Discursive (re)production of social cleavages in the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary elections

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article studies the problem of discursive (re)production of social cleavages in the politics of divided societies. Through the discourse analysis of communication of a wide variety of political parties, politicians, and actors during the 2019 parliamentary election in Ukraine, we supplement and clarify the theory of cleavages in its application to Ukraine and similar societies with deep division and armed conflict. The results show that cleavages are (re)produced in different ways in the discourses during the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary elections. The sharp cleavages are articulated in a simplified form, while the fundamental cleavages are masked by discursive means, which, overall, blocks the overcoming of fundamental cleavages. Our results indicate that it is necessary to supplement the theory of cleavages with discursive components of separation and distinguishing between instrumental and fundamental cleavages.