SCHOLAR RESEARCH BRIEF: REPERCUSSIONS OF CHANGING LEVELS OF DEMOCRATIC SUPPORT IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE ORANGE AND ROSE REVOLUTIONS

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1 Vicki Hesli University of Iowa Research Country: Ukraine and Republic of Georgia November 2010 SCHOLAR RESEARCH BRIEF: REPERCUSSIONS OF CHANGING LEVELS OF DEMOCRATIC SUPPORT IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE ORANGE AND ROSE REVOLUTIONS In this project, I will answer two questions: 1) Why does support for democracy appear to ebb and flow within countries of the post-soviet region? and 2) What are the repercussions or ramifications of changing levels of democratic values in terms of civic engagement (political participation) and regime support (legitimacy)? The motivation for the project is the question of whether support for democracy has survived in the aftermath of the Orange and Rose Revolutions. To capture the dynamic processes of value change, I needed data from three time periods: before, during and after the Orange Revolution in Ukraine and the Rose Revolution in Georgia. Prior to my travel to Ukraine and Georgia in October 2010, we already had adequate survey data on the first two time periods, but we lacked data associated with the most recent elections in these two countries. While in Ukraine in October 2010, I first finalized the questions to be asked in person-to-person interviews to be conducted throughout Ukraine during the same month. Upon finalizing questions, interviewers went into the field. In Georgia, we discussed the comparability of the 2008 Georgian and the 2010 Ukrainian presidential elections and I negotiated access to a post-presidential election survey that had already been conducted in Georgia. The following opinions, recommendations, and conclusions of the author are his/her own and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of IREX or the US Department of State.

2 RESEARCH IN CONTEXT Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was frequently assumed that the legacy of authoritarianism and a strong preference for order had caused a shortage of democratic values among Soviet citizens. This myth was debunked, however, by scholarly studies conducted before and after the Soviet collapse. For example, Gibson, Duch and Tedin (1992) revealed that modernization processes urbanization, economic industrialization, diffusion of electronic media, and rising educational levels triggered the emergence of democratic culture in the post-soviet terrain. Reisinger, Miller, Hesli and Maher (1994) presented additional evidence that the popularization of democratic values and institutions in the post-soviet polities could be largely attributed to societal modernization. Miller, Hesli and Resinger (1997) further confirmed that a majority of both elites and masses generally favored the same set of pro-democratic goals and policies. More recent studies revealed a downward trend in support for democracy in the post-soviet region (Haerpfer 2008). Although the evidence remains controversial, the general position among scholars was that poor economic performance of post- Soviet regimes was a major factor in undermining their legitimacy in the eyes of citizens (Evans and Whitefield 1995; Mishler and Rose 1997). Low evaluations of democratic performance were also related to high levels of corruption (Anderson and Tverdova 2003). Other factors that have been linked in the literature with democratic support are perceptions of fairness, policy success, and a lack of scandals. Thus, since the demise of the USSR, various theoretical perspectives and the resulting research programs have produced mountains of data and a proliferation of articles and books. In addition to those cited above, major contributors include Pippa Norris [1999] and Stephen White [2001]. The focus of these scholarly efforts, however, has been on explaining the foundations, as well as the rise and fall, of democratic values. What I am doing in this project is further exploring Tbilisi, Georgia -- October 2010 the relationship between democratic values and political behavior (citizen involvement) during and after the Rose and Orange Revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine. In particular: do the welldocumented changes in support for the existing regimes reveal themselves in the individual behaviors voting and otherwise of citizens? Returning to the question as stated above: What are the repercussions or ramifications of changing levels of democratic values and regime support in terms of civic engagement (political participation) and voting behavior? A further purpose for my study is to bridge the gap between regional post-communist studies and other work in comparative politics. Tucker (2002) suggests that post-communist election scholars should more explicitly link analyses of post-communist elections and voting to broader themes in the literature (p. 296). I am also interested in exploring which social groups are participating and which are not. According to liberal democratic theory, participation should enhance the polity by giving citizens a greater degree of control and by creating a greater commitment to the government, thus providing a deeper sense of legitimacy. The question of who the active citizens are who participates remains important in any polity. 1

3 RESEARCH PROCESS AND RESULTS The Rose Revolution refers to the regime change that occurred after regularly scheduled November 2003 parliamentary elections led to Shevardnadze s resignation as President of the Republic of Georgia. According to Georgia s constitution, a new presidential election was required within forty-five days of the previous president s resignation. The overwhelming winner was Mikhail Saakashvili. Mikhail Saakashvili, first sworn in as Georgia s president on January 25, 2004, became the youngest president in Europe and the former USSR. He was re-elected in He is strongly pro- Western in his political orientation and seeks membership for Georgia in both the EU and NATO. The Orange Revolution received world-wide attention in After hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in November and December, Freedom House announced that democracy had triumphed in Ukraine. The European Network of Election Monitoring reported that the December election was peaceful, better organized than previous rounds, and generally free of fraud. Thus, the 2004 presidential election represented a turning point in the level of mass political involvement and activism in Ukraine. University in Kiev. I work directly with the Dean, Andrii Gorbachyk, who is also a long-time colleague, co-author and co-researcher. For several years, I served as Director of the University of Iowa-Taras Shevchenko National University of Ukraine Partnership Program (funded by the U.S. State Department). In this context, we organized several joint research projects. To capture the dynamic processes of value change, we have collected data from three time periods: before, during and after the Orange Revolution in Ukraine and the Rose Revolution in Georgia. Prior to this most recent research visit to Ukraine and Georgia in October of 2010, we had adequate survey data on the first two time periods, but we lacked data associated with the most recent elections in these two countries. While in Georgia, I was able to negotiate access to a survey conducted by GORBI Gallup International that occurred in the aftermath of the 2008 presidential election. In Ukraine we organized an entirely new survey that gives us information on attitudes, opinions and voting patterns associated with the 2010 presidential election. Nonetheless, when elections occurred again in Ukraine in 2010, President Yushchenko, the victor of the Orange Revolution, was voted out of office. The new president of Ukraine is Victor Yanukovich, who not only lost the 2004 electoral contest, but is also closely aligned with the power establishment that reigned in Ukraine prior to the Orange Revolution. Although considered pro-russian, he has focused his attention since his election on improving relations with both Europe and Russia. In Georgia, the home base for this research project is Tbilisi with the opinion research organization named Georgian Opinion Research Business International (GORBI Gallup International). It is the only Georgian member of The Gallup International Association ( I work directly with Merab Pachulia, director of GORBI, who is my long-time associate. Pachulia has visited the University of Iowa, and I have worked previously with him in Tbilisi. In Ukraine, the home base for the research is the Faculty of Sociology of Taras Shevchenko National 2

4 The specific on-site activities included a) reviewing existing surveys, b) identifying questions for the longitudinal analysis, and c) preparing for the new survey that was conducted in Ukraine. In preparing for the new survey, questionnaire creation proceeded collaboratively with Dean and Professor Gorbachyk. The primary goal was to replicate questions on attitudes and behavior from previous surveys, but also to create new questions which better capture the more recent political contexts in these countries and citizens reactions to these changing circumstances. After formulating the questions and printing the questionnaires, fieldwork was conducted from early October to early November In Ukraine, we followed the steps in conducting the interviews that we have done before: Information was gathered through individual face-to-face interviews in the homes of the respondents. A multistage, stratified method of sampling was used to represent the population of the country as a whole. At the first stage, using social and cultural characteristics of the populations and economic development of the territories, Ukraine is divided into eleven regions. Census data on population size and rural versus urban distribution is used in the second step to determine the number of interviews to be conducted in each region, and the percent to be conducted in rural areas. Cities are selected randomly from an alphabetical list compiled for each region. At the third stage, urban sampling points are divided into rayons (territorial divisions). In the fourth stage, the basic demographic structure of each city is used as a basis for selecting specific streets, where interviews will be conducted. In addition, from each region, between one and three rural settlements are selected following a similar procedure. At the last step, once a street is identified within a primary sampling unit, respondents are selected based on quota method, that insures an adequate number of interviews of both men and women and also from different age categories. Controllers supervise the completion of interviews and the procedures for questioning. Taras Shevchenko National University works with TNS (part of Gallop International) ( in conducting the interviews. This survey was paid for by a grant from the Political Science Department at the University of Iowa. In Georgia the sample for the 2008 survey was drawn using a sampling universe that included all the adult population of Georgia residing in both rural and urban areas, excluding the conflict zones of Abkhazia and Ossetia and military bases and prisons. The sample design is a five-stage random cluster sampling. The sampling frame design is based on the 2002 census information. In this sampling design the sampling units are: 1) Regions and individual cities (Tbilisi and other 6 principal cities) 2) Towns and villages (primary sampling units, PSUs) 3) Districts in cities, towns, and villages in rural areas (sampling points, SPs) 4) Household (by household we mean a group of individuals who live under the same roof and use the same kitchen for cooking) 5) Randomly selected adult members of households At the first stage, the number of respondents is allocated by a probability-proportional-to-size (PPS) method. Likewise, at the second and third stages primary sampling units (PSU) and sample points (SP) are selected with a probability proportional to the unit size (PPS) method. Households are selected via a random route technique and respondents at the household level are selected via the nextbirthday technique. At the first stage of the sampling design, Georgia is divided into the following 10 regions: Name of the region 1 Tbilisi 2 Kakheti 3 Shida Kartli 4 Kvemo Kartli 5 Samtskhe Javakheti 6 Ajara 7 Guria 8 Samegrelo 9 Imereti & Racha-Svaneti 10 Mtskheta Mtianeti 3

5 RESEARCH More details PROCESS about each AND stage RESULTS of the sampling design include: Body The First Stage - Primary sampling units The division of Georgia into regions is based on the official distribution of administrative and geographic regions. Each region is stratified by the following three criteria: a) Large cities over 45,000 individuals - There are 7 large cities in Georgia including the capital city. All of them fall in the sampling frame. They served as self-representative cities or PSUs. b) Other cities and towns with populations less than 45,000 c) rural settlements The number of interviews in each region is allocated proportionate to the size of the adult population in that region. The Second Stage - Selection of PSUs In this stage, the PSUs are equivalent to the rayons in the country. There are a total of 59 rayons (PSUs) in Georgia (excluding Abkhazia and Ossetia). The final sample consists of 27 PSUs. Excluding the seven self- representative PSUs. PSU are selected independently from each region. They are selected randomly, with Probability Proportional to Size (PPS). Probability of selection for each PSU is determined as a ratio of its size to the size of a stratum of which it belongs. The probability of selection varies in a wide range from 0.05 to for the self representing cities. The Third Stage - Selection of sampling points (SPs) In urban areas, the SPs are the census districts. In rural areas, the entire village is considered a SP. There are a total of 16,582 registered census districts in Georgia. For each census district, there is information regarding its location/address and the size of the adult population. In the pre-selected PSUs (according to PPS), the number of SPs is determined and per each selected SP 10 interviews are assigned. In rural areas, villages are considered a separate SP. From the list of villages (this list contains information on the number of adult population per CONTENT village) the SP is selected by PPS. The sampling frame consists of 200 randomly selected (via PPS) SPs. Body The Fourth Stage - Selection of households Selection of households is conducted via a random route technique. In each SP, starting points are identified and given to supervisors who instruct the interviewers on the sampling mechanisms. Interviewers make up to two call backs if the original respondent is not available at the time of the initial contact. The Fifth Stage At this stage, only one respondent is selected per household, selection of respondents is done using the recent-birthday technique. Each interviewer, after composing a list of adult family members, identifies a member of the household who fills the quota sample requirements of age and gender representation. Research subjects only participate voluntarily (the informed consent process is carefully applied), all responses are strictly secured (confidentiality is maintained), and all responses are fully anonymous. The timeline included the preparatory work and discussions with co-researchers in Ukraine and Georgia. The work visit (travel) occurred in the fall of 2010, the survey was also conducted in fall 2010, and the data analysis and report writing will occur throughout the rest of 2010 and into Picture, Graph, Quote Previous Meeting in Ukraine 4

6 CONTINUING RESEARCH RELEVANCE TO POLICY COMMUNITY We can expect that, as with our previous work, numerous publications will emerge from this research. Publications will take the form primarily of articles in professional scholarly journals. In addition, I will update my textbook and the courses that I teach on Russian and Post-Soviet politics. My first public presentation on the results of the analyses on these two surveys will be at the annual meetings of the Mid-west Political Science Association held in April For this paper, I establish a baseline vote choice model for post- Soviet presidential elections (Ukraine and Georgia). The voting decision is analyzed cross-nationally and longitudinally with the coordinated countrywide surveys of mass publics with the goal of creating a more comprehensive model of political behavior. The surveys and the resulting models take into consideration several factors that have been identified in the literature as affecting vote choices (including affiliations with political parties, stands on policy issues, perception s of candidates personalities, assessments of the economy, ideological orientation, and demographics). After establishing the baseline model for Ukraine and Georgia, the model is evaluated over time using post-election surveys for the 1999, 2004, and 2010 presidential elections in Ukraine. Noteworthy is that the 2010 Ukrainian election resulted in a run-off between Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych (on February 7, 2010). This runoff allows us to test hypotheses about the different ways that voters evaluate male as compared with female candidates. I am waiting to hear about a proposed presentation for the American Political Science Association annual meetings that will be held in September The focus of this paper will be on participation (turnout) rather than vote choice. In considering mobilization theory I look to the role of candidates in creating heightened awareness and opportunities for participation; to norms, culture, and social organization of rural and urban societies; to mobilization based on evaluations of the economy; and to mobilization based on other democratic values and orientations. The Orange Revolution and the Rose Revolution were each supported (indirectly) by the United States. The factors that affect the longevity and stability of these democratic transitions are therefore of great interest to U.S. policy makers. In Georgia, domestic instability and international problems continue to plague the Georgian government. The uncontrolled territory around the Pankisi Gorge adversely affects both Russian-Georgian and U.S.-Georgian relations, and led to full-scale war between Russia and Georgia in the summer of Thus, U.S. policy-makers are interested in both our own relations with Georgia and in Georgia s relations with Russia. In addition, questions remain about the legitimacy of the Saakashvili government. The research proposed here-in will provide accurate data on both the political system and the orientations of the Georgian people. The gains of the Orange Revolution remain fragile in Ukraine. Ukrainian politics are marked by the dispute between those wishing to move the country more to the West, with eventual membership in NATO and the European Union, and those preferring a more pro-russian foreign policy. Ukraine s entry into NATO and the European Union is unlikely to be easy. Membership in the EU and NATO are problematic: many current members want to avoid antagonising Russia. Ukraine s relationship with Russia also will remain challenging, not the least due to the commanding authority that Russia enjoys over Ukraine s economy. Thus, as is the case with Georgia, the U.S. is interested in the both its own relations with Ukraine and in Ukraine s relations with Russia. The research that I am conducting, when completed, will provide accurate data on whether support for democracy is surviving given the changing circumstances in these countries since their democratic revolutions and, if so, how this support manifests itself. 5

7 REFERENCES Anderson, Christopher and Yuliya V. Tverdova Corruption, Political Allegiances, and Attitudes toward Government in Contemporary Democracies, American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 47, No. 1, pp Evans, Geoffrey and Stephen Whitefield The Politics and Economics of Democratic Commitment: Support for Democracy in Transition Societies, British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 25, No. 4, pp Gibson, James L., Raymond M. Duch, and Kent L. Tedin "Democratic Values and the Transformation of the Soviet Union." Journal of Politics 54: Haerpfer, Christian Support for Democracy and Autocracy in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States, , International Political Science Review, 29:4: Miller, Arthu, Vicki Hesli, William Reisinger "Conceptions of Democracy among Mass and Elite in Post-Soviet Societies," British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 27, pp Mishler, William and Richard Rose "Trust, Distrust and Skepticism: Popular Evaluations of Civil and Political Institutions in Post-Communist Society." Journal of Politics, pp Norris, Pippa Critical Citizens: Global Support for Democratic Governance, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Reisinger, William, Arthur Miller, Vicki Hesli, and Kristen Maher "Political Values in Russia, Ukraine and Lithuania: Sources and Implications for Democracy" British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 24, pp Stephen White, Stephen The Politics of the Postcommunist World, Burlington VT: Ashgate. Tucker, J., The First Decade of Post-Communist Elections and Voting. Annual Review of Political Science 5 (1),

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