INTERVIEW: Taras Kuzio on his work and growing interest in Ukraine

PARSIPPANY, N.J. - The name of Dr. Taras Kuzio, who currently is a visiting professor at the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at George Washington University, is familiar to readers of The Ukrainian Weekly - but not only to our readers.

His name is familiar also to readers of scholarly publications, to viewers of news programs providing analyses of current events in the post-Soviet space, and, indeed, to anyone interested in political developments in Ukraine and beyond.

He was particularly ubiquitous during the Orange Revolution as various news media sought him out as an analyst and commentator on the historic events unfolding in Ukraine.

A political scientist, Dr. Kuzio received a B.A. from the University of Sussex, an M.A. from the University of London and a Ph.D. from the University of Birmingham, England.

Dr. Kuzio teaches at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University. Previously he was a resident fellow at the Center for Russian and East European Studies (CREES), University of Toronto. He is also a former senior research fellow affiliated with CREES at the University of Birmingham and was a post doctoral-fellow at Yale University.

Dr. Kuzio headed the NATO Information Office in Kyiv, and served as a long-term observer for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe during the 1998 and 2002 parliamentary elections in Ukraine.

He is the author of "Ukrainian Security Policy" (Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1995), "Ukraine under Kuchma" (Macmillan, 1997), "Ukraine: State and Nation Building" (Routledge, 1998) and "Ukraine: Perestroika to Independence" (Macmillan, 1994 and 2000), and is co-author with Paul D'Anieri, and Robert S. Kravchuk of "Politics and Society in Ukraine" (Westview, 1999).

Dr. Kuzio also is the editor of "Contemporary Ukraine: Dynamics of Post-Soviet Transformation" (M.E. Sharpe, 1998) and a co-editor of "State and Institution Building in Ukraine" (St. Martin's Press, 1999), "Ukrainian Foreign and Security Policy: Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives" (Praeger, 2002) and "Dilemmas of State-Led Nation Building in Ukraine" (Praeger, 2002).

He has published in a wide range of academic journals on post-Soviet and Ukrainian politics, international relations and nationalism. He writes regularly for Jamestown Foundation's Eurasia Daily Monitor, Oxford Analytica and Jane's Information Group.

Dr. Kuzio agreed to be interviewed via e-mail by The Weekly's Roma Hadzewycz. Following is the text of the interview, conducted in late March.

Q: You teach courses on political science that cover such topics as democratization in post-Soviet Ukraine, the European Union and Ukraine, and NATO and Ukraine. What has changed that a major university like George Washington University now offers such courses?

A: I began teaching political science courses at the University of Toronto in 2002 and since 2004 at George Washington University (GWU). I saw that in North America the diaspora has focused far too much on culture and history to the detriment of largely ignoring political science (i.e., contemporary Ukraine). This bias was confirmed to me when I applied for funds to the Canadian Institute Ukrainian Studies (CIUS) to teach courses on contemporary Ukraine but they rejected my application in favor of another application to teach Ukrainian art. Nevertheless, I found the funds in the end from the George Danyliw Foundation and taught courses on contemporary Ukraine for two years at the University of Toronto. In the spring 2004 semester, my last at Toronto, I had 20 graduate and undergraduates in my class on a course dealing with nationalism and identity in Ukraine.

At GWU I have a two-year visiting professorship funded by the William and Helen Petrach Endowment for Ukrainian Exchanges and Programs at GWU's Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES). IERES is now seeking to convert this into a long-term lectureship by raising further funds.

I teach two courses per semester, one for graduates and another for undergraduates. The two courses per semester are drawn from three subjects: "Democratization and Transition in Ukraine," "Nationalism and Identity in Ukraine" and "NATO and EU Enlargement: Ukraine." In the fall 2004 class at GWU I had 16 undergraduates in one class on democratization and 12 graduates in my other class on EU and NATO enlargement and Ukraine. This semester I have 20 graduates in the class on nationalism and identity and 27 undergraduates on the EU, NATO and Ukraine.

Teaching these courses is important for two reasons. First, many undergraduates go on to do graduate studies and some graduates go on to do Ph.D.s. Second, because of GWU's location and reputation, many graduates go on to work in the U.S. government; indeed, some are already interns in U.S. government departments or at think-tanks.

Teaching, therefore, creates a pool of students, some of whom will then go on to continue to have an interest in Ukraine.

Q: What other universities offer courses like these on current developments in Ukraine?

A: Courses on contemporary Ukraine are very few in North America. The U.S.A. has a large pool of political scientists who research, write and give talks on contemporary Ukraine. But, their teaching of Ukraine is usually integrated into other broader subjects. Harvard's Ukrainian Research Institute (HURI) could have promoted such courses, but it has failed to adapt to the post-Soviet era and plays little role in contemporary Ukrainian studies.

In Canada a new Chair of Ukrainian Studies in Ottawa is meant to be geared towards contemporary Ukraine. It's drawback though, is that it is based in a French-speaking department of political science and bilingual university. CIUS has done little better than HURI. Canada is devoid of political scientists working on contemporary Ukraine, which perhaps explains two factors. First, why historians tend to undertake the majority of the commentaries on contemporary Ukraine. Second, why a historian heads the CIUS Stasiuk Center for the Study of Contemporary Ukraine.

Q: Who are the students who enroll in these courses? What topics are they particularly interested in and why? How are these students at GWU different from those who took your courses at the University of Toronto?

A: Contrary to what Ukrainian culturalists and historians have claimed, there is a very large demand for classes dealing with contemporary Ukraine. In fact, classes on contemporary Ukraine (such as mine) have far more students than those in culture or history.

Each class has only one or two students of Ukrainian background, and so the demand is strong among Americans of non-Ukrainian background. In Toronto there were more students with Ukrainian background, particularly fourth-generation immigrants. There, students of Ukrainian background accounted for half of the student numbers. AT GWU the situation is very different.

Of the three topics I offer, the two most popular have been EU and NATO: followed by nationalism and identity. The first because it is very much in the news, and the second because it is an unusual topic not offered by other professors. Democratization (offered again in fall 2005) is likely to become popular because of the Orange Revolution. My fall 2004 class on democratization took place in the middle of the elections, which the students were enthralled by.

Q: It seems you've been very much in demand lately as a commentator and analyst on various news programs on television and radio. How do you account for such ubiquity?

A: During the elections I undertook interviews for numerous outlets which included "Newshour with Jim Lehrer," CNN International, NBC, BBC World TV, BBC TV Newsnight, BBC World Radio, BBC Radio Newshour, CBC, NPR (in Washington, Philadelphia, Boston, Los Angeles), VOA TV (Ukrainian) and radio (English), RFE/RL Ukrainian service, Radio Dublin, Mississippi School of Journalism radio, Polish Press Agency, AFP, UPI, AFP, Knight Rider, two Norwegian and Swedish newspapers, and the Wall Street Journal Europe.

Two factors accounted for this. First, the explosion of interest in Ukraine's elections and the Orange Revolution. Second, the lack of competition. Ironically, I have benefited by the lack of investment from the North American diaspora into contemporary Ukrainian studies, as well as the apathy during the Orange Revolution of established North American academic centers devoted to Ukraine.

Q: Our readers remember your byline from RFE/RL Newsline, but lately you have been writing for the Eurasia Daily Monitor, which graciously allows our newspaper to reprint your articles. Where else are you publishing your analyses these days?

A: I used to write for three or four RFE/RL publications, but they ran out of funds to pay for freelance contributions. The Jamestown Foundation has private funding and launched Eurasian Daily Monitor (EDM) in May 2004. EDM is edited by Ann Robertson, who also edits the bimonthly Problems of Post-Communism, where I have an extensive article devoted to the 2004 elections and the Orange Revolution in the current issue.

Both Jamestown and Ann had the foresight to understand that the 2004 elections were a crucial turning point for Ukraine. They, therefore, encouraged me to write three articles per week during the six-month election campaign and now two. This meant that EDM had far better coverage than RFE/RL of the Ukrainian elections.

I also occasionally write op-eds, but these are usually when the newspaper requests them, such as Montreal's La Presse in the elections. Other areas where I regularly write are for Oxford Analytica and for Jane's Information Group. In the latter, I publish articles in Jane's Intelligence Digest and cover Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova for Jane's Sentinel Security Assessments.

With the power of the Internet many of these articles are re-published by other publications and websites, including in Ukraine.

Q: Do you undertake any other consulting projects?

A: I have long been an outside quality controller for VOA and Radio Liberty's Ukrainian-language services. Another area that has grown since Ukraine's image has improved after the Orange Revolution is that of political risk. I research and prepare reports on Ukrainian economic agents and companies for a British investment bank that, in turn, is working on behalf of potential Western investors in Ukraine.

Q: We also know that you have been a featured speaker at many presentations before Ukrainian and non-Ukrainian audiences. What is the main message that you try to deliver these days to such disparate groups?

A: Since coming to GWU offers to speak have been very high and can be divided into four groups. First, talks to Ukrainian American groups, which I have undertaken in Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia (twice), San Francisco and in Washington, D.C.

Second, academic conferences at the University of Toronto, a panel at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies conference in Boston, and at GWU on two occasions. I am also co-organizer of two panels at the Association for Study of Nationalities (ASN) convention in New York dealing with "Ten Years of Leonid Kuchma."

The third and fourth areas are what makes the U.S.A. different from Canada as Canada has no internationally known think-tanks on international affairs. The Canadian government is also disinterested in working with the academic community. In three years in Canada I was invited only once to Ottawa to a CIDA [Canadian International Development Agency] conference. When I was invited again in May 2004 I, like everybody else invited, was asked to pay their own way. I declined as I did not believe this showed Ottawa was serious in reaching out to specialists on Ukraine.

Talks given to think-tanks have included all of the main Washington-based think-tanks such as Brookings, Carnegie Endowment, Heritage Foundation, Kennan Institute, a seminar chaired by Zbigniew Brzezinski at the School of Advanced International Studies at John Hopkins University, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. I also squeezed in two talks to the Austrian and Norwegian institutes of international affairs in Vienna and Oslo, respectively.

Fourth, to U.S. government bodies which are rarely publicized. Between September 2003 and July 2004 I gave talks to four seminars with Prof. Paul D'Anieri (University of Kansas) organized by the State Department and other government institutions. Other talks have been to the National Intelligence Council (with Prof. D'Anieri and Prof. Alexander Motyl) on the eve of President [George W.] Bush's visit to Europe where he met President Viktor Yushchenko. Two recent events were papers given to a U.S. government conference devoted to generational change in Ukraine and a paper given to a USAID [U.S. Agency for International Development] conference comparing democratic revolutions in Serbia, Georgia and Ukraine.

The themes discussed in the above events depend on the type of event. I tailor my presentations to different audiences, something not all academics can easily do. The audience - whether community, think-tank, U.S. government or academic - is very different.

The most notable presentation that came to mind was to a U.S. State Department and government seminar in July 2004 on the elections. My co-speaker, Prof. D'Anieri was quite pessimistic, which was the view of the 30 to 40 participants from all manner of U.S. government departments. In contrast, I gave a presentation where I predicted that Yushchenko would win. Most listeners were skeptical. When I met most of the same participants at a January seminar on generational change they congratulated me with the words "You were right."

Q: How else do you disseminate your analyses? We hear that there also is a Taras Kuzio website. What has the traffic been like?

A: Taraskuzio.net is one of the most frequented websites dealing with studies of contemporary Ukraine. The number of visitors and downloads probably surpasses those of established Ukrainian academic centers. It has had 48,000 hits since January 2003. The number of visitors and pages viewed has been rising since September and peaked in November-December 2004. In those two months there was a daily average of 300 users and 500 page views daily. The interesting thing is that, although the number of visitors has leveled off, the page figure remains at 400 plus. Hopefully, these are repeat viewers that are exploring the site more. The page view totals for the elections special page included 421 in October, 2,000 in November and 1,000 in December. The site had over 10,000 articles downloaded during the 2004 elections.

Q: Are there any other projects that you are working on?

A: Just published in Nationalities Papers is an extensive study of how Kyiv Rus' history is being treated in post-Soviet Ukraine. Also about to appear are articles dealing with Rusyns in Ukraine in the Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism and why Western multiculturalism cannot be applied to Post-Soviet States in the Journal of Contemporary European Politics. This is a critical response to the Canadian leading philosopher of multiculturalism, Will Kymlicka.

The Orange Revolution has become a particular focus of attention with four studies. I have a short article in the International Foundation Electoral Systems magazine Election Watch. Two lengthy studies of the Orange Revolution will be published in April in Problems of Post-Communism and the Journal of Democracy, a publication of the National Endowment for Democracy. A final publication will be a chapter in a book on the Orange Revolution edited by Anders Aslund and Michael McFaul and to be published by Carnegie in September. I also have a chapter due out in a book which is titled "The Victory of Civic Nationalism in Ukraine" which is quite a prognosis in the light of the fact that it was written two years before the Orange Revolution.

D'Anieri and I are cooperating on two special issues of journals. Papers from the two panels on "A Decade of Ukraine Under Kuchma" for the ASN Convention are to be included into a special issue of Problems of Post-Communism. Another special issue of Communist and Post-Communist Studies is due out dealing with regime politics and democratization in Ukraine.

It is interesting, but also strange, that the works of political scientists like myself have been ignored by both the American Association of Ukrainian Studies when it has awarded prizes and when books are chosen to be translated into Ukrainian for publication in Ukraine. Why is it that only cultural or history books written by Western scholars are published in Ukraine, but not those of political scientists?

Q: What do you think will be the legacy of the Kuchma administration?

A: Many wasted years where Ukraine went backwards. He should be placed on trial for massive abuse of office, ranging from corruption, election fraud, possible manslaughter and ordering violence, media censorship and treason. Ukraine's population has declined by 5 million since 1989 and Ukrainians (alongside Russians, Chinese and Indians) constitute the largest number of migrants.

On a final note, Kuchma failed Ukrainians during the elections as the guarantor of the Constitution. During the long campaign many Ukrainians felt as though the Constitution had been suspended.

Q: Can you capsulize for our readers what you believe was the most important factor in Ukraine's presidential election of 2004? And why did the people rise up and demand fair elections as they did? Why did this happen in 2004 and not at some other time?

A: Many factors played a role here, and it would be wrong to emphasize just one. These include an odious candidate (Viktor Yanukovych), Yushchenko as a morally unrapproachable candidate, the dirty tactics used throughout the campaign, as well as the poisoning of Yushchenko (and especially tactics used in Round 2), Russia's overt intervention and the rise of a younger generation in the post-Soviet era. When it came down to it, Ukrainians wanted change and Yushchenko was the only one who promised that.

The 2004 elections were also different in two crucial areas from 1994: central Ukraine voted for Yushchenko and the left did not back Yanukovych in round two (as they had Kuchma in 1994). In Round 2 Yushchenko had a formidable alliance from Oleksander Moroz's Socialists through Anatolii Kinakh's Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, to Yushchenko's liberal Our Ukraine bloc and center-right Tymoshenko.

Q: How would you describe the team that makes up the Yushchenko administration? Is this a group that will be able to work well together? Are you a fan of Yulia Tymoshenko?

A: We should not focus too much attention on spats between the team that came to power. They have far more in common than that which disunites them. They have common goals that will drive them to pursue.

As to Yulia, she is a controversial figure as she is, after all, a dissident oligarch. But, at the same time, she went into opposition in 1999-2000, which was before Yushchenko did in 2001. Her stamina, determination and fire are what is required in Ukraine, and she neatly balances Yushchenko's more moderate posture. Yulia reminds me of Britain's Margaret Thatcher, who played a positive role in turning around Britain in the 1980s to the country we have today. Let's hope Tymoshenko with Yushchenko does the same for Ukraine.

Q: How would you rate President Yushchenko's first visits abroad and his presentations before the European audiences?

A: Very good except for one factor, he needs to learn English - or even American. Being able to speak in English makes the message you give even more powerful, as with Foreign Affairs Minister Borys Tarasyuk's visit to Washington. Yushchenko was greeted as a hero in Davos [at the World Economic Forum] and at the European parliament and by Bush at NATO. I am sure he will be greeted in the same way when he visits Washington in early April.

Q: What is your prognosis for Ukraine's future, both domestically and internationally?

A: I am cautiously optimistic. Ukraine is unlike Serbia and Georgia, or now Kyrgyzia, where revolutions have taken place as well. Ukraine has a functioning state and last year had the largest growth rate in Europe. The team that came to power is a powerful tandem that appeals to both moderates and radicals.

An important Rubicon will be the 2006 elections where Yushchenko-Tymoshenko and Volodymyr Lytvyn seek to enter allied. If this tripartite alliance wins more than 50 percent of parliamentary seats the president and government will be able to shape Ukraine's domestic and foreign policies in the years ahead.

Opposition to this group is more amusing than real. The Communists have collapsed from 20 percent in 2002 to 5 percent. Viktor Yanukovych is not treated seriously by anybody as a "leader of the opposition," while, Viktor Medvedchuk is loathed by the population and his Social Democratic Party has 1.5 percent ratings.

On the international level, Ukraine has a great chance to join NATO before Yushchenko ends his first term in office in 2009. The U.S. is key to this step.

As to EU membership, this is more difficult and will depend on Ukraine's domestic reforms. But, Ukraine's chances of joining are improved by two factors. First, the Orange Revolution has changed the West's view of Ukraine from that of being located in Eurasia to being European. Perception here is all important as, no matter how much Kuchma shouted that Ukraine lay geographically in central Europe, it was perceived under him as lying in Eurasia. Second, after inviting Turkey to join the EU, it cannot deny this to Ukraine. More Europeans prefer to see Ukraine inside the EU than they do Turkey.

Q: And, finally, what do you make of reports that pro-democracy movements in other parts of the globe, from Lebanon, are modeling their actions on Orange Revolution? Do you believe that freedom is on the march worldwide?

A: Ukraine will soon be blamed for spreading revolution to Lebanon and Kyrgyzia. The Romanian elections, which took place around the same time as the Ukrainian, also were influenced by Ukraine. To state that freedom is on the march worldwide is an exaggeration. But, to say that autocratic regimes in the CIS are now scared by the Orange Revolution spreading is true. We never expected in Kyrgyzia, but it happened. Key countries in the CIS where pending elections could cause upsets are Belarus, Russia and Armenia. Watch this spot!

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, April 10, 2005, No. 15, Vol. LXXIII

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