Phantom Borders - Historical Conditions of Political and Socio-Economic Cleavages of Contemporary Ukraine
Abstract
The term phantom border or region is used in current political-geographic literature to describe situations in which the original political boundaries in a region are abolished de jure, but still appear in the form of different social and political cleavages within the population, even though the historical continuity of the settlement may have already been disturbed. Ukraine is a very good case for studying this effect for its complicated territorial development.
The contribution analyses historical conditions of current political, cultural and socio-economic structures in Ukraine. It uses statistical tests to verify the occurrence of the so-called phantom boundary effect - whether the original historical boundaries correspond to the spatial patterns of current political and socioeconomic differences of the Ukrainian society.
The analysis partially confirmed the existence of phantom boundaries in Ukraine's political and cultural-demographic aspects, but in a number of economic characteristics the phantom effect could not be found.