Building a New Democracy in Ukraine: The Unacknowledged Issue of Ethnic and Linguistic Diversity in Public Administration Education and Training

• Author: Allan Rosenbaum,Natalya Kolisnichenko
• Published date: 01 September 2009
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2009.02042.x
• Date: 01 September 2009

Natalya Kolisnichenko

Odessa Regional Institute of Public Administration

Allan Rosenbaum

Florida International University

Building a New Democracy in Ukraine:  e

Unacknowledged Issue of Ethnic and Linguistic Diversity in

Public Administration Education and Training

Looking at

Administrative

Innovation and

Change Abroad

… the contrast between

the highly competitive, and

sometimes rather messy,

Ukrainian parliamentary

elections and the highly

controlled elections under way

in neighboring countries was

a dramatic one and serves as

signif‌i cant testimony to the fact

that, while it might be somewhat

fragile, democratic governance is

emerging in Ukraine.

 e fall of the Soviet empire and the transition to

democracy that has taken place in Central and Eastern

Europe (and elsewhere) during the past three decades

has focused new attention on both the processes of, and

the issues involved in, democratic institution building.

 ese experiences have shown that issues of linguistic and

ethnic dif‌f erence are often key elements in such matters.

Ukraine, a country of considerable strategic importance,

has struggled with both the transition to democracy

and the relative roles of the Ukrainian and Russian

languages in the task of nation-state building.  is

article examines the emergence of linguistic conf‌l icts in

Ukrainian government and public policy and explores,

through a survey of higher education institutions, its

impact on the preparation of the next generation of the

nation’s public administrators.  e article concludes by

explaining why the impact of this politically divisive issue

has been more modest than might have been expected.

Given the attention paid in the West to the

events surrounding the Orange Revolution

and subsequent political developments, it

is evident that the building of an independent and

democratic Ukraine is important to both the United

States and the countries of the European Union. High

voter turnout, and the passion with which the coun-

try’s 2006 and 2007 parliamentary elections were con-

tested, have made it clear that

the building of a successfully

functioning democracy is also of

great importance to the citizens

of Ukraine, and that they are be-

ginning to have success in their

ef‌f orts. As numerous commenta-

tors noted at the conclusion of

2007, the contrast between the

highly competitive, and some-

times rather messy, Ukrainian

parliamentary elections and the

highly controlled elections under

way in neighboring countries

was a dramatic one and serves as

signif‌i cant testimony to the fact

that, while it might be somewhat fragile, democratic

governance is emerging in Ukraine.

However, the democracy that is emerging in Ukraine

is characterized by a high level of conf‌l ict and, as such,

is a ref‌l ection of a country that is almost evenly divided

politically between its eastern and southern and its

central and western regions. Underlying this divide are

quite contrasting attitudes toward Ukraine’s relations

with its Russian and European neighbors, which have

sometimes served to immobilize its government. In

addition, the task of building a democratic Ukraine is

further, and perhaps more profoundly, complicated by

two fundamental realities.  e f‌i rst of these is the emer-

gence of linguistic dif‌f erences as an issue of growing

political conf‌l ict.  e second is the reality that Ukraine

is a multiethnic country with more than 110 nationali-

ties and ethnic groups represented within its borders,

and accommodating them is not always easy. Indeed, it

is evident that the country is still struggling to come to

terms with both of these realities. is is ref‌l ected in the

fact that even before these issues emerged as major areas

of political conf‌l ict, the 2001 census found that slightly

more than 22 percent of the country’s population did

not identify itself as Ukrainian; however, this is down

from 27 percent in the 1989 census (Rowland 2004).

Complicating the country’s

ef‌f orts to establish a sense of

Ukrainian identity is the fact

that a signif‌i cant portion of its

people constitute an important

Russian minority that numbers

17 percent of the population

(of‌f‌i cially down from 22 percent

in the 1989 census, but often

estimated at approximately 30

percent of the population). In

addition, the country has with-

in its borders signif‌i cant num-

bers of citizens of Belarusian,

Moldovan, Bulgarian, Hungar-

ian, Romanian, Polish, and

Natalya Kolisnichenko is an associate

professor in the European Integration De-

partment at the Odessa Regional Institute

of Public Administration, National Academy

of Public Administration, Off‌i ce of the

President of Ukraine. She has published on

issues of educational management, higher

education and the Bologna process, public

administration education and training and

local governance in both Ukrainian and in-

ternational journals. She has had extensive

experience in working with international

organizations including the United Nations,

the Organizaton for Economic Cooperation

and Development, and the United Nations

Development Program.

E-mail: natakolisn@yahoo.com

Allan Rosenbaum is Professor of Public

Administration at Florida International

University, where he also coordinates the

PhD program in public administration and

directs the Institute for Public Management

and Community Service. He is president of

the International Association of Schools

and Institutes of Administration (located in

Brussels, Belgium) and has advised govern-

ments, lectured, or carried out research in

over 75 countries around the world.

E-mail: rosenbau@f‌i u.edu

932 Public Administration Review • September | October 2009