the Ukrainian state is the emphasis on Ukraine’s and Ukrainians’ distinctiveness, first and foremost from Russia and the Russians. Russia is presented as the main “other” against which Ukrainian identity is defined, an occupying empire (tsarist and later Soviet) from which Ukraine’s independence was finally regained in 1991. For the mainstream right, Ukraine is a democratic political community where the rights of national minorities are upheld, but where the “the core” of the Ukrainian political nation is the Ukrainian ethnos. This view was elaborated by Rukh’s program already in the late Soviet period. Specifically, Rukh concluded that, “the national question in Ukraine is about the development of the Ukrainian nation, ethnic groups and national minorities, their integration into a common social fabric (socium) of the republic the core of which are the people that gave the name 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 multinational state, all residents of Ukraine can be considered belonging to the political Ukrainian nation, while ethnic Ukrainians outside Ukraine, by virtue of their membership in the ethnic 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 understanding of the nation. The right advocated a special approach to the ethnic Ukrainian diaspora abroad in debates on citizenship legislation. During the debate of the 1991 law, MPs from the right proposed to state in the law that the right to Ukrainian citizenship is extended to ethnic Ukrainians who live in the west, and to Soviet citizens who have “ethnic Ukrainian” recorded in their Soviet passports.14 During the debate of the 1997 law, MPs from the right proposed to exempt ethnic Ukrainians from residency requirements.15 Examination of the stenographic records from citizenship law debates in the Rada over the years shows that, over time, the right has become less insistent on this issue. However, the right continued to make proposal to this effect each time the citizenship law was debated – most recently during the second reading of the 2001 citizenship law on 18 January 2001.16 None of these proposals came to pass, which can be explained by the fact that electoral strength of the right allowed it to control less than a third of parliamentary seats in the 1990s, and the left and the center did not support these proposals. The right’s preference for the content of the citizenship law was informed by the right’s conception of national identity that saw the Ukrainian ethnos as the “core” of the political Ukrainian nation. The territorial definition of the nation reflected in the citizenship law was thus suboptimal for the right. Yet, the fact is that citizenship legislation that contained broader, territorially-centered definitions of the nation was initiated and supported 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 Ukraine is 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 Migration Affairs: “I understand the nation-state in western term, not in ethnic but in a political sense. But in order to arrive to it we have to go through “this stage.” That is to say, that there has to be an ethnic core (etnoiadro) around which representatives 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 Rada Ukrainy 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. Law draft from 21 November 1996 incorporated this proposal in draft article 17 paragraph 3 (see Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1996b, 11-12), but subsequent version of the draft law from 20 January 1997 dropped this provision (see Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1997d, 13). 16. On 18 January 2001 MP Smirnov’s proposed to extend the right to simplified citizenship acquisition to persons who have at least one parent who was an ethnic Ukrainian. This proposal received just 99 votes (22%). See Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 2001b. 17. The 1991 citizenship law prepared still in the Soviet period was a product of joint efforts of the inter-ministerial commission and members of the parliamentary committee on human rights. After 1991, the executive and/or MPs from the right and center-right parliamentary factions were the authors of this legislation. The 1997 citizenship law was prepared by the citizenship department of the presidential administration and presented to the parliament by 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 the state also served to legitimize the state, and the right’s support for such a law as the second best option is not surprising for this reason alone. Secondly, although the territorial definition of the nation fell shot of the right’s ideal, it did not go against it. A broader definition of the nation was acceptable to the right because it was congruent to its idea of a political nation, and consistent with an additional acknowledgement of ethnic Ukrainians as a group towards which the Ukrainian state has special obligations. Let us now consider 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 political force, embraces a myth of national origin and civilizational belonging very different from the one embraced by the right. The left correspondingly holds different views on the Ukrainian state and nation. Whereas the right emphasizes the distinctiveness of Ukraine and 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 is the left’s myth of the common origin and continuity of fate of the three East Slavic people (Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians). The Ukrainian left’s conception of national identity sees Ukrainians as a component of the single “Soviet people,” and/or constituent members of the “Slavic-Orthodox civilization.”18 It is important to realize a qualitative difference in the thinking on the national question between the left and the right. It would be incorrect to assume that the Ukrainian left accepts ethnic nationalism and treats Ukrainians as part of the Russian ethnic nation. Rather, the left embraces a meta-identity (such as an East Slavic, a Soviet, or a Slavic and Orthodox) into which a Ukrainian identity is subsumed. This reasoning is evident 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 creation of an “Orthodox Slavic state.” 20 Scholars of Ukraine sometime characterize the left as embracing a “civic” (as opposed to the right’s “ethnic”) conception of the nation. Some of the left’s strategies on citizenship policy matters are consistent with this interpretation – in particular, the left’s opposition 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 program 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 citizenship policy debates necessitates a conclusion that a characterization of communists and their allies as proponents of “civic” nation-building in Ukraine is inaccurate and misleading. Characterization of the left as favoring “civic” nationalism assumes that it favors independent Ukrainian statehood just as the right does, but sees its content differently from 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 the nation territorially. The fact is that the left never initiated any citizenship legislation. As documented above, all citizenship legislation was initiated by the right and/or the right and the center. Moreover, the left actively oppose citizenship law all together from the very 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 its work [in March 1990]. The parliamentary opposition insisted on this law, empha- sizing that this would underscore sovereignty declared by Ukraine. The Communist majority resisted, and when the issue was discussed nevertheless it insisted: only dual citizenship with the USSR.” 22 The left’s opposition to the citizenship law seems illogical if the left is perceived as a supporter of a “civic” Ukrainian nation. If civic nation was what the left wanted, it should 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, if one is mindful of the fact that political forces’ positions on the citizenship law were a product of these forces’ national identity conceptions, and their resulting preference for the 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, independent Ukrainian statehood is an anomaly, and a proper state formation is some form of 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 the law was discussed in the parliament. These proposals led to lengthy debates especially during the discussion of the 1991 and the 1997 laws. See Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1991a, Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1991b, Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1996a, Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1997b, Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1997c. The left failed to remove the language requirement from the law entirely, but the language clause was made less rigid than what the right favored. In the 2001 law, the requirement is stated in Article 9 paragraph 5 as “command (volodinnia) of state language, or its understanding, in the extent sufficient for communication.” Since the 1997 edition of the law, those who belong to the official nation and are thus entitled to acquire citizenship under simplified rules are exempt from the language requirement. 22. Sokol 1991.

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was their geopolitical objectives.23 The left’s conception of national identity and resulting preference for statehood made the question of the official nation of the Ukrainian state a tricky one for the Ukrainian left. The very question, “who belong to the nation of the Ukrainian state” implies the normalcy of a situation where the Ukrainian state exists and functions like other states. The citizenship law that defined the official nation of the Ukrainian state and did not provide for a dual citizenship with Russia did absolutely nothing for the left’s ultimate goal: a joint state with Russia and Belarus. If one is aware of this, the left’s lack of interest in the citizenship law makes sense. Failing to prevent citizenship 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 support for dual citizenship thus also makes sense. The issue of dual citizenship was at the center of the citizenship law debate in 1991, when it almost came to pass. The clause “dual citizenship is allowed” failed by just two votes.25 The final wording in the 1991 law was a compromise that allowed for a possibility of dual citizenship under bilateral agreements.26 No such agreements ever mate- rialized, however. The executive branch, in particular the Citizenship Department of the Presidential Administration that has been in charge of the citizenship policy on day to day basis, remained adamant on maintaining single citizenship. Ukrainian officials described 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 brotherly people of the criminally-destroyed Soviet Union,” noting that “the first step in this direction should be the creation of the Union of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus” (Politychni Partii Ukrainy 1998, 109). Before the 1999 presidential 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 recently, in May 2000, Heorhii Kriuchkov, one of the key ideologues of the Ukrainian Communist party, argued along similar lines: “our [Communists’] goal is … to recreate a brotherly union of peoples that until recently lived as one happy family. The first steps on this road could be the creation … of a confederate-type Union of three Slavic states: 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 future prospects of the Ukrainian statehood is evident, for example, from the 1998 electoral program of the Slavic Party that stood for a union of Russia and Ukraine in a single state. The party program is forthright: “the introduction of 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 short of 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 and those that explicitly did not allow for dual citizenship failed, a compromised wording was proposed. Article 1 of the 1991 law read: “in Ukraine there is single citizenship. Dual citizenship is allowed on the basis of bilateral agreements.” Text of the 1991 Ukrainian citizenship law in Pravda Ukrainy, 14 November 1991. This compromise wording gained 302 votes, a Constitutional majority (voting results in Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1991a, 28). The compromise was reached after MP Yemets, likely to appease supporters of dual citizenship and to encourage them to vote for the law, said that “the problem [of dual citizenship] will most likely arise in relations to Russia, and we probably 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 in the dual citizenship debate was the 1996 Constitution that established single citizenship as a constitutional principle.28 When the draft 1997 citizenship law came for debate, leftist MPs raised the issue of dual citizenship, but this issue received far less attention than in 1991.29 The right successfully used unambiguous constitutional provision on single citizenship 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 raised the issue of dual citizenship during the first reading of the law on 18 May 2000, and he was ignored.30

The outcome: civic nation by default. The above discussion demonstrates why the territorial definition of the nation reflected in the citizenship law is best characterized as civic nation by default. For the Ukrainian right, the territorial definition of the nation fell short of the objective to acknowledge that ethnic Ukrainians are members of the “official” Ukrainian nation. For the Ukrainian left, a territorial definition of the nation did even less. While a definition of the official nation that did not single out ethnic Ukrainians was certainly more acceptable to the left than the one that did, the very fact of the citizenship law, and the definition of the official nation by the territory of the state in the law, did nothing for the left’s ultimate geopolitical objective of a joint state with Russia. The left and the right compromised on the territorial definition. Neither the left nor the right had enough electoral support to translate into law its first preferences (dual citizenship and explicit inclusion of ethnic Ukrainians in the group eligible for simplified citizenship acquisition, respectively). The territorial definition of the nation became the law also because it received support of the ideologically amorphous “center” (so-called party of power). The center (former communist nomenclatura and “red directors” who became the ruling elite of independent 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 it threatens 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 Ukrainian citizenship is regulated by law.” 29. Specifically, Communist leader Petro Symonenko tabled a written amendment to retain the clause from the 1991 law “dual citizenship is allowed on the basis of bilateral agreements,” but the committee rejected the amendment as “violating the Constitution of Ukraine.” (See Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1996b, 3). Simonenko and Alekseiev raised the issue of dual citizenship during the 1st and 2nd readings of the law in the parliament on 30 October 1996 and 27 February 1997. See verbatim reports of parliamentary debates Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1996a, Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1997b. 30. The MP in question was Moiseienko from the ultra-left Progressive Socialist Party. See 17 May 2000 verbatim reports 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 president of a country than a governor of a province. If they wanted to rule an independent state, however, the state’s independence had to be justified and secured. One way to do so was by adopting citizenship law – itself a statehood legitimating mechanism. Defining the nation by the territory of the state was further politically expedient for the center because it allowed the center to maintain neutrality in the ideological debate on the national question between the left and the right. The center could thus continue to cast itself as an alternative to both “communists” and “nationalists,” and could protect itself from 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 into the larger process of nation and state-building. What does this lens reveal? I would argue that the politics of Ukrainian citizenship policy offers a clear demonstration of how civic nationality policies may arise in the absence of civic national ideologies to inform these policies. The evidence from the Ukrainian case also suggests an intriguing possibility that weak and contested national identity is not necessarily an obstacle to nation-building, and may even be conducive to civic nation-building. These insights from the Ukrainian citizenship policy and politics also suggest several potentially fruitful directions for future research. One such research direction can be to investigate the relationship between national ideas and state policies on the nation. More specifically, to theorize a possibility that state policies may cause, rather than be caused by, national ideas. As discussed above, citizenship literature usually studies citizenship policies as a product of national ideas. Brubaker’s argument depicts a bottom-up process: certain national self-understanding forms historically, and then affects citizenship policies. But perhaps causal arrows should be reversed? In Ukraine civic citizenship policy emerged in the absence of corresponding national ideol- ogy. If a particular citizenship policy can emerge in the absence of supporting national discourse, a possibility that citizenship policy may influence identity discourse, rather than 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. Once the 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 alternative, now de-legitimized, definitions of the nation weaken (even if initially they were strong). Eventually, the new national discourse gains acceptance, and a “habit of national self-understanding” develop. This theoretical possibility draws attention to the importance of the legislation on the national question as a factor that can influence national ideas 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 research agenda also invites temporal and regional comparisons, which would integrate Ukrainian studies into broader literatures.

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Another possible direction for future research can be to examine the temporal dynamic of citizenship policies, in particular the question whether a distinction between new and old states is a conceptually useful one. As one scholar remarked, “nationality law is always a work in progress.” 31 Can the politics of citizenship be fundamentally different in new and in old states? Much of the citizenship literature is in political theory and legal studies, and it generally analyses citizenship policy as the question that is primarily about individual rights (in particular the rights of settled immigrants). At the same time, as we saw above, the politics of citizenship in Ukraine has been first and foremost about statehood. The Ukrainian political elite saw a connection between how nation is defined in the citizenship law – indeed between the very presence of the law itself – and the likely and unlikely geopolitical future of the state. Given that citizenship legislation is always a work in progress, a potentially fruitful avenue for research could be to consider the question 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 appropriate comparisons, 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 also draws 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 the Latvian and Estonian citizenship policies,32 but in countries where citizenship policies have been less controversial international influences have also been important, and studying such influences can be instructive. In the case of Ukraine, international actors did not play any role in the adoption of the 1991 citizenship law, but did play a noticeable role when the subsequent editions of the law were discussed. The Council of Europe and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) were particularly influential in prompting the Ukrainian government to revise the 1991 law. These organizations observed that many thousands of Crimean Tatars and other formerly deported peoples who returned to Ukraine had difficulty obtaining citizenship under the 1991 law, and encouraged the Ukrainian authorities to remedy the situation.33 Due to the UNHCR lobbying, provisions facilitating access to Ukrainian citizenship by refugees were intro- duced in the 2001 law. Amendments to the citizenship law currently pending in the Ukrainian parliament also appear to be prompted by international factors, in particular by 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, see Shevel 2000. 34. The pending changes (draft law No. 4192 from 26 September 2003 prepared by the Rada Human Rights Committee 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 the 1997 European Convention on Nationality necessitates changing the law to bring it in accordance with the Convention. 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 consider the question whether international factors’ importance varies over time, in particular whether in the post-Communist region it is more important now than it was in the early 1990s. Cross-regional and temporal comparisons could also be illuminating. Is the politics of citizenship policy in the post-Communist states that are legislating in the shadow of the Europeanization process different from the politics of citizenship policy in new states elsewhere in the world (or from the politics of citizenship policy in the central Europe between the two world war), and if so how exactly? 35 In sum, documenting and theorizing international influences could be a way to gain insights into the dynamics of state and nation building and of the post-communist transition, and into the comparative dynamic 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, Checkel 2001).

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References

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