Beyond the state-centralism: The scalar politics in Ukraine's decentralization reforms

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1004-9479.2024.06.20222390

Abstract

Abstract:

The Russia-Ukraine conflict is currently a hot issue of geopolitics and has far-reaching implications for the future international geopolitical structure. The existing discussion of the Russia-Ukraine conflict is dominated by the perspective of the superpower game, which mainly understands Ukraine as a "pawn" in the confrontation between Russia and the "West" in the European geopolitical dilemma and lacks attention to Ukraine itself. Based on the theory of politics of scale, this study focuses on the different scalar strategies adopted by Ukrainian domestic actors in the decentralization reform, using the example of Ukraine's decentralization reform. This study found that the Ukraine crisis was a multi-scalar coupled process in which the Russia-Ukraine conflict interacted with Ukraine's decentralization reform; a process in which Ukrainian domestic actors played a very important role and adopted very different scalar political strategies at different stages of the reform. In the early reform stage, the pro-Euro protesters mainly resorted to upscaling tactics such as protests and violent struggles to expand their influence; in the middle reform stage, the new government, to counter Russian intervention, resorted to more downscaling tactics to try to prevent Donbas civil society organizations from becoming independent; in the late reform stage, the Ukrainian central government reconstructed its cross-scale network of contacts with the EU and pushed the issue of Donbas autonomy up to the international scale, which also triggered the subsequent Russia-Ukraine conflict. This study contributes to a broader understanding of the causes and processes of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and also expands the framework of geopolitical analysis applied cross-scale, promoting the application of the theory of politics of scale in the research of geopolitics.

Key words: political geography, geopolitics, politics of scale, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Ukraine, decentralization reform

摘要：

俄乌冲突是当前热点的地缘政治事件，对未来的国际地缘政治格局具有深远影响。现有关于俄乌冲突的讨论以大国博弈视角为主，主要将乌克兰理解为欧洲地缘政治僵局中俄罗斯与西方国家之间对抗的“棋子”，缺乏对乌克兰自身能动性的关注。本文基于尺度政治理论，以乌克兰的去中心化改革为例，重点关注乌克兰国内行动者在去中心化改革中所采取的不同尺度策略。研究发现，乌克兰危机是一个多尺度耦合的进程，俄乌冲突与乌克兰的去中心化改革相互影响；在这一过程中，乌克兰国内的行动者发挥着十分重要的作用，并且在改革的不同阶段采取了截然不同的尺度政治策略。在改革前期，亲欧抗议民众主要采取抗议、暴力斗争等尺度上推策略来扩大自身的影响力；在改革中期，新一届政府为了对抗俄罗斯的干预，更多采取尺度下推的手段，尝试阻止顿巴斯民间组织独立；在改革后期，乌克兰中央政府重新构建与欧盟的跨尺度联系网络，并将顿巴斯的自治问题上推至国际尺度，也引发了后续的俄乌冲突。本研究有助于更深入地理解俄乌冲突的动因和进程，也拓展了跨尺度的地缘政治分析框架，推动了尺度政治理论在地缘政治研究中的应用。

关键词: 政治地理, 地缘政治, 尺度政治, 俄乌冲突, 乌克兰, 去中心化改革

Hongji XU, Yungang LIU, Fenglong WANG. Beyond the state-centralism: The scalar politics in Ukraine's decentralization reforms[J]. World Regional Studies, 2024, 33(6): 39-54.

徐宏基, 刘云刚, 王丰龙. 超越国家中心主义：乌克兰去中心化改革中的尺度政治[J]. 世界地理研究, 2024, 33(6): 39-54.

Figures/Tables 5

Fig. 1 Development stages and characteristics of of Ukraine's decentralization reform

Fig. 2 The changes in administrative system in Ukraine before and after the reform

Fig.3 Politics of scale in the early stage

Fig. 4 Politics of scale in the medium stage

Fig. 5 Politics of scale in the late stage

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