Interest versus Identity: Economic Voting in Ukrainian Presidential Elections

To what extent do economic factors accentuate or mitigate ethno-cultural fault lines in Ukrainian politics? Previous analyses of Ukrainian elections have focused on Ukraine's ethno-cultural regional divide, which splits the Ukrainophone West and Center from the Russian-speaking East and South. A newly-fashioned subnational dataset that includes ethno-linguistic, economic, and electoral data for Ukraine's 225 territorial election districts is used to tease out the relative importance of ethnic and economic factors in Ukrainian electoral behavior. The role of economic conditions in Viktor Yanukovych's 2010 victory and shifts in vote shares for Viktor Yushchenko and Yuliya Tymoshenko from 2004 to 2010 are given in-depth examination.