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Zentrale
wissenschaftliche
Einrichtung
!
Quarterly Magazine / July 2022
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What Makes Ukraine Resilient in the
Asymmetric War?
Oksana Huss
Introduction
The initial shock and outrage after the Russian aggression against Ukraine shifted into an increasing admiration and surprise at how
strongly Ukraine is "ghting this asymmetric war. The nominal defence spending of Ukraine reaches not more than 20 per cent of
Russia’s.
[1]
Against the backdrop of the fast capture of Ukrainian territories of Crimea and Donbass region in 2014, it is puzzling that
Russia had to adjust its military goals in 2022 and has still not reached its goals four months since the beginning of the war. The
resistance and resilience have surprised not only the aggressor, who was hoping for a Blitzkrieg, but also the Western partners of
Ukraine, who used to criticize the quality of governance in Ukraine in a patronizing way. Moreover, during this war, Ukraine has
developed even stronger international agency than before, in contrast to an intuitive failed state scenario.
Economist Graphics (deta il). Sources: 'The Real Mili tary Balance: International Comparisons of Defense Spend ing', by P. Robertson , 2021; SIPRI; The Economist
(https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/02/25/the-military-gap-between-russia-and-ukraine-is-vast)
I propose that the resilience of the country is fostered by the culture of collaborative governance and participatory democracy,
underpinned by the use of digital media. The argument is built in continuation of Dan Reiter and Allan C. Stam’s ideas about capacity
of democracies to "ght wars (Reiter and Stam 2002). They argue that it is ‘neither economic muscle nor bandwagoning between
democratic powers’ that strengthens democracies at war (Reiter and Stam 2002). Instead, it is ‘democracies’ dependence on public
consent’ and ‘the emphasis on individuality within democratic societies’ that foster greater initiative among soldiers in the "ght and
superior leadership.
The case of resilience in Ukraine goes even beyond the features of representative democracy analyzed by Reiter and Stam, given the
peculiar features of evolving democracy in Ukraine. I conceptualize participatory democracy as the expectation of partnership
between citizens and authorities in contrast to manager–customer relations common to representative democracy. Collaborative
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governance as a central mechanism of participatory democracy ‘brings public and private stakeholders together in collective forums
with public agencies to engage in consensus-oriented decision making’ (Ansell and Gash 2007: 543). The demands for more direct
in#uence of citizens on politics were triggered by the Revolution of Dignity in 2013–2014 and ever since shaped multiple major
interconnected reforms, such as decentralization, anti-corruption, judicial, electoral, public administration reforms, that were
developed, and implemented with an active engagement of civil society.
[2]
In addition, digital transformation of the country enabled
coordination of collaborative governance by means of e-democracy tools, while extensive implementation of e-governance tools
increased e$ciency of public services.
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Graphic: The reanimation package of reforms (see footnote 2), https://rpr.org.ua/en/12943-2.
Methodologically, my argument is based on the previous research on citizen–state relations in Ukraine, based on numerous
interviews of civil society activists and public authorities on the national and local levels of governance. The causality link to the war
is based on observations and fragmented evidence from public events, social media, personal discussions with active citizens,
international organizations, sectoral experts in Ukraine, while the systematic data collection is lacking due to the recent nature of
the events since 24 February 2022. Analytically, I discuss three dimensions of resilience: practices, structures, and norms.
!
Collaborative governance practices
Under conditions of the war, there are numerous instances when citizens and local authorities rely on the established engagement
practices, communication channels and networks to estimate and provide humanitarian aid, accommodate internally displaced
persons (IDPs), restore basic public services in the destroyed communities, and provide social and psychological support.
[3]
!
A public
survey in May 2022 showed that over 60 per cent of citizens are physically or "nancially engaged in volunteering to help the army,
territorial self-defence units, or IDPs.
The increasing outbreak of civic activism and citizens’ engagement in politics since 2014 in
Ukraine is rather unusual and worth highlighting, against the background of post-soviet political culture, created by massive
attempts of the communist nomenklatura to make citizens apolitical.
The Revolution of Dignity in 2014 consolidated a country-wide demand for the new citizen–state relations. The movement for
change aimed at an active citizen engagement in decision making and distribution of public goods on both the national and local
level of governance. After the Revolution, many civil society activists entered authorities after 2014, which opened opportunities for
the dialogue and collaboration. In the Parliament, the reform-minded MPs created an interfactional union “Eurooptimists”, where
many former activists entered leading positions in di%erent governments, while same patterns were noticeable on the local level of
governance. Numerous civil society organizations professionalized and participated in multi-stakeholder working groups to shape
reforms in legislation and governmental policies.
While the Kyiv-based NGOs in Ukraine used to be criticized as elitist and detached from grassroots, the decentralization reform
opened massive opportunities for ordinary citizens to engage in decision-making. Directly elected local councils and mayors became
responsible for the provision of public services in education, health care, and socioeconomic issues. Simultaneously, the "scal reform
redistributed public budget so that the revenues on the local level almost tripled within the "rst "ve years of the reform. Political
decisions became closer to citizens, which opened the opportunities and motivation for citizens to engage in societal issues that
directly a%ect them. Thus, since 2015, there was an increasing outbreak of local civic activism. For instance, almost every third
community introduced participatory budgeting practice, that allows citizens to directly propose and implement projects in their
community that will be implemented from the public budget. The practice of citizen consultations became widespread in di%erent
forms from the use of e-petitions to citizen surveys and neighbourhood fora. In addition, informal networks of activists’
organizations were created across Ukraine to foster horizontal (among communities) and vertical (national-level and local level
activists) exchange among them.
!
Multi-level resilience structures
The increasing importance of the local public authorities due to the well-advanced decentralization reform, became critical for a
quick implementation of the military resistance and societal resilience. The structure of the multi-level system of the national
military resistance has been created around the volunteering practices during the Russian invasion in 2014. The Territorial Defense
Forces were created to organize volunteers willing for military engagement. Institutionally, the Territorial Defense Forces were
incorporated into the Armed Forces of Ukraine in 2021, while the local public authorities are to play a central role for supply, funding,
provision of facilities and capacity building of the territorial defense. Although the formal provisions were not implemented before
the o%ensive, after two weeks of full-scale invasion, the Territorial Defense Forces counted ca. 100,000 volunteers – almost half of
the size of the professional Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Local level of governance also plays a critical role in maintaining social infrastructures, including functioning hospitals, education,
covering basic needs (such as water and power supply), in the destroyed regions and deal with large numbers of IDPs in the relatively
safer regions. The capacity of the local public authorities to provide public services evolved with the increasing e$ciency of the local
governments on course of the decentralization reform. The administrative units reform, as a part of decentralization, aimed at
increasing e$ciency of local governance. New administrative and territorial units – the amalgamated
hromadas
– were created,
which had the major e%ect on the redistribution of schools, hospitals, and centres for provision of administrative services according
to the population numbers in a demand-driven way.
!
Legitimacy & trust
Trust is a foundation for collaborative governance (Rapp 2020) and the main predictor of resilience (Eshel, Kimhi, and Marciano
2020). Most of the ongoing reforms aimed directly and indirectly to increase legitimacy of the state and rebuild trust in society. For
example, due to the anti-corruption reform, it was possible to break the vicious circle of impunity, when the High Anti-Corruption
Court convicted "rst cases of corruption on the high political level in 2020, or when the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the
National Agency for Corruption Prevention proved their initial independence on multiple occasions. An indirect e%ect on legitimacy
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and trust was expected from the extensive evolvement of participatory (e-)democracy practices and e-governance, as well as
successful attempts to improve e$ciency of public services (Dimitrova and Mazepus 2022). On the local level of governance, the
overall approval of the work of local self-governance authorities (mayor and city councils) has steadily improved since 2015 and was
the highest in comparison to all other public authorities on the national level in 2021 (International Republican Institute 2021).
On the national level of governance, the support for the public authorities drastically increased under conditions of the war:
In May,
the overwhelming majority of respondents stated that national public authorities are e%ective in pursuing most (54 per cent) or a
part (39 per cent) of their tasks, while in November 2021, only 5 per cent of respondents considered public authorities as fully and 40
per cent as partially e%ective.
The fact that President Zelensky and his team, including military leadership, did not leave the country
and continued to professionally perform their duties in such a critical moment surprised many citizens, in view of traditionally low
levels of trust towards public authorities. Among local public authorities there were almost no traitors likewise. On the contrary,
local authorities of areas under occupation have proactively resisted and hampered the organization of Russian referenda in their
cities (Romanova 2022). The loyalty and dedication of political elites resonated internationally and a%ected Ukrainian citizens’
attitudes towards politicians positively.
!
Outlook
Despite extremely high damages and collective trauma from numerous civilian deaths and war atrocities that have occurred in the
four months since the invasion, Ukraine demonstrates surprising resilience of the state and society. On both national and local levels
of governance, authorities are not only able to ful"l their representative and decision-making functions, provide basic public services
like healthcare and education, and maintain and restore critical infrastructures but support from the citizens is historically
unparalleled. Simultaneously, citizens’ voluntary engagement is also at an all-time high.
This contribution shows that
societal
change since 2014 on the level of societal practices, institutional structures, and norms created
conducive conditions for societal resilience under conditions of war. Three outcomes were critical:! First, the
practices
of
collaboration and partnership between citizens and authorities created necessary social capital networks, communication channels,
and formal and informal procedures to collectively assess a problem and elaborate solutions. Second, decentralization reform
strengthened local self-governance and extended political and "scal powers of local public authorities, which allowed for the
implementation of the multi-level
structure
for military resistance and societal resilience. Finally, the direct and indirect focus of the
reforms on restoring legitimacy to and trust of citizens towards public institutions contributed to the
normative
foundation for
increasing national identity among public authorities and citizens.
Further research is needed to test these propositions on a more solid empirical basis and elaborate causal relationships on a more
systematic basis. Nevertheless, the observations delineated here provide guidelines as to what needs to be prioritised when
rebuilding not only infrastructure but also institutions in Ukraine. In particular, strengthening local authorities, promoting citizen
engagement, and building trust as well as sustaining agile network structures for multi-level resilience are critical aspects to
maintain as high priority issues. These ideas can also contribute to the international security research, as they challenge the exclusive
prioritization of military capacity for security and shift the focus towards societal potential to build up military resistance and
societal resilience.
!
[1]
The estimates, depending on the calculation, vary from 10 per cent to 20,6 per cent,
according to the Economist.
[2]
The reanimation package of reforms is an association of major civil society organizations, who provide expertise and monitoring
of the major state reforms. More information on the reforms and the RPR is available here:
https://rpr.org.ua/en/12943-2/
[3]
Although there is no systematic data yet, fragmented evidence about these practices is visible in many experience-sharing events.
For instance, multiple such examples were provided in the event among local youth organizations to share their practices of
engagement in the war, organized by the Association of Ukrainian Cities and the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the
Council of Europe on 20.05.2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_97myc2MCkk&t=603s
Ansell, Chris and Gash, Alison (2007). ‘Collaborative Governance in Theory and Practice’,
Journal of Public Administration Research
and Theory,
18(4): 543–571.
Dimitrova, Antoaneta. & Mazepus, Honorata (2022).!
Do reforms in public administration increase trust in government in
transitional settings? Evidence from a survey of Ukrainian citizens
. Forthcoming.! Research paper presented at the ECPR Standing
Group on the European Union Online Seminar Series, 20.01.2022.
Eshel, Yohanan, Kimhi, Shaul and Marciano, Hadas (2020). ‘Predictors of National and Community Resilience of Israeli Border
References
doi.org/10.1093/jopart/mum032
QM 1-2022 Huss - What Makes Ukraine Resilient in the Asymmetric War? | KHK/GCR21
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Inhabitants Threatened by War and Terror’,
Community Mental Health Journal,
56(8): 1480–1488. Available at:
International Republican Institute (2021). 'Seventh Annual Ukranian Municipal Survey',
Center for Insights in Survey Research,
available at:
Rapp, Claire (2020). ‘Hypothesis and Theory: Collaborative Governance, Natural Resource Management, and the Trust
Environment’,
Frontiers in Communication,
5(2020). Available at:
Reiter, Dan and Stam, Allan C (2002).
Democracies at War
, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
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Romanova, Valentyna (2022). ‘Ukraine’s Resilience to Russia’s Military Invasion in the Context of the Decentralisation Reform’.
IdeaForum: Stefan Batory Foundation
, available at:
doi.org/10.1007/s10597-020-00592-w
www.iri.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/seventh_municipal_survey_may_2021_eng_-_v2.pdf
www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fcomm.2020.00028
VH7QX3XE2P.search.serialssolutions.com
www.batory.org.pl/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Ukraines-resilience-to-
Russias-military-invasion.pdf
Dr Oksana Huss
is a researcher in the
BIT-ACT
research project at the University of Bologna, Italy and lecturer at the Anti-Corruption Research
and Education Centre and Kyiv School of Economics, Ukraine. Her areas of expertise cover political corruption, open government and social
movements against corruption in the post-communist states. She is a co-founder of the
Interdisciplinary Corruption Research Network
and
author of the
book
How Corruption and Anti-Corruption Policies Sustain Hybrid Regimes: Strategies of Political Domination under Ukraine’s
Presidents in 1994-2014
(ibidem Press, 2020).
Contact:
!
oksana.huss@unibo.it
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