The Impact of the Ukrainian Factor Over the Political Elite and the Civil Society of Transdniestria

Abstract

There are studied political, social and other grounds of formation of the Transdniestrian political elite and civil society as self-sustained political phenomena. These institutes have been developing not isolatedly but in the framework of those political processes that were typical for the region during the period of its establishment and existence in different social and political conditions. There are summarized and analyzed different aspects of the Ukrainian factor impact over these processes as by direct influence of the Ukrainian political elite and civil society, as well as in the context of ideological concepts formulated in the Ukrainian political discourse during a long period of time. Concrete methods of the Ukrainian political class impact over the Transdniestrian political elite and civil society are also presented. A very special activity of the Ukrainian side could be seen up to 2014, when the Transdniestrian political elite had been considered in Kiev as an independent subject with its own interests that in its turn determined the choice of certain forms of impact. Direct inter-elite communication used to be one of the most meaningful forms of such impact, that allowed to identify the sides’ interests and to find mutually acceptable decisions on the highest and high levels. Since 2014 the situation has changed dramatically. The Ukrainian political elite refuses to recognize the Transdniestrian political elite’s status of a separate (independent) subject and considers it to be a tool for the Russia’s interests’ implementation. There appears a special role of the border factor as of a key resource for pressure over the Transdniestrian political elite, its business interests, options for traffic etc. The same way the Ukrainian side minimized contacts with the Transdniestrian civil society. But at the same time Ukrainians keep for themselves the option for monitoring the Transdniestrian political system. In the Ukrainian political narrative there appears a contradiction, when the Ukrainian political authorities can’t use a symbolic potential of a number of Transdniestrian locations, actual for the modern political ideology of Ukraine only because that these locations are situated on the territory controlled by the Transdniestrian political elite whilst Ukrainians avoid any contacts with the latter.