Authors

David Dalton¹;  ¹ UCL SSEES, UK

Discussion

Through the lens of the modern political sociology of war, my proposed paper would examine some of the accelerated political and social changes in Ukraine—such as the increased status of the army, the president and the presidency, and the increased involvement of the population in military, political and economic life, as well as the apparently reduced position of leading oligarchs and their business-political networks—since the onset of full-scale Russian invasion of February 24th 2022. It will also set out some of the implications of these social and political changes for reform of Ukraine’s dominant political-economy governance regime, “the oligarchy”, post-war. The importance of this topic is that, without reform of this wide-ranging and (so far) adaptable institution, many of the planned reforms vital for Ukraine’s economic recovery and its reconstruction, and even perhaps for its survival as a sovereign nation state in a “bad neighbourhood” over the longer term, might have difficulty taking hold.