ARCHIVE FOR SCIENTIFIC GEOGRAPHY FOUNDED BY CARL TROLL Editors Jörg Bendix ∙ Bernd Diekkrüger ∙ Andreas Dittmann Uta Hohn ∙ Hermann Kreutzmann ∙ Heike Mayer ∙ Harald Zepp Editor-in-Chief Jörg Löffler Editorial Management Dirk Wundram Advisory Board Dieter Anhuf ∙ Tobias Bolch ∙ David Butz ∙ Martin Coy ∙ Anke Jentsch ∙ Sarah J. Halvorson Iain Hay ∙ Ken Hewitt ∙ Frauke Kraas ∙ Anders Lundberg ∙ Ülo Mander ∙ Paul Messerli Ingo Mose ∙ Ulrike Müller-Böker ∙ Detlef Müller-Mahn ∙ Marcus Nüsser ∙ Marcela Polimeni Sebastian Schmidtlein ∙ Lothar Schrott ∙ Heinz Veit ∙ Teiji Watanabe ∙ Stefan Winkler Kenji Yamamoto ∙ Karl Zimmerer 2015 ∙ Vol. 69 ∙ No. 2 April – June CONTENTS ARTICLES Sabine v. Löwis: Phantom borders in the political geography of East Central Europe: an introduction . 99 Tomasz Zarycki: The electoral geography of Poland: between stable spatial struc- tures and their changing interpretations . 107 Jarosław. Jańczak: Phantom borders and electoral behaviour in Poland. Historical legacies, political culture and their influence on contemporary politics . 125 Martin Šimon: Measuring phantom borders: the case of Czech/Czechoslovakian electoral geography . 139 Henry Rammelt: Shadows of the past: Common effects of communism or different pre-communist legacies? An analysis of discrepancies in social mobilization throughout Romanian regions . 151 Andreea Zamfira:Methodological limitations in studying the effect of (inter)ethnic- ity on voting behaviour, with examples from Bulgaria, Romania, and Slovakia 161 Roger Baars and Antje Schlottmann: Spatial Multidimensionalities in the Politics of Regions: Constituting the ‘Phantom Region’ of Central Germany . 175 BOOK REVIEWS . 187 2015 Vol. 69 · No. 2 · 99–106 PHANTOM BORDERS IN THE POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY OF EAST CENTRAL EUROPE: AN INTRODUCTION SABINE VON LÖWIS 1 Phantom borders and electoral geography Considering the visibility of historical borders in Ukraine in the territorial distribution of election results in Ukraine, does this visibility indicate a persistence Phantom borders as we understand them are of historical (social, economic, cultural or political) political borders, which politically or legally do not spaces? If not, why else, and how, do these phan- exist anymore, but seem to appear in different forms tom borders or regions seem to be still relevant? and modes of social action and practices today, such Although phantom borders are our research focus, as voting behaviour (HIRSChhAUSEN et. al 2015). the question behind the phenomena of occurring Considering the visibility of historical borders in the phantoms of historical spatial orders is, how does territorial distribution of election results, the ques- history matter in contemporary political behaviour tion occurs as to whether this visibility indicates a and space? persistence of historical (social or political) spaces, or To explain and understand the spatial divide of why else these phantom borders seem to be visible. electoral results is one of the main topics of elector- The territorial patterns of election results in al studies. When we look closely at the complex his- Ukraine since independence show a similar picture tory of what today is Ukraine and its complex com- in most of these elections. While local and regional position of ethnicities, use of languages or religion results may differ depending on whether they are as well as social and economic factors, we may find presidential, parliamentary or local or regional elec- this a challenging task. Electoral interpretations in tions, we nearly almost see an obvious divide be- the media dealing with the case of Ukraine, how- tween eastern and southern, and central and west- ever, tend to see a clear East–West divide – exactly ern Ukraine; the regional patterns being even more the divide which nowadays is prominent in politics fragmented. and discourse inside and outside of Ukraine, and The regional macro-pattern appears astonish- which seems to offer an easy explanation of cur- ingly similar to historical regions, and thus histori- rent events. As we will show, this is not the most cal borders. As we know, the territory of contempo- convincing one. rary Ukraine has been part of different empires and Some authors have complemented the East- states in the past. Ukraine is a fairly new state, which, West divide by a bit more differentiation, finding aside from short periods of independence during fragmentations into East, South, Centre and West the Ukrainian People’s Republic (1917–1921) or the (e.g. BIRCH 2000; CLEM and CRAUMER 2008; COLTON Western Ukrainian People’s Republic (1918–1919), 2011). A few studies recognise and analyse even more was only founded in 1991 (KAPPELER 2009; MAGOCSI spatial patterns, for instance, BIRCH (1995), who con- 2010). The shape of Ukraine today is the same as centrates on the intra-regional differences in west- that of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic since ern parts of the Ukraine, or OSIPIAN and OSIPIAN 1954, when Khrushchev gave Crimea as a present to (2012) who analyse the election results from an east- the Ukrainian SSR. Before that, different regions of ern Ukrainian perspective to point out that this part contemporary Ukraine were, in changing constel- often perceived as homogenous is very diverse in lations, part of Russia, the Habsburg Empire, the itself and needs a nuanced analysis. BARRINGTON and Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania HERRON (2004) propose eight regions of analysis to and Hungary, if we focus only on the last 150 years escape the one-sided pattern of “the East” and “the (KAPPELER 2009; MAGOCSI 2010). West”, complemented by Centre and South. DOI: 10.3112/erdkunde.2015.02.01 ISSN 0014-0015 http://www.erdkunde.uni-bonn.de 100 Vol. 69 · No. 2 Whatever regional segmentation is applied, in vs. Westness is employed. It is to say, there is more most studies, regions are considered crucial and persis- regional differentiation than (pro-Russian) east and tent, and justified or explained by history and histori- (pro-European) west (1.1), there are often myths of cal legacy. A number of studies deal with the question political cultures assigned to empires and states (1.2), of which other compositional factors play a role and/ the assumed transfer of culture and identity across or are crucial as regional effects, e.g. economics, use different political systems is not sufficiently explained of language, ethnicity etc. Various studies try to show (1.3), the programmatic dynamics within the parties that the regional variable decreases in importance, and in-between parties are high and do not allow easy while other compositional factors become more im- or unambiguous allocations (1.4), and finally: Some portant, indicating that the regional variable is domi- studies of political identities and preferences tell often nant, but not always and not everywhere (e.g. HEslI et slightly different than easily spatialised or historicised al. 1998; BIRCH 2000; BARRINGTON and HERRON 2004; stories (1.5). MYkhNENKO 2009; COLTON 2011). Studies that focus on a regional variable as most important or one of the most important explanatory 1.1 More regional differentiation than (pro-Rus- factors, assign first and foremost history and legacy sian) east and (pro-European) west or a historical regional context to it. MYkhNENKO de- scribes this often used East-West divide as “Ukraine’s A closer look at electoral maps show complex geo-cultural divide”, mentioned for instance in al- regional fragmentations and an electoral behaviour most all publications on the Orange Revolution (2009, which does not correspond to an East-West divide: For 283). It is functionalised and exploited as pro-Russian instance, inhabitants of the regions of Transcarpathia eastern Ukraine and pro-European western Ukraine and Chernivtsy (historical north of Bukovyna) in (BIRCH 1995; BIRCH 2000; HARAN 2002; BARRINGTON western Ukraine seem to vote similarly to those in the 2002; ROPER and FESNIC 2003; BARRINGTON and Eastern regions. Obviously this does not fit into the HERRON 2004; KATCHANOVskI 2006; MELEshEVICH main argument of the “Habsburg” West-oriented ar- 2006; COLTON 2011), also for the latest elections in eas which the Bukovyna and also Transcarpathia had 2014 (SIMON 2014); the political parties are reduced to been a part of. Also, Eastern Ukraine shows itself to the question of whether they are pro-Russian or pro- be something other than a homogenous macro-region European even in statements and articles of social sci- when we look for instance at the results of Tymoshenko entists, leaving no space in-between. This attribution and Yanukovych in the 2010 elections. In most recent comes usually with the assumption of a more vs. less studies, phenomena like these which do not fit into democratic attitude of those parties and the popula- this East-West divide are simply ignored. tion voting for them. This again becomes associated with the belonging to past empires, usually identifying the pro-European stance with the Habsburg Empire, 1.2 The myths of political cultures and identities and the pro-Russian with the Russian Empire and the assigned to empires and states Soviet Union (BIRCH 1995; BIRCH 2000; ROPER and FESNIC 2003). Other affiliations used are pro-commu- The construction of a pro-Russian East of nist/pro-Russian vs. pro-nationalist/pro-independ- Ukraine and a pro-European West of Ukraine are ence (KATCHANOVskI 2006). The underlying idea is more often than not connected to orientalistic ste- a persistence of a certain political identity or culture