The project investigates how citizens formulate attitudes and make political choices when confronted with political upheaval. The study centers around understanding how Ukraine's citizens make election choices for president in the context of four institutional crises: (1) the weakening of ordinary channels of representation and the associated rise in protest activity and revolution; (2) the challenge that has been posed to Ukrainian national identity, territorial integrity, and statehood; (3) the forced choice between "Europe" and "Russia"; and (4) the failure or subversion of existing state institutions. To address these questions, a nationally representative panel survey will be carried out by Ukraine's premier survey agency, the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS). The panel will consist of two waves, the first conducted prior to the May 25, 2014 presidential election and the second conducted immediately after it.
The intellectual merits of the project are connected with its use of a panel survey to investigate questions related to protest and revolution, vote choice, and identity. The panel design will enable researchers directly to study patterns of change in individuals' dispositions during this highly uncertain period, to address issues in vote choice by measuring many dispositions both before and after a vote, and to study how voters choose strategically due to dynamics in the campaign and election. The study will also include set of embedded experiments, taking advantage of the opportunity to randomly divide the sample and ask different versions of the same question to the different resulting subsamples. This feature is particularly important in studying support for ultranationalist parties/candidates, the ability of external actors like Russia to shape Ukrainian preferences, and the impact of potent historical symbolism on attitudes.
The broader impacts of the project are especially connected with its implications for foreign policy. Ukraine's crisis represents the most serious threat to European stability since the end of the wars in former Yugoslavia back in the 1990s, with some fearing it could spread to countries that are now in the EU and NATO. By shedding unique light on the public opinion dimensions of this crisis, especially by studying patterns of change at the individual level over time, the project will contribute vital information for American policymakers seeking to understand the crisis and develop better policy as well as for Ukrainians themselves.
