The Ukrainian protests of November–December 2013 owed their success to the relocation of modular repertoires of contention (street protests, sit-ins and barricades) onto Ukrainian soil and their adaptation to local traditions. Particular attention is given to Veche (a gathering of community members) and Sich (a military camp of Cossacks). The communitarian model of institutional transfers is better suited for the Ukrainian case than the entrepreneurial model: the protests were initiated, organized and sustained by ordinary people as opposed to the leaders of the opposition parties. Three mass surveys conducted during the protests and a series of qualitative semi-structured interviews (N = 31) provide data for the analysis.
Introduction
The mass protests that started in Ukraine on 22 November 2013 were both expected and unexpected. They came as no surprise, since the high expectations set by the so-called Orange revolution of October–December 2004 were never met. However, the 2013 Ukrainian protests did not follow a common pattern among the post-socialist countries, as they did not coincide with elections (Serbia in 2000, Georgia in 2003, Ukraine in 2004, Mongolia in 2008, Moldova in 2009, Kyrgyzstan in 2005 and 2010 and Russia in 2011). Also, they lasted several months without interruption and led to violent clashes with the police in which dozens of people were killed. The long-lasting character of the mass protests deserves special attention. The police made several attempts to disperse the protesters by force – all of which were successfully countered. The longevity, scope and intensity of the 2013 Ukrainian protests have few, if any, parallels in the history of Ukraine and the other post-socialist countries. In this article, we map the possible reasons for the exceptional features of the protests.
It is assumed that the resistance of the Ukrainian protesters can be attributed to successful adaptation of several universally used strategies of collective action, namely street protests, sit-ins and barricades, to local conditions. The question as to whether mass protest strategies have a universal or country-specific character is a long-standing one. The literature on repertoires of collective action considers both alternatives, universality and country- and time-specific character. The works on contentious repertoires in France (Tilly, 1977) and Great Britain (Tilly, 1995) illustrate the latter assumption. The concept of modularity, suggesting that successful strategies can be replicated across various countries and periods of time, refers to the former assumption (Beissinger, 2011).
In this article, we juxtapose the concepts of modularity and singularity using the 2013 Ukrainian protests as a ‘deviant’ case that does not fit the common pattern of mass protests in the post-socialist countries (because of the longevity, scope and intensity of the protests and their disconnection from elections). We argue that, in order to be effective in a particular country at a specific moment, a strategy of collective action must have some ‘elective affinity’ (in Weber's terms) with the prevailing traditions and values characteristic of this country at that time. Our analysis suggests that the strategies of collective action prevalent in the Ukrainian case (street protests, sit-ins and barricades) were adapted to the particularities of the national culture, and that this explains their relative success.
This article has four sections. The first section discusses the literature on the issue of repertoires of collective action and their transferability from one locale to another. The second section provides some background information about the 2013–2014 mass protests in Ukraine. The sources of the information (a series of semi-structured qualitative interviews and three mass surveys) are outlined in the third section. The fourth section shows how outcomes of the content analysis of the interviews can inform the discussion of the transferability of the repertoires.
Repertoires of collective action: between singularity and modularity
Several theoretical approaches prevail in the literature on mass protests: rationalist, structuralist, phenomenological, cultural and relational analyses (for an overview, see McAdam, Tarrow, & Tilly, 2001, Chapter 1; Tarrow, 2011 [1994], Chapter 1). Advocates of the relational approach ‘treat social interaction, social ties, communication, and conversation not merely as expressions of structure, rationality, consciousness, or culture but as active sites of creation and change’ (McAdam et al., 2001, p. 22). This article specifically discusses one element of the mass protests’ agenda, namely their tactics, and explores the conditions under which the protesters elaborate a strategy of collective action that works.
Repertoires of collective action
The concept of a repertoire of collective action, introduced by Tilly, highlights the inherent limitations of alternative options available in a particular locale at a specific moment in time. ‘The word repertoire identifies a limited set of routines that are learned, shared, and acted out through a relatively deliberate process of choice’ (Tilly, 1995, p. 26; see also Traugott, 1993, p. 310; Alapuro, 2005, p. 378; McAdam et al., 2001, p. 41; Tarrow, 1993, p. 70; Wada, 2012, p. 545).
According to institutional theory, the repertoire of collective action tends to be path-dependent (North, 1990). As a result, the repertoire, for instance, in eighteenth-century France (Tilly, 1977) differs from the one in eighteenth-century Great Britain (Tilly, 1995). Using the example of barricades, Traugott (1993, p. 309) shows how the actors’ ‘options are circumscribed both by prior experience and by the material, organizational, and conceptual resources they find readily at hand’. The strategy of barricade construction was first used in France in the late sixteenth century. It had its origins in the everyday life of Parisians who chain-locked the secondary streets so their rest was not disturbed by thieves, noisy passers-by and traffic (Traugott, 1993, p. 313). This measure turned out to be effective and Parisians started to construct barricades during mass unrest as a way to protect themselves against the king's security forces in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Sit-ins and the occupation of public spaces and buildings have their origins in urban culture. Following the 2008 financial crisis, the Occupy movement (Occupy Wall Street and similar actions in major urban centres) had numerous followers in North America and worldwide. The Occupy movement has several predecessors, including the sit-ins at American university campuses in the 1960s (Chabot & Duyvendak, 2002, p. 725). This form of protest also represents an element in the repertoire of contention in some post-socialist countries, for instance in Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia (Szabó, 1996, p. 1166) and Kyrgyzstan (Temirkulov, 2008, p. 328). In Ukraine, the sit-in took the form of a tent camp (Sich) in the city centre of Kiev.
Modularity
Tarrow (1993, p. 77; see also Tarrow, 2011 [1994], pp. 40–41) opposes the ‘old’ (before 1848) and ‘new’ (1848 onward) repertoires of collective action. According to him, the strategies forming the old repertoire are local and singular, whereas those that constitute the new repertoire tend to be universal, or modular. Modular strategies can be employed in a variety of settings by a variety of social actors against a variety of opponents. Barricade-building is a strategy that was originally singular and then progressively became modular (it was widely used during the European revolutions of the eighteenth century) (Traugott, 1993, p. 317; Tarrow, 2011 [1994], p. 38).
Recent scholarship on mass protests places the concept of modularity at the centre of the analysis (Beissinger, 2007; Traugott, 1995; Wada, 2012). Namely, it helps ‘the spread of contention beyond its typically localized origins’ (Tarrow & McAdam, 2005, p. 125). The prevailing perspective on scale shift consists in highlighting factors that facilitate the broadening of contention: how strategies of collective action are promoted that will eventually be used beyond the borders of a particular locality, community or country. However, less attention is paid to the issues of the adaptation of modular strategies to the new local contexts.
Studies of the Arab Spring and the Colour Revolutions (a series of mass protests in the post-socialist countries in 2000–2005) are a case in point. They often derive from the assumption that these events have common roots and mechanisms. Thus for instance, the Colour Revolutions are triggered by electoral fraud, their modular element. Since elections are a key element, this emphasis also suggests that the Colour Revolutions should be interpreted as a fight for the ideals of representative democracy. Viewed in this light, elections offer a universal mechanism through ‘which conflicts of a non-electoral nature could be aired’ (Tarrow, 1993, p. 84). By framing grievances in terms of electoral fraud, the protesters enhance their social base: ‘while authoritarian regimes constantly violate citizens’ rights, few incidents personally affect most of the populace at the same time. Stolen elections do’ (Kuntz & Thompson, 2009, p. 258; see also Beissinger, 2007, p. 263, 2011, p. 36; Cummings & Ryabkov, 2008, pp. 248–249). Furthermore, the language of electoral fraud can be easily understood almost everywhere – in the West and in the post-socialist and developing countries. The modular protests also tend to take common forms: street protests with carnival elements characterized the Colour Revolutions (Beissinger, 2007) whereas online mobilisation was a key feature of the Arab Spring.
The literature identifies several factors that drive increasing modularity. The emergence of the nation-state is one. ‘Modularity … had its main structural counterpart in the penetration, the standardization, and the availability as target and fulcrum of the modern national state’ (Tarrow, 1993, p. 83; see also Tarrow, 2011 [1994], p. 39). Diverse grievances now have a unique target and there are common mechanisms for voicing them. Globalization also contributes to the increasing modularity of the repertoires. Given conditions of globalization, ‘common models of social order become authoritative in many different social settings’ (Meyer, 2000, pp. 233–234; see also Appadurai, 1996). Strategies of contention are no exception.
Relocation
The diffusion model (Biggs, 2013, p. 409; Givan, Roberts, & Soule, 2010, p. 9; McAdam et al., 2001, p. 26; Tarrow & McAdam, 2005, p. 127; Wada, 2012, pp. 546–548) specifies two principal channels through which a singular strategy may eventually acquire a modular character: brokerage and diffusion. Brokerage involves the linking of two or more previously unconnected social sites by the efforts of collective and individual actors. Pre-existing connections between social sites make diffusion possible. Diffusion has two mechanisms: relational and non-relational.
The relational mechanism involves transferring information along established lines of communication. Protesters from different countries meet face-to-face at common events. They also discuss and exchange information about the strategies that work in the virtual space of the Internet. Networks of activists emerge both in a spontaneous manner and purposefully organized by various sponsors: international NGOs, foreign governments promoting the issue of universal human rights, etc. For instance, prior to the 2004 Orange revolution, groups of Ukrainian activists participated in a series of summer camps, seminars and workshops dedicated to the discussion of the repertoires of contention that proved their effectiveness in Serbia in 2000 and in Georgia in 2003 (Beissinger, 2007, pp. 262, 270; Nikolayenko, 2007, p. 182). These meetings were sponsored by the Freedom House, the Soros Foundation and the US government.
The second mechanism implies non-relational ways of replication of successful patterns. If protesters develop similar cognitive models and schemes, they tend to use similar strategies of collective action. Common cognitive schemes emerge as a result of reading the same books, for instance. The Ukrainian protesters, as well as protesters in the other countries affected by the Colour Revolutions, reportedly found inspiration in Sharp's book (2012 [1993]) on strategies for a peaceful transition to democracy (Nikolayenko, 2007, p. 182).
Consideration of a cognitive dimension of the diffusion process enables us to obtain a more nuanced understanding of modularity. A strategy of collective action can be either replicated without substantial changes or adapted to the new institutional environment. Chabot and Duyvendak (2002, p. 707) use the terms dislocation and relocation to differentiate two forms of modularity: ‘Dislocation refers to potential adopters’ cognitive and emotional recognition that the foreign innovation may also work outside of its original environment, while relocation involves collective experiments with new protest ideas and practices in the receivers’ settings.’ Relocation requires more input on the part of the actors involved in the diffusion process. Familiarity with textbook examples does not guarantee the overall success of their undertaking. They must be able to combine the traditional institutions and new norms on which the transplanted strategies are based. In this sense, relocation has more truly innovative elements. It requires the work of adaptation and translation of the modular strategies using local cultural scripts.
The use of a strategy that has proved its effectiveness in a distant cultural environment may appear impossible at first sight. For instance, fasting and other strategies of non-violent resistance popularized by Gandhi initially looked completely alien to many activists in the USA (Biggs, 2013, p. 410). Nevertheless, sit-ins as an element of the Gandhian repertoire of non-violent resistance were successfully relocated by the American civil rights movement in the 1960s (Chabot & Duyvendak, 2002). The African-American students who initiated the sit-ins explicitly referred to Gandhi's teachings as a source of inspiration.
Kyrgyzstan offers another illustration of a combination of traditional institutions and transplants. Both respect for traditions and the use of modular strategies characterized the 2005 Tulip Revolution. Stolen elections played the role of a trigger, but ‘the basic methods used to attract supporters to mass mobilization were pre-existing informal, often traditional, institutions’ such as kurultai (people's assembly), aksakals (the elders) and palvan (traditional wrestlers) (Temirkulov, 2008, p. 318). The role played by pavlan illustrates how the reference to stolen elections, a modular strategy, was adapted to the local culture. Since pavlan have an ‘honour code’ embedded in the traditional norms whose breach leads to the loss of reputation, their involvement strengthened the protests’ moral dimension and extended their social base: pavlan are idols for teenagers.
Actors: entrepreneurs and communities
Who does the cognitive and practical work related to dislocation and relocation? It can be done either by cultural entrepreneurs (‘individual brokers’) or by community members themselves.1 Cultural entrepreneurs recombine institutional elements available in a particular culture making them compatible with transplanted strategies (Tarrow & McAdam, 2005, p. 130). When doing so, cultural entrepreneurs seek either pecuniary or non-pecuniary (status, power) gains (Davis & North, 1970; Oleinik, 2012b).
The communitarian model does not involve dependence on specific individuals. ‘The key receiving actors [are] … critical communities and their members’ (Chabot & Duyvendak, 2002, p. 727). Community members share the cognitive and practical work necessary for dislocating or relocating a would-be modular strategy. The application of the communitarian model appears to be particularly challenging in the post-socialist countries as a result of traditions of authoritarianism at micro- and macro levels. For instance, several attempts to build a leaderless protest movement in Russia failed (Lyytikäinen, 2014, p. 100).
A consensus is emerging in the literature. Diffusion is far from being an automatic process that can be taken for granted. ‘Diffusion … is a creative and strategic process, one that is marked by political learning, adaptation, and innovation; it is not a simple matter of political contagion or imitation’ (Givan et al., 2010, p. 3). Since diffusion requires the adaptation of modular strategies to the local conditions, human input is always required. Either cultural entrepreneurs or critical community members become the actors of diffusion. The conditions for successful adaptation remain underexplored, however, which calls for further investigations such as the present one.
Elective affinity
Goethe's idea of elective affinity (from his novel with the same title; Goethe, 2005 [1809]) was eventually used by Weber to suggest connections between seemingly distant and non-related social phenomena (Howe, 1978; Raskov, 2014, p. 121): we use it here to denote the successful transfer of an institution from one institutional environment to another (Oleinik, 2002), or the eventual compatibility of a modular strategy with traditions in the place of its relocation. Elective affinity increases the chances for success of the actors of institutional transfers, cultural entrepreneurs or community members. A low degree of elective affinity means that only highly singular strategies can be effective in this particular institutional environment. No actor, however resourceful she or he may be, will be able to make the modular repertoire work in this culture. The lack of elective affinity normally leads to the opposite outcomes of institutional transfers. Namely, it ‘arouses tensions, open gaps, [and] creates frustrations’ (Badie, 2000 [1992], p. 91).
What conditions are necessary for successfully adopting several modular strategies (street protests, sit-ins and barricades) to traditional institutions in Ukraine? These modular strategies have been recently promoted and showcased by such global protests as the Occupy movement. Who did the work of adaptation in the case of the 2013 Ukrainian protests: cultural entrepreneurs or critical community members?
Maidan in 2013
Ukraine at the end of 2013 was chosen as an extreme/deviant case that serves better to understand the issue of modularity and singularity (Flyvbjerg, 2006, p. 230). First, the 2013 protests do not fit the pattern of the Colour Revolutions: electoral fraud did not serve as a trigger and the modular strategy of organizing street protests according to the scripts of a carnival did not prevail. Second, despite the formally independent status Ukraine gained after the fall of the Soviet Union in August 1991, the country remains heavily dependent on its neighbours, Russia and the European Union (EU), in economic, political and even intellectual terms (Oleinik, 2015b). The on-going construction of the nation-state in Ukraine places greater emphasis on the local and singular elements of the repertoire, if Tarrow's arguments (1993, 2011 [1994]) hold. The ‘deviant’ character of the Ukrainian case serves to shed more light on the tensions between the modular and singular strategies.
Large-scale mass protests have spread through Ukraine on a regular basis during the past decade. A first wave culminated in the 2004 Orange revolution. A second wave started in 2010 with protests against the new Tax Code and culminated in Maidan in 2013. The protests under scrutiny in this study started in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, on 22 November 2013. In contrast to 2004, they were not triggered by stolen elections but by President Yanukovich's refusal to sign an agreement of association with the EU. When considering this trigger, one has to bear in mind that no referendum preceded Yanukovich's decision. Furthermore, public opinion in Ukraine was deeply divided on the issue of two alternative directions of association, European and Russian. A survey conducted on a representative sample of the Ukrainian population in May 2013 by the Razumkov Centre (2013) showed that 41.7% of the respondents supported a closer association with the EU, 31% were in favour of Ukraine's membership in the Customs Union of Russia, Byelorussia and Kazakhstan and 13.5% wanted to keep their country's independent status.
The protesters, who were made up initially of younger generations, organized a series of street marches and set up a tent camp in central Kiev. Internet forums and social networks facilitated mobilization at this stage (Dickinson, 2014). The police used force to dispel the protesters on 30 November 2013 and attacked them again on 11 December 2013; this appeared to strengthen the protesters’ resolve, and indeed the number started to grow as members of older generations joined their ranks. At the height of the protests in December 2013 more than one million Ukrainians participated in street marches in Kiev alone.
The 2013 repertoire of contention includes several strategies: street protests, sit-ins and the occupation of public spaces (the central street, Khreshchatyk, and the central square, Nezalezhnosti) and buildings (the building of the Kiev City State Administration, the trade union building and the Ukrainian House), barricades, strike, Internet forums and, in January–February 2014, physical clashes with the police and the destruction of property. Even those strategies that were used previously, namely in 2004, were modified during the 2013 wave of mass protests. The 2013 repertoire was an important factor underlying the participants’ capacity to resist the government's attacks and to sustain their protests during a long period of time.
The active phase of the protests lasted three months: from 22 November 2013 to 22 February 2014 when President Yanukovich fled the country. This study focuses on the period from the end of November through the end of December 2013. During this period, violent strategies for confronting the government were used only sporadically and in a non-systemic manner (in contrast to December–February 2014 when they started to prevail). The rationale for limiting the study to November–December 2013 is that this period saw the highest rate of participation.
Sources of information
The case study involves using data from various sources, both primary and secondary. The secondary sources include three surveys conducted by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation in December 2013 (twice) and February 2014. The researchers attempted to reach participants in both the street protests in Kiev (the first survey) and the sit-in on Khreshchatyk (the second and third surveys). The street protests often took the form of a stationary protest (e.g. meetings), as opposed to a moving protest (e.g. marches). They are colloquially called Veche and Maidan. In the mass media and the research reports, the sit-in is called Tabir and Sich (Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation, 2014).
The primary data include 31 qualitative semi-structured interviews conducted by the authors both in Russian and Ukrainian during the period from 27 December to 28 December 2013. The interview guide included questions about the respondent's reasons for joining the protests, his/her experience of participating in various protest actions and take on some key concepts such as freedom, trust and power. Twenty out of 31 respondents are Veche participants: they did not live in the tent camp in a continuous manner. Nine respondents lived in the tent camp, Sich. Two interviews were conducted with the protest leaders with first-hand knowledge of organizational issues.2 The median duration of the interviews was 20 minutes. The researchers also had a chance to conduct participant observation at the protest site.
The interviews were transcribed and content-analysed using the computer programme for qualitative and quantitative content analysis, QDA Miner v. 4.1.6. The code book for the qualitative content analysis contains 23 codes grouped in four categories: Repertoire (various strategies of collective action), Organization (actors involved in the management of the tent camp and Veche), Foundations (understanding of key concepts) and Reasons for protesting (see Table A1 in Appendix for coding frequencies). The use of content analysis can be justified by the existence of a link between instrumental repertoires and discursive repertoires of collective action. ‘Like their instrumental counterparts, which create templates for action, discursive repertoires provide contenders with a vocabulary of motives that can be used to legitimate their actions’ (Traugott, 1995, p. 5).
The fact that the interviews were conducted in two languages limited the range of options available for quantitative content analysis and for assessing the reliability of the qualitative coding.3 The involvement of two coders, the authors of this article, was helpful in assessing the reliability of the qualitative coding by calculating Krippendorff's alpha.4
Analysis
The names chosen for the street protests in Ukraine are not coincidental. All four refer to strategies of collective action that existed in Ukrainian history. Veche refers to a mass gathering in the city centre during which the population (representatives of all social groups without exception) determined issues of public importance, including the signing of an agreement with a ruler and its cancellation in the case of his unsatisfactory performance (Klyuchevsky, 1956 [1904], p. 68, 1957 [1904], p. 192). Veche existed at the time of Kievan Rus’.5 The word Maidan has a similar meaning. It denotes a public meeting at a central place in a town or village determining issues of public interest. Maidan continued to be operational until the early twentieth century.6 In contrast to Veche, an urban phenomenon, Maidan is closely associated with the countryside.
A camp of Zaporozhian Cossacks was named Tabir (or Kish). It represented a set of tents surrounded by carts that formed a circle. This layout served to effectively organize a defence against possible attacks on the part of an enemy. The word Sich denotes a permanent settlement of Zaporozhian Cossacks, their capital (historically located on an island in the Dnieper River in today's Zaporizhzhya). In other words, Tabir refers to a temporary Cossack camp set up during their military expeditions, whereas Sich is ‘a permanent capital, Cossacks’ hard core, the centre of the Cossacks’ domain, their home – broadly speaking’ (Yavornytsky, 1990 [1892], p. 58).
Comparison of the data on the protesters from four sources, three surveys and the series of semi-structured interviews, suggests the existence of several patterns, namely corroboration (production of the same results using different research methods) and complementarity (use of different research methods highlights various aspects of the phenomenon under study) (Brannen, 2005). The pattern of corroboration refers to the gender and age make-up of the group of protesters, as well as to their geographical representativeness. All four sources show that the majority of the protesters came from the Western regions of Ukraine (Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil’, and so on).
The data also show that the majority of the protesters were male, especially at the site of the sit-in (in Tabir and Sich, see Table 1). This result resonates with the findings of several other studies of mass protests in the post-socialist countries. For instance, men represented 80–90% of the participants in the mass protests of July 2008 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia (Oleinik, 2012a, p. 169). Similarly, men prevailed among the protesters in 2011 in Russia. For instance, they represented 60–75% of the participants in the largest demonstration on 24 December in Moscow (Oleinik, 2015a, p. 2213). These figures contrast with a more balanced gender representation in Western street protests (Van Aelst & Walgrave, 2001). A possible – but not unique – explanation refers to the more traditional gender roles in the post-socialist countries, which leads to the prevalence of males in the public sphere.
Source of data . | Street protests (Veche) . | Sit-in (Tabir) . | Sit-in (Sich) . | Qualitative interviews . | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Data on the protesters . | |||||||
Date . | 7–8.12.13 . | 20.12.13 . | 3.02.14 . | 27–29.12.13 . | |||
N . | 1037 . | 515 . | 502 . | 31 . | |||
. | . | . | . | Total . | Maidan . | Tabir . | |
Gender | Males | 57.2 | 85.1 | 88.1 | 77.4 | 68.7 | 81.8 |
Females | 42.8 | 14.9 | 11.8 | 22.6 | 31.3 | 18.2 | |
Region | West | 51.8 | 42.4 | 54.8 | 45.2 | ||
Center, including Kiev | 30.9 | 34.4 | 23 | 38.7 | |||
East/South | 17.3 | 23.2 | 21 | 16.1 | |||
Age | 29 and less | 38 | 34.1 | 33.2 | |||
24 and less | 19.4 | ||||||
30–54 | 49 | 52 | 56 | ||||
25–39 | 22.6 | ||||||
40–54 | 45.2 | ||||||
55 and older | 13 | 13.9 | 10.8 | 12.9 | |||
Reasons for joining the protestsa | The government's use of physical force against the protesters | 69.6 | 69 | 61.3 | 20.5 | ||
The president's refusal to sign the agreement with the EU | 53.5 | 40 | 47 | 18.6 | |||
Desire to change the power elite; its alienation | 49.9 | 36.2 | 51.1 | 14.5 | |||
Perspectives of a closer association with Russia | 16.9 | 14.4 | 20 | 13.5 | |||
Dissatisfaction with a low standard of living | 11.4 | ||||||
Personal dislike for President Yanukovich | 9.4 | ||||||
Widespread corruption | 8.5 | ||||||
Fight for Ukraine's true independence | 3.6 |
Source of data . | Street protests (Veche) . | Sit-in (Tabir) . | Sit-in (Sich) . | Qualitative interviews . | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Data on the protesters . | |||||||
Date . | 7–8.12.13 . | 20.12.13 . | 3.02.14 . | 27–29.12.13 . | |||
N . | 1037 . | 515 . | 502 . | 31 . | |||
. | . | . | . | Total . | Maidan . | Tabir . | |
Gender | Males | 57.2 | 85.1 | 88.1 | 77.4 | 68.7 | 81.8 |
Females | 42.8 | 14.9 | 11.8 | 22.6 | 31.3 | 18.2 | |
Region | West | 51.8 | 42.4 | 54.8 | 45.2 | ||
Center, including Kiev | 30.9 | 34.4 | 23 | 38.7 | |||
East/South | 17.3 | 23.2 | 21 | 16.1 | |||
Age | 29 and less | 38 | 34.1 | 33.2 | |||
24 and less | 19.4 | ||||||
30–54 | 49 | 52 | 56 | ||||
25–39 | 22.6 | ||||||
40–54 | 45.2 | ||||||
55 and older | 13 | 13.9 | 10.8 | 12.9 | |||
Reasons for joining the protestsa | The government's use of physical force against the protesters | 69.6 | 69 | 61.3 | 20.5 | ||
The president's refusal to sign the agreement with the EU | 53.5 | 40 | 47 | 18.6 | |||
Desire to change the power elite; its alienation | 49.9 | 36.2 | 51.1 | 14.5 | |||
Perspectives of a closer association with Russia | 16.9 | 14.4 | 20 | 13.5 | |||
Dissatisfaction with a low standard of living | 11.4 | ||||||
Personal dislike for President Yanukovich | 9.4 | ||||||
Widespread corruption | 8.5 | ||||||
Fight for Ukraine's true independence | 3.6 |
aWhen giving their reasons for joining the protests in the surveys, the respondents could select several alternatives. The list of alternatives in the closed-ended survey question also included some other options. However, they were either not specific (e.g. ‘Desire to change life in Ukraine’) or received little support among the respondents (e.g. ‘The call to action from leaders of the opposition parties’).
The pattern of complementarity refers to the reasons for participating in the protests given by the respondents. The surveys and the interviews concur in identifying three most common reasons. The survey questions did not include an exhaustive list of alternatives, however. The interviews allowed the authors to discover a few alternatives that had been omitted from the survey.
The government's use of physical force against the protesters represents the most frequently mentioned reason to join their ranks. The police force used riot batons, rubber-bullets, water cannon (at an outside temperature well below 0°C) and tear gas against them. The police force also arrested a significant number of activists and harassed them in a number of other manners (namely, by employing hooligans, titushky, to beat and torture them and damage their cars).
After the beating of the students there was a growing resolution that we’d not allow that again. We don't let them touch our girls, our mothers. (Male, 40–54 y.o., organizer)
I think the power holders (vlada) initially wanted to dispel the protesters by force in order to scare the people. They thought that they would clear up Maidan and that's it. However, this only irritated the people – no one wanted to give up now. (Male, 24 y.o. and less, Veche)
Whoever you talk to, everyone says – does association with the EU really matter now? What is far more important is to protect our children. The people are talking only about this. [They beat] people, children. It's impossible, simply impossible! (Female, 40–54 y.o., Veche)
The president's refusal to sign the agreement of economic association with the EU comes second in all but one case (third in the February 2014 survey). The protest against this refusal lies at the origin of the second, more internationally known, name of the 2013 Ukrainian protests, EuroMaidan, i.e. the movement for Ukraine's integration into the EU. It must be noted that this reason was not overwhelming even at the early stages of the mobilization, contrary to many observers’ beliefs.
It's like with a sickness. The individual needs surgery, some medical treatment. It takes time before he recovers. The same is with [the European association]. It does not happen overnight. (Female, 40–54 y.o., Sich)
If one considers the overall timeline, the first issue was about the European association. (Male, 40–54 y.o., organizer)
Speaking about the people of Ukraine, those who came to Maidan, you see how numerous they are, their aim is to defend the European association. (Male, 25–39 y.o., Veche)
We need to change the entire system of [political] power. We’ve got an overstaffed bureaucracy. They don't work, they are inefficient. They simply sit on the shoulders of the people and do nothing. (Male, 24 y.o. and less, Veche)
The biggest problem, I think, that led people here is their hatred of the power holders (vlada). Simply hatred. (Male, 40–54 y.o., leader)
I came to Maidan to show that the power holders (vlada) can be counterbalanced. They [mistakenly] believe that they represent Ukraine. (Female, 25–39 y.o., Veche)
Now let us turn to the search for explanations for the capacity the protesters demonstrated for resisting. If the assumption formulated at the end of the first section is correct, then one explanation refers to the embeddedness of the repertoire of contention in traditional Ukrainian institutions. Such strategies as street protests and sit-ins may well have a modular character, but their specific forms developed by the protesters, Veche and Sich, are deeply rooted in Ukrainian history.
The existence of an elective affinity between the traditional institutional and the modular repertoires requires more than simple similarity. Different, even opposite, natures have elective affinity if their interactions produce a new quality, some added value compared with the initial situation in which they do not enter into contact. In the Ukrainian case, the traditional institutions and the modular strategies prioritized the concept of human dignity that held all the elements of the 2013 protests together. Not all traditional institutions serve to emphasize and protect dignity when they interact with the modular strategies, and vice versa. Only some traditional institutions and some modular strategies produce this effect, which makes the 2013 Ukrainian events so unique and interesting.
A comparison of the 2013 protests and the 2004 Orange revolution suggests that the 2004 Orange revolution lacked the elective affinity we have been talking about:
Can you compare your impressions from the 2004 protests and now? – I vaguely remember that time, but it seemed to me that everything changed virtually overnight. There was a rock concert, many attended and shouted: ‘Yes! Yushchenko!’8 Then the people started to sing songs … and put orange strips on their clothes. (Male, 24 y.o. and less, Sich)
Apathy was prevalent after 2004. I didn't even hope that something similar to what we have now might happen. The people woke up, thank God. I’d add that the Kievans have been rather passive. Only because the West started to protest, a part of them followed the lead of the people from the Western regions. (Male, 55 y.o. and older, Maidan)
In 2013, Maidan acquired more traditional elements, while becoming more militant at the same time. The term Veche suits the spirit of the 2013 Maidan far better than that of the 2004 Maidan. One of the links connecting the modular form of street protests to traditional institution was religion. Priests (Ukrainian Orthodox, Catholic, Muslim and Judaic) and religious symbols were highly visible on the site of the 2013 protests. Veche usually started with a communal prayer.
Many of them [priests] can be seen at the stage. I’m not a specialist, I don't differentiate the churches they represent: Ukrainian Orthodox, Catholic … – You’re not a strong believer? – I’m baptised, in the Russian Orthodox Church. However, I don't see much difference between them at the stage. The Church is with the people. (Male, 40–54 y.o., Sich)
. | Street protests (Veche) . | Sit-in (Tabir) . | Sit-in (Sich) . |
---|---|---|---|
Elections | 51.4 | 37.8 | 54.9 |
Signing of a collective petition, letter of protest | 37.2 | 30 | 42.4 |
Authorized meetings and demonstrations | 70.7 | 51.8 | 56.3 |
Threat of a strike | 28.6 | 27 | 39.3 |
Civil disobedience | 35.8 | 30.9 | 40.2 |
Non-authorized meetings and demonstrations | 27.8 | 27.8 | 45.5 |
Strike | 42.7 | 31.8 | 46.6 |
Hunger strike | 10.6 | 11.4 | 14.0 |
Picketing of government bodies | 35.4 | 38.5 | 56.0 |
Sit-in at public buildings | 13.8 | 19.5 | 41.0 |
Armed units of self-defence | 15 | 21.3 | 50.4 |
Other | 2.5 | 6 | 1.6 |
None of these | 2 | 2.1 | 3.4 |
I do not know | 0.5 | 2.7 | 3.1 |
. | Street protests (Veche) . | Sit-in (Tabir) . | Sit-in (Sich) . |
---|---|---|---|
Elections | 51.4 | 37.8 | 54.9 |
Signing of a collective petition, letter of protest | 37.2 | 30 | 42.4 |
Authorized meetings and demonstrations | 70.7 | 51.8 | 56.3 |
Threat of a strike | 28.6 | 27 | 39.3 |
Civil disobedience | 35.8 | 30.9 | 40.2 |
Non-authorized meetings and demonstrations | 27.8 | 27.8 | 45.5 |
Strike | 42.7 | 31.8 | 46.6 |
Hunger strike | 10.6 | 11.4 | 14.0 |
Picketing of government bodies | 35.4 | 38.5 | 56.0 |
Sit-in at public buildings | 13.8 | 19.5 | 41.0 |
Armed units of self-defence | 15 | 21.3 | 50.4 |
Other | 2.5 | 6 | 1.6 |
None of these | 2 | 2.1 | 3.4 |
I do not know | 0.5 | 2.7 | 3.1 |
Source: The surveys conducted by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation (2014).
There is a need for more information … Many people come here [to Maidan] to get more information, to get handouts, to chat a bit when drinking a tea, to look around and to hear what is said from the stage … Information is a key to success. If we get more information, we’ll initiate big changes. (Female, 40–54 y.o., Veche)
When you come here, you learn far more than from TV. (Male, 24 y.o. and less, Veche)
The revival of traditional forms of direct democracy also highlights their inherent limitations. At Veche, superior vocal strength often replaced the strength of arguments. No exact count of votes in favour or against a particular proposal was possible. Similarly to Veche in Kievan Rus’, ‘the number of votes was assessed in a very approximate manner, in function of the strength of cries rather than a true majority of votes’ (Klyuchevsky, 1956–1957 [1904], p. 69). At traditional Veche and in 2013, the intensity of the support for a particular proposal was often judged by how loudly the crowd reacted to it.
Links to traditions are even more pronounced in the organization of the tent camp, Sich. The layout of the tent camp in downtown Kiev reproduced several features of the Cossacks’ Sich. A city centre area (most of Khreshchatyk and the Nezalezhnosti square) was surrounded by barricades that played the role of carts in the original version. The barricades were decorated with banners and fortified with the help of sand bags, stones, metallic barriers and barbed wire. The Sich barricades represent a creative adaptation of the French barricades as a modular strategy to the local traditions achieved as a result of making them an element of the traditional institution.
An episode of Veche of 29 December 2013.Source: the authors’ archive.
It's Cossacks’ Sich in a pure form. – Didn't you say before that traditions of Zaporizhzhya are not completely relevant? – Maybe not completely, but everything looks like Sich in Zaporizhzhya indeed. It's a tabir. It's Cossacks’ tabir. Cossacks organized their camp in a similar manner, when they expected an enemy attack. They surrounded themselves with carts, here we use barricades instead. It's a Ukrainian archetype. Today's Maidan is a mixture of Veche traditions, they go back to Kievan Rus’, … and the military organization of Sich in Zaporizhzhya. (Male, 40–54 y.o., organizer)
How would you describe the atmosphere on Maidan? – Much has been said in this regard, I can hardly add anything new. It's like Sich in Zaporizhzhya, but in an up-to-dated version. (Male, 25–39 y.o., Veche)
2D map of coding co-occurrence, category ‘Repertoire’ and code ‘traditions’, multi-dimensional scaling. Note: Stress = 0.2149, RI = 0.8340 (The level of acceptable stress (distortion) in multi-dimensional scaling is conventionally set at 0.15–0.2 or lower (Bernard, 2013, p. 413)).
2D map of coding co-occurrence, category ‘Repertoire’ and code ‘traditions’, multi-dimensional scaling. Note: Stress = 0.2149, RI = 0.8340 (The level of acceptable stress (distortion) in multi-dimensional scaling is conventionally set at 0.15–0.2 or lower (Bernard, 2013, p. 413)).
The strategy of the strike also represents an interesting case for consideration. Striking is among the four or five most popular strategies among the protesters (Table 2). The leaders of the political parties supporting the protests (Vitalii Klychko of UDAR, Arsenii Yatsenyuk of ‘Bat’kivshchyna’ and Oleg Tyagnybok of ‘Svoboda’) made several attempts to start a strike as a measure to obtain concessions from the government. These attempts were unsuccessful. An explanation for the repeated failure to organize a strike despite the popularity of this strategy may be a result of a lack of elective affinity with local traditions. The tradition of strikes was revived in the late 1980s – early 1990s when coal miners in Donbass organized several strikes. No specific efforts were made to adapt this strategy to the new circumstances (workers represented 6.7% of the Veche participants, 14.4% of the Tabir inhabitants and 15.2% of the Sich inhabitants). To be workable, the strategy of striking should have been made appealing to office workers, peasants, students and retired people as well.
The absence of references to Soviet traditions of contention is noteworthy. During the Soviet period, the intellectuals, dissident intelligentsia, positioned themselves as key actors of contention and developed a number of protest strategies, mostly semi-private in nature (discussions ‘in the kitchens’, the circulation of self-printed manuscripts, samizdat). Some Russian protesters reportedly construct their identities with the help of the Soviet past, describing themselves as the heirs of the dissident intelligentsia (Lyytikäinen, 2014, p. 136). The Ukrainian protesters also showed a certain involvement with the Soviet values and practices of contention in 2004 (Fournier, 2010), but in 2013–2014 the tendency to omit everything related to the Soviet past prevailed. The protesters eventually considered traditions of the Soviet dissidence as external, imperial and outdated. In 2013, their principal attention was devoted to authentically Ukrainian traditions.
Which actors did the work of adaptation in the case of Veche and Sich? If they are political leaders, then the entrepreneurial model applies. If they are community members, then the communitarian model provides a better fit. Compared with the 2004 protests, the 2013 protests marked a departure from the entrepreneurial model. The leaders of UDAR, ‘Bat’kivshchyna’ and ‘Svoboda’ did not organize the mass protests. They did not run Sich on a day-to-day basis either. On multiple occasions, interlocutors emphasized that the 2013–2014 protests were people's protests and they refer to the model of leaderless contention. The code ‘Self-organization’ has the highest frequency of all 23 codes (Table A1).
This Maidan started spontaneously … It doesn't derive from a particular party's initiative. The three parties, UDAR, ‘Svoboda’ and ‘Bat’kivshchina,’ did not call it. This Maidan has a civic character. Up to 90% of the people that we see here came on their own.11 (Male, 40–54 y.o., organizer)
I am not a member of any [political] party. I’m a free non-affiliated citizen who wants to defend his rights and the interests of his people. (Male, 25–39, Veche)
One of the achievements of this Maidan is a new organization.12 It reminds me of Polish Solidarity. Similarly to Solidarity, the organization emerged during unrest and I believe it may transform into a solid political force, the people's force. (Male, 55 y.o. and older, Veche)
The 2013 protests were not driven from the outside, engineered by foreign actors, either. The analysis of sequences of coded fragments supports this assertion. The code ‘Self-organization’ rarely entered into sequences with the codes ‘Russia’ (Z value = −1.96, p = .026) and ‘Europe’ (Z value = −2.46, p = .004). More specifically, these sequences occurred significantly less often than solely by pure coincidence. The 2013 protests were driven by ‘critical communities’ – ‘networks of excluded citizens who identify new social problems, formulate new modes of thinking and feeling, and develop new political and cultural solutions’ (Chabot & Duyvendak, 2002, p. 706). The critical communities used the traditional institutions (Veche, Sich) as a key resource for their institutional innovations.
Conclusion
Judging by the protesters’ capacity to resist the government, their institutional innovation – the relocation of the modular repertoire onto Ukrainian soil – can be deemed a success. This study suggests that the elective affinity between traditional institutions and the relocated strategies made this success possible. The repertoire of the 2013 protests in Ukraine is neither simply dislocated nor created from scratch. It results from an open-ended search for modular strategies that have some elective affinity with traditional institutions and from their adaptation by means of the efforts of key actors.
At a practical level, this paper provides some insight as to why similar modular strategies work in some cases but not in others. Stolen elections are widely used as a trigger of mass protests. Mobilization does not always have a sustainable and continuous character, however. For instance, this modular strategy did not work well in Ukraine in 2004. In 2013, the Ukrainian protesters’ success can be attributed to the adaptation of modular repertoires of contention (street protests, sit-ins and barricades) to local traditions. More specifically, such traditional institutions as Veche and Sich resonated with the emphasis on human dignity that has recently been made by street protesters in other cultural contexts too. Elective affinity between the modular strategy of prioritizing the issue of human dignity through street protests and some traditional Ukrainian institutions was discovered and appropriated by community members. It happened not ‘by design’, as in the case of changes induced by cultural entrepreneurs, but mostly spontaneously.
The present study helps identify some directions for further research. Recently, there have been multiple attempts at mass mobilization using modular repertoires in Russia, for example, the Oborona movement (Lyytikäinen, 2014). They culminated in the November–December 2011 mass protests in Moscow and a number of other urban areas. The leaders – the Russian case derives from the entrepreneurial model – used such modular strategies as street protests with carnival elements and sit-ins (the Occupy Abai event in Moscow). Nevertheless, these modular strategies were not really adapted to traditional Russian institutions. Oborona dissolved in late 2011.
Acknowledgements
The authors are indebted to two anonymous reviewers of the European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology and especially its editors, Dr Charles Turner and Dr Eeva Luhtakallio, for their comments and suggestions. The authors’ appreciation also extends to the participants of two scholarly events at which the earlier version of the article was presented, a workshop on human rights organized by Bard College Berlin in April 2014 and seminar ‘Des “Russes d’en bas” aux mobilizations sociales contemporaines en Russie’ (Paris) organized by the Fondation des Sciences de l’Homme and the Centre d’Analyse et d’Intervention Sociologiques (EHESS-CNRS) in September 2014.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
The authors thank Orest Drul for his valuable assistance in arranging these two interviews.
Namely, the analysis of word co-occurrences (correlational analysis) and the calculation of coefficients of correlations between matrixes of qualitative codes, matrixes of word co-occurrence and matrixes of codes attributed with the help of a dictionary based on substitution (Oleinik, 2011; Oleinik, Popova, Kirdina, & Shatalova, 2014) turned to be unfeasible.
Its value is 0.419. Before reaching this level of agreement, the authors independently coded the interviews 3–5 times. In a project in which 4 researchers coded 37 texts the mean value for all pairs of coders was 0.537 (Oleinik et al., 2014, p. 2716). However, the texts coded in that project took the format of scholarly articles and essays. Transcripts of semi-structured interviews have a looser structure, which complicates reaching an agreement. The existing computer programmes do not offer the option of calculating reliability measures for unitizing, which deflates all reliability measures for coding texts. Unitizing involves identifying contiguous sections (sentences and paragraphs) containing information relevant to specific codes within a transcript. The cut-off value of alpha proposed by Krippendorff, 0.667 (2004, p. 241), does not take into account either the format of texts or disagreements regarding unitizing (Oleinik et al., 2014).
Kievan Rus’ was a state that existed in the ninth to twelfth centuries on the territory of today's Central, Western and Northern Ukraine, Byelorussia and some parts Central and Northern Russia. The Mongol invasion and the conflicts of succession led to the fall of Kievan Rus’. For most of its history (until 1991), the territory of today's Ukraine was under control of its neighbours, Russia, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Turkey. For instance, the Ukrainian (Zaporozhian) Cossack state that emerged in the seventeenth century as an outcome of an uprising against the Commonwealth ended up by being incorporated into the Tsardom of Russia. The Cossacks’ period in Ukrainian history refers to the fifteen to seventeenth centuries.
A 1918 poem by the early Pavlo Tychina, a twentieth-century Ukrainian poet, starts: ‘On a maidan next to the Church, starts the revolution’.
Most likely this passage can be interpreted as the interlocutor's desire to build modern and transparent institutions in Ukraine without considering the EU membership as a necessary precondition.
The 2004 protests were triggered by the victory of Viktor Yushchenko in the presidential elections that was stolen by Viktor Yanukovich. Both individuals later served as legitimately elected Ukrainian presidents: the first in 2005–2010, the second in 2010–2014.
In 2013 Ukraine ranked 126 out of 179 in the World Press Index by Reporters Without Borders (2014), 10 positions down compared with 2012.
Freq(‘Traditions’) = 38, Freq(‘Camp’) = 78, ‘Camp’ follows ‘Traditions’ 11 times (28.9% of times), ‘Traditions’ appears before ‘Camp’ also 11 times (14.1%).
This statement is confirmed by results of the sociological survey. When answering the question ‘Did you come on your own or was your trip arranged by a political party?’ from 76.1% (survey ‘Tabir’) up to 91.9% (survey ‘Veche’) of the respondents choose the first alternative.
The respondent refers to the association ‘Maidan’ that was established as an organization not affiliated with the existing political parties.
References
Appendix.
Category . | Code . | Description . | Count . | % Codes . | Cases . | % Cases . |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Foundations | Freedom | How freedom is defined. What does mean to be free? Not to be confused with perception of a particular political party, Svoboda [Freedom] | 16 | 1.7 | 13 | 41.9 |
Power | How power is defined and its importance – assessed | 28 | 2.9 | 20 | 64.5 | |
Traditions | References to the Ukrainian traditions, including traditional holidays (Christmas) in the context of discussing the mass protests. Traditions as a source of ideas and inspiration when protesting. Traditions of the 2004 Maidan when they inspire the 2013 Maidan. Defense of the Ukrainian language as a justification of mass mobilization | 38 | 4.0 | 16 | 51.6 | |
Trust | How trust is defined and its importance – assessed | 26 | 2.7 | 21 | 67.7 | |
Organization_of_Maidan | Local_management | The role of local managers (sotniki, desyatniki, starshie po palatke, vedushchie on the stage) in the everyday operation of Maidan. The issues of division of labor on Maidan are coded ‘Camp’ | 21 | 2.2 | 12 | 38.7 |
Political_parties | The role of political leaders on Maidan (the ‘big three’: Yatsenyuk, Klitchko, Tyagnybok), including the role of political parties in general. How is their contribution perceived? | 66 | 6.9 | 25 | 80.6 | |
Self-organization | Emphasis that people came there without being paid (some personal sacrifice has to be mentioned) and without being members of political parties. References to ‘it was my (our) decision’. Self-organization in everyday life on Maidan – when people do something without being told/receiving instructions, references to volunteerism | 109 | 11.5 | 28 | 90.3 | |
Reasons_for_protesting | Alienation | The general feeling of alienation from the people vested in power. The people vested in power are considered as Them (Us/Them); they do not care about the ordinary people and do not listen to their needs | 60 | 6.3 | 23 | 74.2 |
Corruption | Corruption of the government representatives as a reason for participating in the protests. Bribery, administrative barriers, etc. | 35 | 3.7 | 18 | 58.1 | |
Economic | Economic reasons for protesting: dissatisfaction with the living standard, the level of salaries, pensions etc. The desire to increase the standard of living | 47 | 4.9 | 22 | 71.0 | |
Europe | The desire of Ukraine's closer association with the EU as a reason for participating in the protests. The example of Poland as a successfully integrated country. References to President's decision to stop the process of integration as a trigger | 77 | 8.1 | 27 | 87.1 | |
Independence | The idea of true independence: Ukraine, according this line of reasoning has not enjoyed yet the benefits of its independence. References to building the ‘European’ (i.e. civilized) order without sacrificing its independence. Ukraine being more or less autonomous and independent both from the EU and Russia | 15 | 1.6 | 7 | 22.6 | |
President | The feeling (i.e. something emotional or quasi-emotional) of disgust toward President Yanukovich as a reason for joining the protest. This code involves a personal perception and personal antipathy (as opposed to the statement that the power elite is corrupted or violent) | 39 | 4.1 | 19 | 61.3 | |
Russia | The desire to move away from Russia's sphere of influence and not to be under an authoritarian rule. Only negative associations with Russia are coded by this code. The issues of Russian versus Ukrainian language (protection of the latter) are coded by ‘Traditions’ | 56 | 5.9 | 22 | 71.0 | |
Violence | The application of physical force and weapons by the police against the protesters as a reason for participating in the protests. References to racketeering, threats, destruction of property (activists’ cars) | 85 | 8.9 | 24 | 77.4 | |
Repertoire | AutoMaidan | References to the use of cars in protests, to the movement of AutoMaidan (protesters on cars going to Yanukovich's head office in Mezhigorie, protesting on the Kiev streets and so forth) | 2 | 0.2 | 2 | 6.5 |
Camp | Sit-ins and various forms of Occupy (public spaces, administrative buildings). Tent camp (Sich, Tabir) as an example: observations about the efficiency of the occupation of the downtown. Living in a tent as a form of protest. The division of labor on Maidan: various services (defense, kitchen … ) and how order is maintained | 78 | 8.2 | 21 | 67.7 | |
Carnival | Discussion of carnival (masks, a particular atmosphere, music, shows) as a strategy of mass protests | 9 | 0.9 | 5 | 16.1 | |
Fight | The idea that a force can be counter-balanced by another force, i.e. the use of force and quasi-military organization as a strategy for achieving the protesters’ goals | 31 | 3.3 | 13 | 41.9 | |
Mass_media | The role of the mass media in mass mobilization. Mobilization with the help of social networks (Facebook etc.) and the Internet. Any references to a ‘virtual’ dimension of the protests | 10 | 1.1 | 6 | 19.4 | |
Modular_action | References to strategies that worked in the other countries and the desire to replicate these strategies in Ukraine (e.g., references to successful protests in Thailand). The idea of this code is the replication of strategies as opposed to their invention | 3 | 0.3 | 3 | 9.7 | |
Religion | References to religious beliefs and religion in the context of mass mobilization. Praying as a form of protest | 22 | 2.3 | 14 | 45.2 | |
Veche | Peaceful street marches and mass gatherings (the ones that occurred in Kiev during the weekends) | 77 | 8.1 | 27 | 87.1 |
Category . | Code . | Description . | Count . | % Codes . | Cases . | % Cases . |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Foundations | Freedom | How freedom is defined. What does mean to be free? Not to be confused with perception of a particular political party, Svoboda [Freedom] | 16 | 1.7 | 13 | 41.9 |
Power | How power is defined and its importance – assessed | 28 | 2.9 | 20 | 64.5 | |
Traditions | References to the Ukrainian traditions, including traditional holidays (Christmas) in the context of discussing the mass protests. Traditions as a source of ideas and inspiration when protesting. Traditions of the 2004 Maidan when they inspire the 2013 Maidan. Defense of the Ukrainian language as a justification of mass mobilization | 38 | 4.0 | 16 | 51.6 | |
Trust | How trust is defined and its importance – assessed | 26 | 2.7 | 21 | 67.7 | |
Organization_of_Maidan | Local_management | The role of local managers (sotniki, desyatniki, starshie po palatke, vedushchie on the stage) in the everyday operation of Maidan. The issues of division of labor on Maidan are coded ‘Camp’ | 21 | 2.2 | 12 | 38.7 |
Political_parties | The role of political leaders on Maidan (the ‘big three’: Yatsenyuk, Klitchko, Tyagnybok), including the role of political parties in general. How is their contribution perceived? | 66 | 6.9 | 25 | 80.6 | |
Self-organization | Emphasis that people came there without being paid (some personal sacrifice has to be mentioned) and without being members of political parties. References to ‘it was my (our) decision’. Self-organization in everyday life on Maidan – when people do something without being told/receiving instructions, references to volunteerism | 109 | 11.5 | 28 | 90.3 | |
Reasons_for_protesting | Alienation | The general feeling of alienation from the people vested in power. The people vested in power are considered as Them (Us/Them); they do not care about the ordinary people and do not listen to their needs | 60 | 6.3 | 23 | 74.2 |
Corruption | Corruption of the government representatives as a reason for participating in the protests. Bribery, administrative barriers, etc. | 35 | 3.7 | 18 | 58.1 | |
Economic | Economic reasons for protesting: dissatisfaction with the living standard, the level of salaries, pensions etc. The desire to increase the standard of living | 47 | 4.9 | 22 | 71.0 | |
Europe | The desire of Ukraine's closer association with the EU as a reason for participating in the protests. The example of Poland as a successfully integrated country. References to President's decision to stop the process of integration as a trigger | 77 | 8.1 | 27 | 87.1 | |
Independence | The idea of true independence: Ukraine, according this line of reasoning has not enjoyed yet the benefits of its independence. References to building the ‘European’ (i.e. civilized) order without sacrificing its independence. Ukraine being more or less autonomous and independent both from the EU and Russia | 15 | 1.6 | 7 | 22.6 | |
President | The feeling (i.e. something emotional or quasi-emotional) of disgust toward President Yanukovich as a reason for joining the protest. This code involves a personal perception and personal antipathy (as opposed to the statement that the power elite is corrupted or violent) | 39 | 4.1 | 19 | 61.3 | |
Russia | The desire to move away from Russia's sphere of influence and not to be under an authoritarian rule. Only negative associations with Russia are coded by this code. The issues of Russian versus Ukrainian language (protection of the latter) are coded by ‘Traditions’ | 56 | 5.9 | 22 | 71.0 | |
Violence | The application of physical force and weapons by the police against the protesters as a reason for participating in the protests. References to racketeering, threats, destruction of property (activists’ cars) | 85 | 8.9 | 24 | 77.4 | |
Repertoire | AutoMaidan | References to the use of cars in protests, to the movement of AutoMaidan (protesters on cars going to Yanukovich's head office in Mezhigorie, protesting on the Kiev streets and so forth) | 2 | 0.2 | 2 | 6.5 |
Camp | Sit-ins and various forms of Occupy (public spaces, administrative buildings). Tent camp (Sich, Tabir) as an example: observations about the efficiency of the occupation of the downtown. Living in a tent as a form of protest. The division of labor on Maidan: various services (defense, kitchen … ) and how order is maintained | 78 | 8.2 | 21 | 67.7 | |
Carnival | Discussion of carnival (masks, a particular atmosphere, music, shows) as a strategy of mass protests | 9 | 0.9 | 5 | 16.1 | |
Fight | The idea that a force can be counter-balanced by another force, i.e. the use of force and quasi-military organization as a strategy for achieving the protesters’ goals | 31 | 3.3 | 13 | 41.9 | |
Mass_media | The role of the mass media in mass mobilization. Mobilization with the help of social networks (Facebook etc.) and the Internet. Any references to a ‘virtual’ dimension of the protests | 10 | 1.1 | 6 | 19.4 | |
Modular_action | References to strategies that worked in the other countries and the desire to replicate these strategies in Ukraine (e.g., references to successful protests in Thailand). The idea of this code is the replication of strategies as opposed to their invention | 3 | 0.3 | 3 | 9.7 | |
Religion | References to religious beliefs and religion in the context of mass mobilization. Praying as a form of protest | 22 | 2.3 | 14 | 45.2 | |
Veche | Peaceful street marches and mass gatherings (the ones that occurred in Kiev during the weekends) | 77 | 8.1 | 27 | 87.1 |