Single Review on past events

We invited you to our Jour fixe on Tuesday, 14 June.

Our first four Visiting Fellows from Ukraine, Hanna Klipkova (Politics and Public Administration), Yaroslava Muravetska (Literature), Tetyana Nikolaychuk (Economics) and Bohdan Shumylovych (History and Sociology) gave a presentation.

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Hanna's talk was entitled "The Impact of the War on State-Institutional Building Processes in Ukraine".

Abstract:

The Russian invasion in February 2022 brought up new challenges for researchers of Post-Soviet states.
One could consider the post-soviet state as a specific type of state, which could not be described just as a transition stage from the authoritarian regime to the democratic one. We offer to consider the post-soviet state as a self-sufficient phenomenon and research instrument for trajectories of political regimes and state institutions. The post-soviet state can be described as a stable constellation of formal and informal state and political institutes. Instead of being a temporary frame for describing transition, the post-soviet state turned out to be a new relatively sustained type of state with its own governing techniques arsenal. More than 30 years of state-building in Ukraine like in other post-soviet countries seems to brought unsuccessful results. Democracy, sovereignty and the whole political system outcomes were qualified in terms of neopatrimonialism (Fisun 2016, Hale 2016) and were explained with low quality of the institutional system. The lack of mature and legitimate institutions for the circulation of elites, institutional imbalances in the state power system and undeveloped party system led to structural defects in the political governance and to inversions of its political transformation.
Post-soviet type of state is characterized by emerging of soviet and western liberal state systems. The socialist legacy remained partly destroyed while the new liberal economy and state models were not implemented completely. This symbiosis created a specific destructive, but viable state-institutional system. In its core lies neopatrimonial nature with rent-seeking behavior of elites, the emergence of authorities and business groups, using the state capacity in private interests and patron-client networks as the dominant principle of political market organization. Neopatrimonialism can be considered as a state capture problem, privatization of the public policy sphere. There is a dominance of informal institutions hidden behind the facades of formal but incapable institutions.
When it comes to further post-conflict reconstruction, there is no doubt that the war will make a strong influence on the nation-building process. Ukrainian society demonstrates nowadays a new level of consolidation. All social and political cleavages get the chance to be fixed by the powerful rise of national unity.
The theory tells us that the war can create a state and support nation-building processes. One has an opportunity to trace this hypothesis. It seemed to be impossible in the XXI century, but the crisis of the world security system brought it back to the central point of the political discourse.
History demonstrates that large-scale wars can enhance or even create nations. And for the political scientists the cornerstone question will be if Ukraine is able to build a capable political-institutional system after the war? Will it go by the afghan failed-state scenario or it will give us a chance to use the war in terms of the tillian perspective as the state-making driver? It will be the main post-conflict challenge for Ukrainian statehood.
The purpose of my research is to define possible trajectories of state-institutional system building after the greatest bifurcation point for the Ukrainian nation. There is а chance to rebuild the Ukrainian state on the new principles and to change the “path dependence” trap (Mahoney 2000). So the most crucial point for Ukrainian state after the war will be how can Ukraine improve the quality of governance and avoid further corrosion of state capacity.

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Yaroslava informed about "Cultural practices of anti-Soviet struggle".

Abstract:

One of the fronts of Russia's war against Ukraine is ideological, which is largely related to the propaganda of the mythologized past of the Soviet Union. In fact, this discourse is based on opposite theses: on the one hand, the Soviet Union is interpreted as a union of fraternal nations, on the other –  the supremacy of Russia is asserted. Consequently, the collapse of the Soviet Union is interpreted as a tragedy of the separation of the Ukrainian nation from Russia, and not as the liberation of Ukraine from occupation. Thus, Russia's attack on Ukraine is interpreted as a war of «fraternal nations». Therefore the purpose of this report is, first, to record the fact of the Ukrainian nation's struggle against the Soviet Union (using the information leaflets of the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations as an example), and secondly, the interpretation and analysis of narratives of the ABN ideology. In particular, to debunk the myth of «fraternal nations» and outline the imperial essence of both the Soviet Union and Russia.

Links / literature:

https://ounuis.info/collections/leaflets/information/1231/cultural-exchanges-cooperation.html
https://ounuis.info/collections/leaflets/information/1230/cultural-exchanges-and-cooperation.html
https://diasporiana.org.ua/ukrainica/9766-revolutionary-voices-ukrainian-political-prisoners-condemn-russian-colonialism/
https://ksf.openukraine.org/en/news/2169-vistup-timoti-snajdera-istorika-profesora-jelysykogo-universitetu-na-kijivsykomu-bezpekovomu-forumi-video-tekst

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Tetyana's talk was entitled "Post-war sustainable development in Ukraine: innovative economic and environmental activities (Cybernetic planning and chess-business modeling: new rules, new tools)".

Abstract:

The military the Russian invasion in Ukraine have led to numerous transformations in the social, economic, political, ecological and regulatory field. The formation of effective economic key drivers’ postwar period is the key to restoring the institutions of civil society and market economy of Ukraine.
The invasion means destruction of existing markets, business collaborations and the formation of new vectors of military and civilian activities
The issues of the study are to consider the economic and organizational feasibility and profitability of post war market. Chess business modeling will be able to find the most available business ways for entities and side effect for society and environment. Chess business modeling also could be used as a tool dealing with institutional traps.
The study is conducted in order to identify the main possible milestones related to the implementation of economic and environmental  reform in the context of decentralization in the post war period.

Links / literature:

1. Gostin L.O., Rubenstein L.S. Attacks on Health Care in the War in Ukraine: International Law and the Need for Accountability. JAMA.  2022. Retrieved from http:https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/articleabstract/2790921. doi:10.1001/jama.2022.6045.
2. Emil Edenborg  Creativity, geopolitics and ontological security: satire on Russia and the war in Ukraine. Postcolonial Studies. 2017.  No. 20 (3). P. 294-316. Retrieved from http: https://www.tandfonline.com/action/showCitFormats?doi=10.1080%2F 13688790.2017.1378086.  doi: 10.1080/13688790.2017.1378086
3. Fournier A. From Frozen Conflict to Mobile Boundary: Youth Perceptions of Territoriality in War-Time Ukraine. East European Politics and Societies. 2018. No. 1. P. 23-55. Retrieved from http: https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=902576
4. Wanner C. Empathic care and healing the wounds of war in Ukraine. Emotions and Society. 2021. No. 3(1). P. 155-170(16). Retrieved from http: https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bup/eas/2021/0000000 3/00000001/art00009. https://doi.org/10.1332/26 3169021X16139626598365
5. Reid R. Caught in the headlights of history: Eritrea, the EPLF and the post-war nation-state. The Journal of Modern African Studies. 2005. No.  43(3). P. 467-488. Retrieved from https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-modern-african-studies/article/caught-in-the-headlights-of-history-eritrea-the-eplf-and-the-postwar-nationstate/FBDC28C970BC050D73AE8E93C06A3D53
6. The State Tax Service of Ukraine.  (2021, January 15). The Official website.  Retrieved from http://tax.gov.ua/media-tsentr/novini/407585.html
7. Austvold, G. (2020). Sustainable Takeout Packaging: A Smart Choice for Your Business. Green Business Bereau. Retrieved from  https://greenbusinessbureau.com/blog/sustainable -takeout -packaging -what -you - need - to - know/
8. The Civil Code of Ukraine (2003). The Bulletin of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, 16/ 435 Retrieved from http://search.ligazakon.ua/l_doc2.nsf/link1/T030435.htmlhttp://search.ligazakon.ua/l_doc2.nsf/link1/T030435.html
9. On Financial Services and State Regulation of Financial Services Markets: the Law of Ukraine (2001). The Bulletin of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, 26 (64). Retrieved from  https: //search.ligazakon.ua/l_doc2.nsf/link1/  T012664.html

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Bohdan spoke about "Healing a socialist body: Soviet Ukrainian television and media psychotherapy".

Abstract:

On March 31, 1988, Soviet television introduced the media bridge between Moscow and Kyiv with the popular television program "Vzgliad". This program, which had an experimental character in the spirit of Perestroika, showed amazing surgery, which aimed to improve the health of Soviet people by the means of media. A Ukrainian physician, Anatolii Kashpirovskii, performed through a TV-bridge remote drug-free anaesthesia from Moscow while a surgeon made operation in Kyiv. In 1989 Kashpirovskii delivered six programs of the so-called televised healings and soon after media therapeutic broadcasts were stopped. The case of Kashpirovskii and televised surgeries, followed by the repetitive mass TV hypnosis sessions in 1989, exposed several aspects of late Soviet history: late détente, televisual experiments, media bridges, and perception of the socialist body. My talk explores Ukrainian broadcasts of 1989 and how they were perceived by both common people, media professionals, and medical circles. Late Soviet television shaped by these broadcasts specific “unimaginative imagination,” which I will address.

Links / literature:

Alexey Golubev, Ordinary and Paranormal: The Soviet Television Set, In: The Things of Life: Materiality in Late Soviet Russia (Cornell University Press, 2020), https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501752889/the-things-of-life/