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Redrawing Europes Map
J O S S E D E V O O G D
NIJMEGEN, NetherlandsAu-tumn falls in the leafy eastern
neighborhoods of the Dutch city of Nijmegen. The vines winding up
the sides of the late 19th century brick homes are turning yellow
and brown. Inside, large book shelves line the walls. Stickers
saying No to advertising mail adorn letter boxes, but quality
newspapers
are welcome. People go to their work at the university or in
nonprofit organiza-tions. Children with names like Fleur and Sanne
are brought to school in cargo bikes. When they grow older, they
will study a semester in a foreign country. Freelance hipsters are
working on their notebooks in coffee bars. Nearby is a refugee
center. A raft of volunteers, many jobless but with
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Josse de Voogd, an independent researcher specializing in
electoral geography and
based in the Netherlands, has a multidisciplinary background in
anthropology, devel-
opment studies, geography, and international relations.
college degrees, are willing to help visitors find their way
around town.
Foreigners can enrich a society is often heard. Locals even go
as far as to apologize for the whiteness of their area.
Fortunately
the neighborhood has several Turkish baker-ies. At times, theres
disdain for Dutch folk culture, while traditions from else-where
are embraced as exotic. Though there are few coun-tries where
progres-sive values are more embraced than in the Netherlands,
nation-alism is with equal frequency a non-start-er here. Neighbors
embrace art markets, car-free Sundays, and multicultural
festi-vals. As the electoral map shows, eastern Nijmegen is one of
the most impor-tant strongholds for
GroenLinks, the Dutch Green Left party and D66, the progressive
liberal party.
A few miles to the west, vines have given way to paved gardens.
Row houses built in the 1980s are covered with shut-ters on windows
that reveal pairs of shiny vases standing symmetrically. Large dogs
are walked on spacious but monotonous green lawns. Cars are pimped
out with spoilers. A pink colored plaque next to
front the door reveals that the childrens names are Kevin and
Shirley. Income lev-els are not that much lower than in the eastern
part of town, but education levels are. Dad works in construction
and faces competition from cheaper East European workers, while mom
is a housekeeper for the elderly, a sector also under constant
strain. When they go to a restaurant or on a holiday trip, they
prefer a simple package tour, and they watch commer-cial
entertainment shows. Social cohesion in the neighborhood is not as
strong as a few decades ago. But if the Dutch soccer team plays,
people color their streets with orange flags. Folks can argue about
park-ing tariffs and speed bumps, while taking their cars to the
shopping mallwhere they often find groups of young Moroccans
lounging aimlessly.
The Netherlands multicultural soci-ety is also visible at the
soccer club. The teams are growing more ethnically diverse, but few
immigrant parents are willing to volunteer to keep the club
running. Many complaints about foreigners are becom-ing more vocal,
preceded by an I am not a racist, but... Immigrants are believed to
profit disproportionately from the wel-fare state, seem
overwhelmingly present in crime statistics, and urgently need to
adapt to Dutch cultural norms. The Netherlands should be The
Netherlands again is an-other increasingly frequent refrain. People
are angry about European integration and dont want to cut our
pensions to help out those lazy Greeks. Strong politicians who talk
straight and say what we think are becoming increasingly popular.
Voters
a new right-wing populism
is emerging from a
remarkable combination
of anti-government
sentiment and nostalgia for
a time when government cared more
about its citizens.
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E L E C T O R A L G E O G R A P H Y
of anti-government sentiment and nostal-gia for a time when
government cared more about its citizens. And it thrives both in
traditionally rightist areas populated with small entrepreneurs and
in the remote fringes of the cities, as well as declining
industrial regions and working class neigh-borhoods that had long
been bastions of the left. The rise of populism and its geograph-ic
translation also reflect how left and right are becoming
increasingly blurred, with both populist streams often deriving
their support from the same areas.
In addition to this widespread Euro-skeptic and populist trend,
numerous re-gionalist movements seem to have gained momentum.
Scotland organized its referen-dum on whether to seek independence
from Britain. Catalonia is anxious to do so as well, despite the
failure of the independence vote in Scotland. Meanwhile, an
outright civil war has broken out in eastern Ukraine.
While the field of electoral geography has confined itself
primarily to the national level, it is precisely the international
com-parisons that are so intriguing. Indeed, merging all of Europes
electoral maps cre-ates the opportunity to see just how the potency
of intra-European sentiments are that effectively transcend what
remains of the continents national borders. An elec-toral map of
Europe has begun to emerge, showing quite an intricate patchwork of
subcultures, class antagonisms, lifestyles, and ancient
sentiments.
CITY AND COUNTRYSIDE
One of the main factors shaping Europes electoral geography is
the division be-tween cities and the countryside. In the United
Kingdom, Germany, the Nether-lands, Denmark, Switzerland, and
Austria, urban regions are clearly recognizable on the map as
left-wing isles in right-wing
feel betrayed by a cosmopolitan elite that is weak on crime and
immigration, pro-European, and wants to help the whole world while
our own poor and elderly are left to their own devices. The
populist, right-wing Party for Freedom (PVV), and to a lesser
extent, its leftist populist com-petitor, the Socialist Party (SP),
are topping the polls in this neighborhood.
A few decades ago, the differences be-tween these two halves of
town were nar-rower, with the traditional parties, the So-cial
Democrats and Christian Democrats, both doing well. But today its
increasingly clear that voters in both neighborhoods hold a very
different view of the world, of society and politics. As a result
of global-ization, migration, the rise in crime, and the growing
importance of education and lifestyle, different groups in society
have grown markedly apart.
EUROPES ELECTORAL MAP
The social and electoral map of Nijmegen has changed, and so has
the map of the Netherlands and Europe. A similar set of
observations could be made in many cit-ies across the continent.
New patterns of voting behavior have emerged, reflecting new
polarities in changing societies. These polarities are set in the
context of centu-ries-old rivalries that still persist. One of the
most striking recent developments is the rise of Euroskeptic
right-wing popu-list parties. The June 2014 elections for the
European Parliament turned them into major parties in several
countries, particu-larly the United Kingdom, Denmark, and France.
Left-wing populists got their share as well, especially in southern
Europe.
With these new political movements taking center stage,
electoral maps are be-ing redrawn. A new right-wing populism is
emerging from a remarkable combination
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surroundings. These cities are traditional-ly populated by
industrial workers, intel-lectuals, and immigrants, while
socialized housing often occupies a significant part of the urban
landscape. At the same time, broad swaths of the middle class have
left for a house with a garden in the suburbs or in the
countryside, creating a rightist commuter-belt around these cities.
Where social democrats and socialists dominate the more
industrialized areas, cities with a highly educated population also
show a strong preference for progressive parties like
social-liberals and greens, so called post-materialist parties that
place an em-phasis on individualism, cosmopolitanism, and
multiculturalism. It is remarkable how support for these kinds of
parties is concen-trated in comparable areas across the
con-tinentgentrified neighborhoods built in the 19th century just
outside the city cen-ter. These areas, among them Nrrebro in
Copenhagen, De Pijp in Amsterdam, Pren-zlauerberg in Berlin, and
Neubau in Vien-
na, are dominated by hipster cafs, organic supermarkets,
galleries, and yoga studios.
Urban-rural patterns are somewhat dif-ferent in Europes
periphery. In the Nordic countries, industries are primarily based
in small rural towns, while the broad coun-tryside is far out of
reach for affluent com-muters. These rural zones are traditionally
strongholds of the left and centrist Scandi-navian agrarian
parties. Most urban regions vote from right to the center, although
post-materialist leftist parties have begun to win some substantial
support as well, es-pecially on Stockholms Sdermalm Island,
stronghold of greens and feminists.
In southern Europe, urban-rural dis-tinctions are not as clearly
marked. An ex-ception is southern Spain, where cities are, at least
relatively, rightist strongholds in quite leftist agricultural
provinces. Medi-terranean cities display a different struc-ture
from their northern European coun-terparts, with the rich
traditionally living in expensive apartments in and around the
ACTION STEPS Different segments of society should try to better
understand each others needs and
worldviews. This holds especially for the cosmopolitan elites
that should try to empathize with the lower classes. This is
definitely not the same as giving equal play to their fears.
Politicians, media, and individuals should take note of
electoral geography to know where discontent derives and why it
does so. Notions about populist voters are often too superficial
and subjective, preventing a profound debate.
Politicians should be aware of the fragility of Europe, the
complexities and arbitrariness of its borders. Many in the West, as
they consider current borders as fixed, were upset about Russia
annexing Crimea. But borders have always changed and will change,
as shown by the recent case of the independence of Kosovo,
supported by the West and anathema to Moscow.
Politicians and media should take into account the electoral
geographies of countries when they react or report on events. A
massive protest in one city, for example Kiev in Ukraine, may not
in any sense accurately reflect the situation in other parts of the
same country.
Josse de Voogd
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regional level. Old traditions, loyalties, re-ligious
affinities, and rivalries continue to prevail, overruling local
class distinctions. Across the Netherlands, ignoring the phys-ical
landscape, income level, or degree of urbanization, runs the Bible
Belt. This area follows relentlessly a 500-year-old border with a
territory formerly occupied by Cath-olic Spain and now dominated by
the most orthodox Calvinists. Spains electoral geog-raphy still
strongly resembles the positions during the civil war in the 1930s.
The south, the Asturian mining region, Basque country, and
Catalonia remain leftist or separatist, while northwestern Galicia
and Castile-Len are still on the conservative right. Madrid and the
Mediterranean coast switched to the right more recently. This is
where most of the economic and hous-ing boom took place, until the
bubble col-lapsed a few years ago.
Patterns in Portugal are consistent with neighboring Spain, the
north being characterized by conservative and religious small
farmers and the south by large es-tates, strong unions, and leftist
sentiments. As socialist as southern Iberia has become, southern
Italy, consisting of the former Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, has
turned conservative. Religion and the mafia are somewhat
omnipresent in this heartland of supporters of former Prime
Minister Silvio Berlusconi. This controversial rightist lead-er was
also backed in the far richer north, leaving the central regions
like Emilia-Ro-magna and Tuscany to the left, a division that goes
back centuries.
The East European countries show the most volatile party
landscapes, a product of young democracies that suddenly and with
no preparation succeeded rule for decades by the communist leaders
of the Soviet Union. Identities are more complex, as boundaries
were drawn quite arbitrarily during the last
city center. Neither the home nor garden, but the paseo, the
collective evening walk, is the central point of reference. The
work-ing classes live at the periphery, in cheap flats or low-rise
areas that sometimes have started as squats, creating red belts
around cities. As with many cultural cases, France stays somewhere
in between the northwestern European and Mediterra-nean pattern.
Until recently, central Paris was a rightist stronghold, surrounded
by a communist high-rise banlieu, until even there the leftist
yuppies advanced.
REGIONS AND REGIONALISTS
While voting patterns in urban regions are mainly consequences
of segmenta-tion in terms of social status and lifestyle
preferences, more factors are at play at the
This map of Europe, as it emerged from recent national and
European-wide elections, shows which areas are dominated by
leftist, rightist, and regionalist forces.
Leftist Rightist Regionalist
JOSSE DE VOOGD
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Even in countries with more stable borders, outspoken
regionalist or separatist parties take a share of the electorate,
like in Scotland, Wales, and Catalonia. In Belgium, Flemish parties
that want to reform or even dismantle the state dominate politics.
They feel stuck with poorer and inefficient French-speaking
Wallonia. And Italy has its sepa-ratist Northern League that
profits from a northern sentiment of being squeezed by the poor
south for subsidies it can ill-afford.
THE RISE OF POPULISM
The already long simmering north-south split in Italy has proven
a precursor for the current crisis in Europe. Large money
trans-fers were sent southwards, provoking op-position in the north
but also in the south, which suffered under the burdens that
ac-companied such largesse. There have been large cutbacks in
public services, and un-employment has skyrocketed.
Since the economic crisis broke out six years ago,
Euroskepticism has also advanced. Feelings of discontent are
further strength-ened by longstanding issues such as immi-gration
and ongoing cuts to the welfare state. In several countries, this
has led to the rise of rightist, in other cases leftist, populist
par-ties. This is accompanied by a blurring of positions of both
right and left. Tradition-ally, the left promotes an extended
welfare state and is progressive on social-cultural issues like
immigration and crime, while the reverse is true for the right. But
many voters, primarily the less-educated, combine pro-welfare
opinions with quite conservative positions on cultural themes. In
their opin-ion, public services should be improved. El-der care is
often mentioned, but immigrants should be excluded and criminals
should be given harsher punishments. Several right-wing populist
parties were successful after adding specific leftist political
views, par-
century. Countries like Poland and Roma-nia are electorally
split along former inter-national borders. So the eastern old
Po-land is deeply conservative on social issues and statist on
economic ones, while the re-verse is true in the western part,
which was removed from Germany after World War II.
Further east is Ukraine. The areas that were once part of
Poland-Lithuania mas-sively support the pro-Western parties, while
the East and South vote strongly pro-Russian. In Germany, more than
two decades after unification of communist East with capitalist
West, electoral differ-ences between the two sectors seem stron-ger
than ever, with a clear preference for Die Linke (The Left) in the
East. This par-ty grew out of the former communist re-gime and
thrives on nostalgic sentiments toward the communist past. These
strik-ing electoral gaps show the importance of phantom
bordersfrontiers that officially do not exist anymore except in the
minds of the voters, and yet are ubiquitous in to-days political
culture.
As various countries have been pulled apart and merged and many
populations have been displaced, any number of minori-ties have
found themselves on the wrong side of todays borders. Hungary is
just a small remnant of a great past, and Hungarians whove found
themselves mired in neighbor-ing countries like Slovakia, Romania,
Ser-bia, and Ukraine massively back their own political parties.
After the bloody Balkan Wars, the former Yugoslavia disintegrated
into six different states, but even these are far from
mono-cultural. The three main ethnic groups in Bosnia are voting by
and large for their own ethnic parties, a pattern that was even
reinforced at the very recent October elections. Ethnic Albanians
got their mi-crostate of Kosovo at the expense of Serbia, while
Kosovo now includes Serbian enclaves.
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nist era that substantial elements in their electorates view
nostalgically. Hungarys Jobbik (Movement for a Better Hungary) and
Greeces Golden Dawn are outright racist and are alied with goons
who attack Romas and immigrants.
Populism in the rich Alpine countries is again something
different. Where else-where its realistic to consider a right-wing
populism of those left behind socially and economically, in this
case the winners have begun demonstrating an isolationist moun-tain
mentality. The Swiss Peoples Party is strongest in the most
conservative cantons where the nation was born, hardly a zone of
deprivation, while It-alys Northern League also advocates the
in-terests of the rich north. Equally, vot-ers in Bavaria,
Ger-manys prosperous southland, are cast-ing their ballots for the
more conservative regional branch of the Christian Democrats, which
intends to leave no gap to its right. In southern Eu-rope, more
left-wing or centrist populists are catching fire. Spain has its
Podemos (We Can), and Greece its Syriza (Coalition of the Radical
Left), which became that na-tions largest party during the 2014
Euro-pean election, while large stretches of Italy have embraced
the Five Star Movement of the clownish populist Beppe Grillo. These
parties flourish on anger about austerity measures and, somewhat
contrary to their rightist northern counterparts, attract a raft of
votes among young urban populations.
SUBURBS AND BORDERS
The geographical redistribution of sup-port for the populist
right will be a prod-
ticularly regarding health care and pensions, to their
nationalist and repressive discourses. The so-called
horseshoe-model of left and right has been closed at the bottom. In
ad-dition to distinctions between rich and poor, or religious and
secular, a gap has emerged between the highly-educated, embracing
in-dividualistic and cosmopolitan values, and profiting from open
borders on the one hand, and on the other hand, the less educated,
more nationalist, community-oriented, and nostalgic, who all feel
threatened by global-ization and immigration.
The nature of right-wing populist move-ments differs by country,
and it is dangerous to lump them together. Parties do have their
own controversial hobbyhorses, and when confronted with their
differences, right-wing populist leaders frequently feel an urge to
distance themselves from colleagues in other countries.
Nevertheless, they all profit from similar discontent in their
societies, relat-ing to immigration, globalization, European
integration, and economic stagnation. They all attract a comparable
electorate, and often have a charismatic leader who claims to be in
touch with the common people.
There are still some points of conten-tion between these
rightist movements.While the Dutch Freedom Party defends hard-won
gay-rights against bigoted Mus-lims, sexual diversity is strongly
opposed by similar parties in other countries. Israeli actions in
the Middle East are often backed by rightist populist parties in
northwestern Europe, particularly in Norway, Britain, and the
Netherlands, while many other rightist movements in eastern and
south-ern Europe have an anti-Semitic past. The further east and
southeast we go in Europe, the more rough and anti-democratic
radical right- wing parties seem to become, as they are often
attempting to mirror some of the more authoritarian aspects of the
commu-
the new right-wing populism clearly derives its strength from
outside the urban core.
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ic notion. Right-wing populism seems to derive from a rejection
of urban problems and paradigms like multiculturalism,
cos-mopolitanism, and environmentalism. To-days populist right
stands up against the out-of-touch politically correct elites and
claims to represent the common sense of the ordinary people.
Apart from this anti-urban notion, it is remarkable how support
for rightist populism does show the re-emergence of several old
fault lines. When there is con-fusion about identities, when
foreign pow-ers have ruled, or when whole populations have been
displaced, there seems to be fertile ground for the emergence of
popu-list zealots. The south of the Netherlands, once
Spanish-controlled territory and later economically deprived, is
now a prime
uct of globalization, deindustrialization, economic crisis, and
aging, often shrink-ing, populations. Young, educated popu-lations
in service-oriented urban regions seem to be assuming leadership
roles in many countries. Inner cities are booming and trending
increasingly leftist and liber-al. At the same time, industrial
towns are struggling, along with older suburbs that are in decay,
as the affluent opt for life in the inner city or the more remote
suburbs. Exactly these kinds of areas are embrac-ing the populist
right. Recent elections in Sweden confirmed these trends, with the
moderate right losing ground to the left in the cities, and the
populist right, like Sverigedemokraterna (Swedish Demo-crats),
making substantial inroads outside the urban core.
Although earlier more radical rightist parties were often
embraced by deprived areas within the large cities of France,
Brit-ain, and the Netherlands, the new right-wing populism clearly
derives its strength from outside the urban cores. The lower middle
class suburbs, exurbs, and the countryside are the sources of many
such votes. On the rightist populist map, Lon-dons eastern commuter
belt, Amsterdams satellite towns, and Copenhagens suburbs stand out
respectively as strongholds for Britains United Kingdom
Independence Party (UKIP), the Dutch PVV, and the Danish Peoples
Party (DF). While Frances National Front clearly curls around
Paris, its voters are almost absent inside the Pri-phriquethe ring
road that defines the outer limits of Paris proper.
Meanwhile, the protest-vote has been suburbanized. Although
problems related to immigration have been spreading as well, voting
for the anti-immigrant poli-cies seem to be primarily preventive
votes. The base of support is not just a geograph-
This map of a part of Europe shows in which regions right-wing
populist parties do better than the national average. The map is
based on either the most recent European-wide or national
elections.
Above (National) AverageStronghold
JOSSE DE VOOGD
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to both rightist former colonists and poor immigrants both from
northern Africa, is a winning ground as well. During recent
elections, the center of gravity of the Fronts support has moved
somewhat to the north. This is partly a result of the so-called
favor-ite son effect. Long thought a relatively ig-nored, deprived,
and somewhat unattractive flyover country, its new charismatic
leader Marine Le Pen won the election as a Europe-an Parliament
candidate from what is com-monly known as La France Profonde or
deep Francenot unlike Middle America.
FALLING APART?
The emergence of nationalist right-wing parties together with
regionalist move-ments comes down to fundamental ques-tions about
belong-ing and about how far solidarity reach-es. The construct of
a united Europe has sought to challenge these issues and now seems
to suffer from a certain degree of overstretch. Voters in the core
nations that founded the European Union are turning against the
process of ever greater integration, just as the notion of a
continuously expand-ing Europe begins to run up against its natural
boundaries in the east. Its enlarge-ment will be halted by
complicated rela-tions with Russia and Turkey, while being slowed
and restrained by its own popula-tions. The question where the
outer bor-ders of Europe or the European Union lie will be an
ongoing issue, filled with con-flict. This applies primarily to the
eastern
place for populism, even when nowadays it is as prosperous as
the rest of the coun-try. Old sentiments are persistent. People are
still talking about the arrogant and cold-blooded Hollanders from
the west-ern provinces to which the south was once added and
quickly being subordinated. It is remarkable how the Dutch south is
a stronghold of both the leftist populist SP as well as the
rightist PVV. This Catho-lic area is now rapidly secularizing and
in search of new heroes and identities. In short, the political
spectrum is no longer left-to-right but rather bends around on
itself in a Calder-like circle.
Notable cross-border patterns of sup-port for right-wing
populism also exist. For instance, there is a visible protest-strip
from Dutch Western Brabant, through the Belgian region of Flanders
into Northern France. According to Filip Dewinter, lead-er of the
right-wing Vlaams Belang (Flem-ish Interest), this is the old
Flanders, which is now distributed across three countries. However,
the Dutch PVV is also strong on the nations eastern border, while
no dis-content is apparent on the German side. Germany has its own
protest-strip along its eastern fringes, an impoverished area that
was once home to World War II refu-gees from further east. Even in
eastern Germany it is obvious how support for Die Linke goes along
with high percent-ages for the Euroskeptic (Alternative for Germany
(AfD)) and the extreme-right National Democratic Party (NDP). Given
their quite similar non-conformist appear-ances, young radical
supporters of the ex-treme-right and left are sometimes hardly
distinguishable here.
In France, the National Front has al-ways been strong in its
eastern departments, areas that had been occupied by Germany for
decades. The Mediterranean coast, home
although in most countries the problem of conflict is not as
immediate as in ukraine, most european societies appear
increasingly fragmented.
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could be the easing of tensions within some nation states.
Separatist Catalonians in Spain or the Flemish in Belgium might
feel less claustrophobic under a European umbrella with weak nation
states and strong regions. But at the same time, in an even larger
unity that lacks a common identity, people do feel alienated and
will more easily fall back on old local identities, triggering a
Balkaniza-tion of the whole continent.
Although in most countries the prob-ability of conflict is not
as immediate as in Ukraine, most European societies appear
increasingly fragmented. Mutual under-standing between groups
decreases, and common interests are harder to find. Given the
electoral consequences of this fragmen-tation, the formation of
workable govern-ment coalitions will become a tougher sell, and
political paralysis could be a scenario in many countries.
Easing tensions about European inte-gration might be helped by
an understand-ing of peoples views and fears. Many are aware of the
importance of international policies. But they seem to believe
politi-cians and cosmopolitan elites remain more than a little out
of touch with their cos-mopolitan orientation. This does not mean
politicians should start blaming Europe for all their problems,
which is sometimes the case. They should formulate the benefits of
European cooperation beginning with peo-ples worldviews.
Politicians have a very challenging job nowadays. They should be
profoundly aware of Europes complexities and turbu-lent past, and
need to balance on a thin, high wire between the need to think and
act on a larger scale while holding societies and nations together.
l
regions, given the more weakly defined identities and loyalties
in these countries, but it is deeply relevant to the whole
con-tinent, as identification and solidarity de-creases the further
away from home these centrifugal forces spin.
The ongoing integration and expan-sion of the European Union
signifies a continuing process of re-bordering. If one border gets
opened or raised, for ex-ample by joining the European Union or the
Schengen Treaty that erases internal border controls, the next
border becomes more important and can turn out to be a barrier for
someone else. The open traffic policies create an even sharper
outer bor-der thats the scene of painful attempts to migrate and
complex efforts of preven-tions. High fences surround Spanish
ex-claves in northern Africa, and accidents involving boats
overloaded with refugees are ever more frequent. Former Yugoslavs
now need to hassle their way through new borders between EU and
non-EU, and be-tween Schengen and non-Schengen, to see their old
neighbors. And should Ukraine be further integrated into the West,
its eastern Russia-oriented areas will cer-tainly become more
peripheral. The en-thusiastic acceptance by several Western
European politicians of Ukraines west-ward turn often neglects the
complicated divisions within this country, putting at risk Ukraines
unity and relations with Russia. Electoral geography shows that
many more divisions are in play than just international borders
that are sometimes arbitrary and even temporary.
A different consequence of further Eu-ropean integration and the
diminishing importance of some of its internal borders
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