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have generally made economic and not ethnic demands in the post-
independence period. Class-based appeals are increasingly outstripping ethnic
cues among both the titular nationalities and ethnic Russians in both countries.
I argue that economic reform policies implemented in post-Soviet Latvia
and Ukraine created conditions for ethnic cooperation rather than conflict. In this
paper, I outline the logic of my argument and provide evidence for the main
empirical claim of my project
that it is easier to mobilize along class lines than
along ethnic lines in contemporary Latvia and Ukraine. Support from my
argument comes from two datasets I have built on street demonstrations in Riga
and Kyiv for the 1989-1999 period. I include in these all forms of mobilization,
not just nationalist protests. The paper is organized as follows. First, I briefly
discuss the question of how best to measure nationalism. Second, I introduce
my data on street demonstrations in Riga and Kyiv. Third, I present my
argument on the paradoxical benefits of economic reform for ethnic cooperation.
Lastly, I flesh out the shift from nationalist to economic mobilization by analyzing
the evolving strategies of political entrepreneurs in Latvia and Ukraine.
Measuring Nationalist Mobilization
Measuring the support for nationalism is not an easy job under the best of
circumstances. Survey data on ethnic politics have a tendency to underestimate,
through self-reporting bias, the support for nationalist parties and preferences
(King 1997). Even if reliable polls from either Latvia or Ukraine could be found
for the questions of central importance to my project, it would be unlikely that
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