At A Fistful of Euros, Doug Muir (Halfway down the Danube) digs through a recent Eurobarometer poll on EU enlargement and finds some fascinating patterns.

The big picture holds no surprise -- those polled from countries which are newly added members are decidedly more enthusiastic about further enlargement than those from the older fifteen members. And Albania and Turkey don't generate much enthusiasm at all.

Where things get interesting is breaking down the poll further by both individual member countries and candidate countries. Among the older fifteen, the Brits are less favorable to enlargement in the abstract, and more so when considering the candidacies of specific countries. The reverse is true for Spain and Portugal. And Austrians seem to be a bunch of Dr No's across the board -- maybe that's what 50 years of neutrality will do for you.

Long-standing diplomatic ties seem to be less important for producing favorable attitudes than more recent economic links -- or else, familiarity breeds contempt -- but Romania isn't a favorite with the French public, nor is Croatia with Germans. And the biggest surprise for me is that Bulgaria seems to have had wide success in winning hearts if not minds.

Doug has lots more interesting bits.

And while we're on the subject of aFoE's coverage of Europolitics, check out guest blogger Alex Harrowell (my favorite Yorkshire Ranter) and his most recent German election watch. He reads the German press so you don't have to pretend to and sketches the permutations and combinations of coalitions, grand and not so grand, including "the possibility of the imagination-buggering Schröder-Lafontaine reconciliation."

[update by nadezhda] Several months ago, MCMasterChef shared with us a paper he wrote during his final semester at Boston University. The paper, which is an overview of the history and challenges facing Europe and European Muslim communities, has unfortunately become all too relevant to debates in the wake of the London bombings.

It seemed to me a reprise of the Chef's paper is in order. First, it's a good review of recent writings by some of the more thoughtful scholars and commentators working on the topic of Islam in Europe. The paper is also a useful corrective for some of the more sweeping claims about "Europe" -- the Chef highlights important differences among European countries, especially Britain and France, in the distinctive histories and demographics of their Muslim populations, and consequently some major differences among countries in the issues each faces. He also distinguishes among a variety of strategies European countries have adopted over the years. Finally, and especially important in light of the London bombings, the Chef doesn't restrict himself to the heated debates on the politics of immigration. He stresses the problems being presented by failure to integrate a second and third generation and the attendant radicalization of many young Muslims who are European-born citizens.

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[originally posted May 16 2005]
Clash of Identities
Integration, Islamism, and the Question of Europe’s Muslims

Historian and Princeton scholar Bernard Lewis provoked an outcry recently when he suggested in a July 2004 interview with the German paper Die Welt that Europe will become a part of the Muslim world by the end of the 21st century. Citing demographic and immigration trends, Lewis claimed that Muslims would comprise a majority of Europe’s population by 2100, resulting in its becoming “part of the Arab West or the Maghreb” (Vinocur). Lewis is not the only one making such claims: Bat Ye’or, an Egyptian-born British writer living in Switzerland, has been embraced by conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic for her coinage of the term “Eurabia” to describe the Islamization of Old Europe. A menacing fusion of two civilizations deemed hostile towards the United States, Ye’or’s Eurabia is “fundamentally anti-Christian, anti-Western, anti-American, and antisemitic”, and its development ultimately entails the subordination of Europe to the status of “a cultural and political appendage of the Arab/Muslim world” (Ye’or). Many American conservatives have endorsed the idea, interpreting the tense cross-Atlantic relations of the past several years as the outgrowth of European impotence in the face of the “Islamic challenge”. Lewis echoes this analysis in his comments, suggesting that the European Union “could rename itself the community of envy”, and that European-Muslim sympathies can be explained by their mutual jealousy of American strength (Vinocur).

Not surprisingly, these comments have been provocative in Europe, where right-wing politicians and parties across the Continent have seized upon the perceived threat to their identities, advocating stricter immigration controls and other measures in an effort to limit the influence of European Muslims. The 9/11 attacks and, to an even greater extent, the Madrid bombings of March 2004 and the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh half a year later, have further polarized the debate. The presence of a cell of 9/11 operatives led by Egyptian engineering student Mohammed Atta in Hamburg, Germany, raised fears that radical jihadists were using Europe as a staging ground for their violent attacks abroad, but the Madrid bombings and the Van Gogh murder heightened those fears further by making it clear that Europe itself could be a target. Differentiating between the religion of Islam, political Islamism, and its violent jihadi offshoots is extremely difficult. The marginalized economic and social status of Europe’s Muslim population; colonial legacies of racism and communalist strategies for dealing with minority groups; and the outright resistance by many European Muslims to the process of cultural assimilation does not make dispassionate consideration of European-Muslim relations any easier.

This paper attempts to examine those relations and trace their development, from the arrival of large groups of Muslim immigrants following World War II to the spread of political Islamism through those communities in the 1970s to the current tensions born out of 9/11 and other recent attacks by terrorists proclaiming an Islamic jihad against the West. Contrary to — or perhaps partly in reaction to — Ye’or and Lewis’ assertions, political bifurcation and division, not convergence, appears to best summarize the relationship between European Muslim subcommunities and the larger societies they inhabit.

As Timothy Savage carefully admonishes, it is worth remembering that

To talk of a single Muslim community in Europe ... is misleading. Even within individual countries, ethnic diversity, sectarian differences, cleavages within communities arising from sociopolitical and generational splits, and the nonhierarchical nature of Islam itself mean that Europe’s Muslims will be more divided than united for decades to come. Like European Christians and Jews, European Muslims are not a monolithic group.

With this caveat in mind, some level of generalization must necessarily take place in order to study the experience of Muslims within the unique context of Europe. This paper focuses generally on Muslims in Western Europe (which skews the issue by omitting discussion of the historical Muslim presence in Southeastern Europe and the Balkans), and most particularly in the United Kingdom and France. Broadly speaking, their experience has been one of social marginalization. Full blame for this situation can be ascribed to neither group entirely. While the native European population’s reaction to the growing number of Muslims living next door can hardly be described as welcoming, influential theories of Islamist communalism that emphasize social and political isolation from the corrupting influence of the kuffr (infidels) have further set back the integration process. Attempts at reconciliation will require an understanding of the historical and political factors that have produced the current standoff, but the multiple layers of separation between native Europeans and their Muslim counterparts and the aggravating factor of jihadi terrorism make prospects of future rapprochement daunting.
more below the fold   more »

With the positioning of Hill committees and party caucuses and mobilizing of interest groups, all circling over the still breathing Chief Justice Rehnquist on Sunday talk shows and op-ed pages, one theme has started to emerge. Maybe the next Chief Justice should come not from among the current members of SCOTUS . The discussion seems to be increasingly couched in high-minded terms of commitment to constitutional principles rather than the "litmus tests" of Roe v Wade or other hot button cases. But the dearth of credible candidates has been noteworthy.

Now comes before us a candidate of deep conviction and commitment to principles upon which our Constitution was based:

There are no adequate grounds for abolishing or suspending the right not to be imprisoned without trial, which all inhabitants of this country have enjoyed for more than three centuries.

Even more to the point in this age of sound bites and posturing, someone with a bit of attitude, who says "bring 'em on,"(pdf) though in rather more Churchillian strains.

This is a nation which has been tested in adversity, which has survived physical destruction and catastrophic loss of life. I do not underestimate the ability of fanatical groups of terrorists to kill and destroy, but they do not threaten the life of the nation. Whether we would survive Hitler hung in the balance, but there is no doubt that we shall survive Al-Qaeda. The Spanish people have not said that what happened in Madrid, hideous crime as it was, threatened the life of their nation. Their legendary pride would not allow it. Terrorist violence, serious as it is, does not threaten our institutions of government or our existence as a civil community….

[S]uch a power in any form is not compatible with our constitution. The real threat to the life of the nation, in the sense of a people living in accordance with its traditional laws and political values, comes not from terrorism but from laws such as these. That is the true measure of what terrorism may achieve. It is for Parliament to decide whether to give the terrorists such a victory.

Thanks to Crooked Timber for the link to the opinion.

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[UPDATE] Speaking of Crooked Timber, there's an interesting and sometimes heated discussion going on there about the discovery that CT, like much of the academic and policy-related blogosphere, displays a marked gender imbalance in numbers, if not in quality. This is in rather stark contrast to the finding in a survey earlier this year that females account for a bit more than half of authors of all blogs -- at least using "blog" in its widest sense as including the large number of strictly "family and friends" blogs.

Since I've spent my entire professional life being in situations where I was the one woman out of groups of anywhere between five and twenty, I have to admit I hadn't really noticed the pattern, just found it "normal." In fact, I probably would have been more likely to have noticed the gender breakdown only if there had been a substantially higher percentage of women authors on CT. Probably worth a bit more thought.

In the meantime, Ann Bartow at Sivacracy.net (home of Siva Vaidhyanathan, BTW author of The Anarchist in the Library re IP and copyright issues) wonders "could 'Crooked Timber' be one of those double entendres?" Ouch.

Grandiose attempts to describe paradigms of "world order" and make prognostications therefrom tend to suffer from the horoscope problem: their pronouncements usually contain enough banal truth in them to seem plausible, and when they go out on a limb they can either be eerily prescient or sufficiently hedged so as not to discredit the big picture analysis. And we quickly forget or discount all of the things they get specifically wrong. Still, it's worth checking in with them every once in a while just for fun.

Consider this passage from page 37 of Samuel P. Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations, for instance:

Paradigms also generate predictions, and a crucial test of a paradigm's validity and usefulness is the extent to which the predictions derived from it turn out to be more accurate than those from alternate paradigms. A statist paradigm, for instance, leads John Mearshimer to predict that to predict that "the situation between Ukraine and Russia is ripe for the outbreak of security competition between them. Great powers that share a long and unprotected common border, like that between Russia and Ukraine, often lapse into competition driven by security fears. Russia and Ukraine might overcome this dynamic and learn to live together in harmony, but it would be unusual if they do." A civilizational approach, on the other hand, emphasizes the close cultural personal, and historical links between Russia and Ukraine and the intermingling of Russians and Ukrainians in both countries, and focuses instead on the civilizational fault line that divides Orthodox eastern Ukraine from Uniate western Ukraine, a central historical fact of long standing which, in keeping with the "realist" concept of states as unified and self-identified entities, Mearshimer totally ignores. While a statist approach highlights the possibility of a Russian-Ukrainian war, a civilizational approach minimizes that and instead highlights the possibility of Ukraine splitting in half, a separation which cultural factors would lead one to predict might be more violent than that of Czechoslovakia but far less bloody than that of Yugoslavia. These different predictions, in turn, give rise to different policy priorities. Mearshimer's statist prediction of possible war and Russian conquest of Ukraine leads him to support Ukraine's having nuclear weapons. A civilizational approach would encourage cooperation between Russia and Ukraine, urge Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons, promote substantial economic assistance and other measures to help maintain Ukrainian unity and independence, and sponsor contingency planning for the possible breakup of Ukraine.

"Aha!," you say, "old Sammy P. was right! The map on page 166 looks almost exactly like this one!"

Page 166:

The differences between eastern and western Ukraine are manifest in the attitudes of their peoples. In late 1992, for instance, one-third of the Russians in Western Ukraine as compared with only 10 percent in Kiev said they suffered from anti-Russian animosity. The east-west split was dramatically evident in the July 1994 presidential elections. The incumbent, Leonid Kravchuk, who despite working closely with Russia's leaders identified himself as a nationalist, carried the thirteen provinces of the western Ukraine with majorities ranging from up to over 90 percent. His opponent, Leonid Kuchma, who took Ukrainian speech lessons during the campaign, carried the thirteen eastern provinces by comparable majorities. Kuchma won with 52 percent of the vote. In effect, a slim majority of the Ukrainian public in 1994 confirmed Khmelnytsky's choice in 1654. The election, as one American expert observed, "reflected, even crystallized, the split between Europeanized Slavs in western Ukraine and the Russo-Slav vision of what Ukraine should be. It's not ethnic polarization so much as different cultures."

Sound familiar? This little trip down memory lane ought to be instructive for all those folks out there who want to make the current democratic drama in Ukraine into something it isn't.

Now, for all my fellow Virgoes out there, a prediction:

Prepare to celebrate. A family member or dear friend has plans to unveil involving a major life change, and they'll want to share their joy. There's only one thing to do: organize a party!

As for me, I'm off to watch John Edward.

A Fistful of Euros notes that papers are now available from a conference held in Berlin this week on the Ukraine elections (scheduled way in advance of the crisis over the second round fraud). The Friedrich Ebert Foundation, the Center for Applied Policy Research (CAP) and the German-Ukrainian Forum hosted a range of speakers including the leader of the OSCE election observation mission and the the director of the school of political analysis at the National University in Kiev.

It's perhaps a little early to start the nostalgia-for-college-days-of-yore process just yet, but yesterday was the final screening that I'll have a chance to enjoy here at BU of the annual fall IR Film Festival (hosted by Prof. Bacevich), of which I have been a loyal attendee for the past four years.

The first year I got here they were showing Cold War movies, and I got a chance to see such classics as Them!, Strategic Air Command, and of course Doctor Strangelove. Subsequent years brought themes of "Dirty Wars" and "Elvis In Arabia", the latter of which's schedule is still up there on the film series web site (I think the department events coordinator is new this year, so promotion efforts have been somewhat scattered. I am not infrequently the only one there... yet another reason to disparage the tastes of my college peers). The Elvis movie last year was sublimely bad, but for my money the best was the vastly underrated Ishtar; I really cannot believe that movie bombed at the box office, because it was hilarious.

Well in any case, this year the theme was "Foreign Correspondents", international relations through the eyes of journalists reporting from abroad and the final movie was Welcome To Sarajevo, which I'm assuming no one else has heard of either.

Although a little heavy-handed narratively at points, it was a suprisingly well done (cept for maybe some weird soundtrack choices) advocacy piece for the suffering of the Bosnians during the siege of that city, as seen firsthand by a British reporter. He becomes wrapped up in publicizing the plight of an orphanage (and one orphan in particular) unable to evacuate its young charges from the ruined city. It's based on a true story, I gather, and was much more powerful than I expected, but I don't know very much at all about the Balkans and lacked a lot of the context that might've helped me appreciate it better.

Fortunately, Prof. Haqqani dropped by early on (his office is upstairs from the screening room) and stayed to watch the whole thing. Naturally enough, he had visited there during the siege while working as an assistant to Benazir Bhutto. One point he suggested at the end, perhaps vaguely apropos praktike's post below, was that the general Muslim reaction to Bosnia was: it doesn't matter how Westernized, how secularized, how moderately you practice Islam, when it comes right down to it the West is not going to intervene to help out Muslims. Bin Laden in particular has apparently made this point, and Woody Harrelson's character in the movie makes it explicitly with a quote to effect of (paraphrasing from memory) "I can't help but thinking if this had been Muslims attacking Christians we would've done something by now".

Whether this is true or not (and sadly, there may be something to it), the perception as such is a dangerous one. Haqqani made the point that the reaction among a lot of British and European Muslims in particular to this episode has been greater estrangement from the local cultures. This would seem to reinforce the point that Marc Sageman makes about alienation among Muslim immigres being a large factor in the rise of militant Islamism on the Continent.

I don't have an answer to any of this (particularly since, like I said, I know essentially nothing about the Bosnian situation beyond this), but thought it was worth sharing. It really is stuff like this that makes me appreciate college.

Ukraine's Supreme Court has invalidated the results of the second round and ruled in favor of a rerun of the second round of voting, to be completed by Dec 26.

This puts at least one nail into Kuchma's attempt to rerun the entire election, with a new candidate to replace Yanukovych. That was the scheme for which he got Putin's blessing when he rushed off to Moscow yesterday.

Now we'll see what else Kuchma has up his sleeve.

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[UPDATE] A lovely piece of FT snark:

The European parliament usually has difficulty organising a roll call, so how to explain the mass appearance of hundreds of orange scarves as MEPs debated the crisis in Ukraine on Thursday?

Step forward Jacek Saryusz-Wolski and his fellow members of the centre-right Civic Platform from Poland.

The MEP sent an assistant out to find 1,000 scarves and paid for half of them himself, the rest coming from a whip-round of colleagues.

Nevertheless, Observer hears some of the more couture-conscious MEPs went out to buy their own, designer, brands.

A great deal of rumors have flown in the past few days about special forces being brought in -- maybe including two planes of Russians flying into a base near Kyiv, maybe not -- and readied for taking on the crowds Monday night after negotiations broke off again. Here's the most credible eye-witness account, published in Kommersant (major Moscow newspaper) on Tuesday, translated on Neeka's Backlog, one of the Ukrainian bloggers.

More news and views from Ukraine and bloggers following the action.

News: Looks like a first-step compromise has been reached that could result in a new run-off by mid-December, if Yuschenko has his way. But lots of legal twists and turns, to say nothing of behind the scenes maneuvering by Kuchma, still to come.

Today's events include:

• Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament turned out Yanukovych's government in a vote of no-confidence. Kuchma could veto parliament's move, which then would require a 2/3 vote, rather than the thin margin obtained today. He has indicated, however, he will accept the vote, and so has 60 days to install a new government. That is, of course, assuming he's still President, since his term has just expired.
• Some analysts have assumed Kuchma is likely to name parliament speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn to head a caretaker government. Other analysts have opined that Kuchma would turn to the former head of the National Bank and head of Yanukovych's election campaign, Serhiy Tyhypko, who only gave up those posts this weekend.
• There's a general agreement that in some fashion or another there will be more voting. There are, however, several scenarios possible, and the Ukrainian Supreme Court's treatment of the cases before it (which may or may not include Yanukovych's last moment filing of complaints of fraud as well) may determine which scenario is implemented.
• The candidates and Kuchma have agreed that, prior to whatever voting next takes place, Parliament will adopt a set of reforms to the voting process, about which there seems to be a fairly wide consensus.
• All parties are stressing the importance of Ukrainian territorial integrity. Although regional barons in the east have backed off threats to split away, there is apparently a planned referendum in the Donbass region for early January to consider greater autonomy within a federation. That's a development to be watched closely.
• Yuschenko agreed that his supporters would call off their blockade of government offices, but has not withdrawn them from the streets entirely.
• AP is the only wire service so far with fairly full reports of Yushchenko's comments to the crowd after the talks. He indicated a revote of the second round could be set for as early as Dec 19.

  "Our ranks mustn't shrink," Yushchenko told tens of thousands of his supporters who gathered on Kiev's central Independence Square for the 11th straight night since the election commission declared his rival the winner in a vote he says was stolen. "We mustn't leave until we have a revote date firmly set."
  
  Hours after the deal was signed, throngs of Yushchenko's supporters continued to besiege the Cabinet and the presidential administration buildings, while thousands clad in his orange campaign colors crammed the central square under fireworks and listened to rock bands in a raucous celebration.
  
  Yushchenko said he expected the Supreme Court to deliver a ruling Thursday on his campaign's appeal to invalidate the runoff result — based on claims of widespread violations across Yanukovych's eastern and southern strongholds.

• The compromise was reached with the mediation of international representatives -- not only the European group (EU's Solana, plus the Presidents of Poland and Lithuania and the Secy Gen of the OSCE) but also, according to Interfax, Russian Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov, who arrived in Kyiv along with Russia's ambassador to Ukraine, Victor Chernmyrdin. Solana had delayed a scheduled trip to Moscow to participate in the talks, and would be discussing Ukraine in Moscow on Thursday. He has repeatedly emphasized that the situation should not affect EU-Russian relations.

Clearly, the devil's in the details, and many Yuschenko supporters fear he may have compromised too much, as reflected in entries in Foreign Notes and Le Sabot Postmoderne.

Moscow Times has a front page article on Kuchma's likely next moves -- first and foremost to ditch Yanukovych it seems. Kuchma has been pressing for a full rerun of the election, starting with the first round. A full re-run, which has been rejected by Yuschenko, would allow Kuchma and his allies to substitute another candidate for Yahukovych, and delay the process as well. By March, probably the earliest a full new election could be organized, Yuschenko's orange crowds will be off the street. Peter Lavalle's analysis, described in our earlier post, is well worth reviewing in this context. He seems to have got it spot on.

Another serious concern arguing for calming things down and getting the crowds off the streets -- apparently shared by all sides -- is the economic impact of the ongoing work stoppages. Also, there are ongoing worries about the financial system and the country's exchange rate. Authorities have said they have plenty of reserves. But as for the local banks, Moscow Times reports:

Ukrainians across the country continued a run on banks, fearing that a financial crisis will follow the political crisis. Dozens of depositors crowded outside Kiev banks hoping to withdraw their savings. The panic has been fueled by a Central Bank order limiting depositors to $1,000.

Views: Lots of first-rate reporting and analysis around the blogosphere. Crooked Timber (John Quiggin) and Fist Full of Euros publish another lengthy eyewitness report from Tarik Amar. Le Sabot Postmoderne has first-hand accounts and some great photos, including the fireworks shown above, taken in Kyiv as the crowd celebrated the Rada's no-confidence vote for Yanukovych's government.

For further discussion of the complex ways the electorate may split in the Ukraine, see Notes From Kiev and Orange Ukraine. Orange Ukraine has two interesting posts covering both the Ukrainian and Russian angles, first re Yuschenko and then re Yanukovych.

Another very interesting discussion of the Russian angle is at Fist Full of Euros, where Tobias Schwartz looks at Russia and the broader issues of the CIS with a longer-term perspective.

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[Further views 12:45AM EST 12-2-04] Via Le Sabot Postmoderne, who writes: "Proof that cretinism knows no ideology -- an attack on the democracy movement from an elitist Tory-conservative perspective!"

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Photos: Fireworks celebrating the downfall of Yanukovych in parliament, Le Sabot Postmoderne, Dec 1 2004.
Parliamentary deputies celebrating the non-confidence vote, Gleb Garanich, Reuters, Dec 1 2004.

News: Le Sabot Postmoderne does a round-up of today's developments, which involved a lot of to-and-fro of different quasi-offers, rejected out of hand by Yushchenko:

Yushchenko has broken off negotiations with Kuchma and Yanukovych. Their position was, "Make a deal based on an unenforceable promise that we'll make you a strong Prime Minister under President Yanukovych, and then disperse the protesters." Thankfully, Yushchenko was born in the morning, but not THIS morning.

Kuchma/Yanukovych's other bargaining position is to call for entirely new elections. They've made noises that both Yanukovych and Yushchenko wouldn't be allowed to run, but instead new candidates would be fielded. This would conveniently let them dump their currently radioactive Donetsk thug, while robbing the Opposition of their wildly popular candidate. You can start to see why Yushchenko stopped negotiating.

Other news of the day:

• The Supreme Court continued to hear the voting fraud cases for a second day.
  
• Javier Solana and Polish President Aleksandr Kwasniewski will be meeting with the rival candidates on Wednesday, together with OSCE Secy Gen Jan Kubis.
  
• Fears of a geographic splintering of Ukraine eased with some backing down by local officials who had spoken of autonomy moves in some eastern regions.
  
• Some analysts see the new elections/delay scenarios fitting Kuchma's agenda -- put off relinquishing power as long as possible but get rid of Yanukovych as prime minister in the meantime.

New source to check out if you want to follow development closely, in addition to previous links: HotLine news service, frequent updates that seem to track closely with eventual international wire service reports (Russian, Ukrainian, English)

Views: Two very interesting pieces, giving a broader set of perspectives and agendas than can be found in most coverage. It's not just about democracy, fair elections and rule of law, it's not just about people power, it's not just about east-west history of the Ukraine, or oligarchs and economic interests, or Russia vs the West. It's all of the above and then some.

First, from the blog The Russian Dilettante, on how an ordinary voter in Donetsk might view the goings on. Shorter: There's a compelling logic to "Sure they're thugs and thieves, but they're our thugs and thieves."

It's amazing that the border between Yuschenko- and Yanukovich-supporting regions can be traced to the politics and demographics of the 17th and 18th century and the first half of the 19th. I've tried to reconstruct -- speculatively -- a Donesk voter's point of view:

1. Our region and its neighbors produce most of this nation's GDP -- let's just say wealth. Granted, our oligarchs syphon off most of this wealth but some trickles down to us, too.
2. The good people in the streets of Kiev want to break the oligarchs' monopoly on power. We wouldn't mind that, too. But we don't trust their leaders.
3. Their leaders are oligarchs from other parts of Ukraine who aren't satisfied with what they've got. When they grab assets from our local oligarchs, we'll be even worse off.
4. Also, when those new oligarchs from the West come to power, they'll spend the tax money -- and most of that comes from us -- on their cronies.
5. They'll try to Halycize Ukraine; we Easterners will become second-class citizens. Our kids will have a problem getting into Kyiv universities.
6. So you see, it's not about democracy, it's just us against them.
7. We'd rather become autonomous and deal with our oligarchs ourselves.

From this angle, there's no argument over values; it's Us vs Them. (Alas, I'm not quite impartial to this simple dichotomy, either.) The best I can say now is that I am hoping Ukraine becomes a federation, which would reflect its geographically-distributed cultural diversity. Let the people of the East take on their oligarchs without fear that outsiders will step in to grab the spoils.

For daily analysis that's both indepth and big-picture, covering things both Russian and Ukrainian, Untimely Thoughts by Peter Lavalle is a must-read. He writes on Russia for a variety of news organizations, especially UPI and papers like Moscow Times. His website his articles as well as analytical pieces, interviews, and occasional items from other analysts. With the intense coverage of Ukraine recently, his UPI stuff has been daily. Today's article outlines the possible gamble Kuchma may be taking with a call for further elections, and how it could play out on a number of levels:

[...]
Depending on the Supreme Court's findings, a third round of voting appears likely. But how the third round is characterized will be key. Will the court find the runoff vote invalid, or the will it go further and deem both rounds invalid? Kuchma and his supporters are angling for the latter.

The voiding of both rounds opens the door for Kuchma to finally rid of himself of Yanukovych as prime minister. Kuchma might have intended to fire Yanukovych this week, but Timoshenko's demand that he do so might have interrupted his plans. Kuchma has been given an ultimatum before by political foes while president and did not back down.

With a third vote on the horizon, Kuchma is looking for a suitable candidate to replace Yanukovych. That person appears to be Serhiy Tyhypko. Resigning from his position as head of the National Bank and Yanukovych's campaign manager, Tyhipko is a perfectly placed regime insider who would very much like to take on Yushchenko. Yushchenko dearly would like to run against Yanukovych again, but will have no choice if Yanukovych backs out - something Kuchma can easily arrange.

A Tyhypko candidacy could be very interesting. He is an insider, but can easily spin himself as a centrist, opposed to Yanukovych's separatist leanings and Yushchenko-Timoshenko's "right-wing, nationalist, and street-extremism." Tyhypko could spin himself as a unifier - politically and as an advocate if an indivisible Ukraine.

Additionally, if the Supreme Court suggests another election and legislation is passed toward this end, Kuchma could declare a state of emergency in the name of allowing a "cooling off" period before the extraordinary third round is set. "Cooling off" in this case would mean the end of street demonstrations.

Should this scenario worry Yushchenko? Yes. Yushchenko's coalition of political forces are not as cohesive as most media report. As the last few days have demonstrated, the much more nationalistic Timoshenko often acts an independent political actor beyond Yushchenko's control. Timoshenko and her supporters have polarized Ukraine's political atmosphere just as much as Yanukovych unofficial support of regional separatism.

The international angle of a third election round would also be important. Vladimir Putin would have the opportunity to disentangle himself from the Kremlin's over-zealous support of Yanukovych's candidacy. The West would be forced to distance itself from outward support of Yushchenko.
[...]

As discoshaman of Le Sabot Postmoderne puts it so aptly:

We all agree that the strategic picture here is almost impossible to grasp in its entirety. There are so many unknowable variables, and so many individual agendas coalescing and falling apart simultaneously. It's somewhere in a gray area between complex and chaotic.