Radicalized Europeans: Values and Social Base of Euromaidan

Abstract

Euromaidan is the name of mass civic protests that took place in Ukraine during autumn and winter 2013-2014. It was provoked by V. Yanukovych refusal to sign the Ukraine-European Union Association Agreement. One of the ostensible questions to protesters was whether they were really Europeans and shared the same values. Our study suggests an answer by comparative analysis of values that Euromaidan participants held on its initial stage with values of residents of Ukraine and other European countries. We utilize the methodology that was developed by S. Schwartz for the measurement of values.Results clearly show that in this respect Euromaidan was significantly closer to populations of Nordic and Western European countries than to Ukraine, but in a specific way. Prevalence of Openness to-change and Self-Transcendence values was the main reason for this. At the same time, the protesters on average demonstrated very low importance of values that were related to personal success and comfort. The importance of risk and universalism along with the disregard of conformity were almost unprecedented in comparison with European populations. In terms of social base, urban middle strata, mostly from Kyiv and Western Ukraine, were overrepresented at Euromaidan. The percentage of highly educated and entrepreneurs were considerably larger than in general population. They seemed to demand institutional changes more than most of other social groups. Apparently, they became the engine of the protests.