SOCIAL-GEOGRAPHICAL ANALYSIS OF THE ELECTORAL FIELD OF THE WESTERN UKRAINIAN REGION

Abstract

Based on the study of national and foreign sources, the peculiarities of electoral field formation were investigated. The article reveals the behaviour of the voters of a certain territory in the context of ideological commitment, electoral activity, conditions and factors that influence the choice of people. Thus a tradition of electoral activity and the collective memory of the party favour is formed. The analysis of existing approaches to the study of the mentioned problems was carried out. Four electoral cadences were chosen for investigation over the period 2006-2019 years. It helped to determine changes in the elections interest (vote), commitment to a certain type of ideology, which was analysed according to a proportion of voting for a group of political parties with close ideological views.The manifestation of mass political consciousness, which shows itself through the electoral culture, allows us to estimate at the territorial level, the population's attitude to certain ideologies and political orientations.The study considers electoral commitment to all major political parties. We used five groups to divide parties, based on political, social and economic components. A comprehensive socio-geographical analysis of electoral practices allows us to make predictions about the socio-political development of Ukrainian society and to identify and propose ways to overcome electoral delimitation in Ukraine.The basis of the article is a theoretical and methodological development of leading experts in the field of modern political geography, electoral geography and other sciences that study the peculiarities of electoral processes. There were used such scientific methods of research as analysis and synthesis, statistical, generalization, abstraction and others.Materials of Central Election Commission were used in this article for the period 2006 - 2019 years.Conclusions were made regarding certain territorial attachment of the electorate.Grouping of administrative units was implemented according to the level of electoral culture formation based on certain ideological direction.Our studies allow to note a tendency of electoral activity gradual alignment and consistency of regional character assessment of the electoral process, which suggests the formation of a common problem field of electoral culture. Based on our research, a higher formation level of electoral culture demonstrate areas of Galician region (Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv and Ternopil); in east-Podilsk regions and areas of multi-ethnic character (Transcarpathian, Chernivtsi) electoral culture is an indicator of social cohesion process around a particular range of views and ideas, guided by pro-European and pro-Ukrainian views. Stabilization of cultural and political identity and gradual changes therein are shown by comparing dominant political options with selected social and economic data. The comparison should also allow for a reasonable prediction of future gains and losses for each political option.