Dr David Dalton: Research proposal: Why do reforms of Ukraine’s national governance institutions tend to fail?
Working title. “Reform of Ukraine’s national governance institutions: a comparison of the scope, progress and impact of Yatsenyuk’s 2014 ‘de-oligarchisation’ drive after the Euromaidan revolution with that of Zelenskyi following the onset of the global pandemic in 2020”.
In short. The research will examine critically the design and implementation of reforms of Ukraine’s national governance structures attempted after the crises of 2014 and 2020, from the perspective of the political economy of institutional development, using a comparative and evaluative approach. Following up on the policy implications of my PhD on the Ukrainian oligarchy as self-reproducing institution, it will contribute to debates on the role of institutional reforms in development in the area where academic research and policy-making meet.
Research problem. The problem that my research proposal addresses is that successive attempts to reform Ukraine’s national governance structures—whether encouraged from the outside as part of the loan conditions of the international financial institutions (IFIs) during an economic crisis, or developed domestically as “de-oligarchisation”—have had problems in instigating lasting institutional change, even when driven by extreme necessity, such as the onset of war with Russia from 2014.
Importance of the topic. A key argument of my PhD thesis is that the modern Ukrainian oligarchy, as an evolving alliance of leading political office holders with the heads of the main business-political networks, is recreated across crises by means of a repertoire of habitual, informal political and economic practices. By restricting political and economic competition, however, this institution acts as a fetter on Ukraine’s economic development, creating a persistent negative feedback loop between low state capacity and low investment. In this light, successful reform of national governance structures is perhaps the most important domestic development issue facing Ukraine, with implications not just for future prosperity, but also for national security through the link to technological development, and so perhaps for the country’s viability as a sovereign state over the longer term. My research proposal therefore takes as its starting point key conclusions of my PhD—that the Ukrainian oligarchy is reproduced not just by material incentives, but by these mediated through social actors’ shared institutional norms, for example—and aims to flesh out the policy implications of them.
Research questions. Questions designed to address different aspects of the research problem are grouped below. These would be whittled down and refined in the process of producing a critical review of the literatures on political and economic institutional development as an aid to concretising the research design.
1) How do the “de-oligarchisation” plans of Arseniy Yatsenyuk in 2014 and Volodymyr Zelenskyi after 2020 compare in terms of motivation, aim and scope? What kind of national governance reforms have external actors (IFIs) tended to recommend?
2) How far did national governance reforms progress after the Euromaidan revolution and the Covid pandemic? How can such progress, and its impact, be measured?
3) Why do political economy governance reforms fail to take hold in Ukraine, even following severe crises?
4) What drives institutional change, especially of national level political and economic governance structures, and the underlying informal socio-cultural norms in which they are embedded? Are there examples of countries that, from a similar starting point as Ukraine, have had more success in widening political participation and developing a better-functioning rule-of-law state, on which Ukraine could draw?
5) How might policy on reform of Ukraine’s high-level governance institutions be tailored to the "patronal" political economy culture that underlies them, so offering a better chance of reform success?
Thesis. The thesis for my research proposal is that governance reforms tend to fail because they do not take into account the nature and scope of Ukraine’s actually existing governance structures, as well as the specific political culture in which they are rooted. This suggests, for example, that the Ukrainian oligarchy as an institution cannot be transformed by undermining the activities of a handful of oligarchs or their networks, as in successive de-oligarchisation drives. Rather, the oligarchy is a much wider, deeper and more institutionally joined up structure, in which a relatively large number of people, across administrative bodies and economic sectors, have a material stake. Patronal democratic vs liberal democratic capitalism.
Research design. At this stage, a comparative and evaluative approach to the design, using both quantitative and qualitive methods, seems appropriate to addressing the research problem. The comparative element would look at the aims and outcomes of governance reforms in Ukraine following crises in 2014 and in 2020, in their respective political and economic contexts, looking for similarities and differences in conception and obstacles faced; and in selected other countries that have had more success with such policies. The evaluative element would aim to assess the design, scope, implementation and impact of Ukraine’s governance reform drives. A key task of this part of the investigation will be to identify and develop conceptually the dimensions of institutional governance to be measured, selecting the most suitable indicators from the available data sources, following an assessment of their pros and cons. There are many possible data sources to consider, produced both inside and outside of Ukraine. To track reform progress, it might be possible to use or adapt the national governance criteria developed by the EBRD for their lastest "sustainable market" concept. Vox Ukraine has also constructed a “reform index”, with a governance component. Policy impact might be assessed through the change in levels of popular trust in political and economic institutions, perhaps using data for Ukraine produced by the International Republican Institute (IRI), a US think-tank, or from local sociological organisations—such as the Razumkov Centre and the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KISS). Taking account of Ukrainian perspectives on this issue will be crucial for the success of the project. One way I plan to do so is to organise fieldwork interviews with representatives of anti-corruption bodies and think-tanks in Ukraine, such as the NABU and the Anti-corruption Action Centre.
Which literatures? On the economics side, the relevant literature is concerned with identifying the determinants of institutional change across post-communist eastern Europe. For her Handbook of Comparative Economics (Palgrave, 2021), Elodie Douarin has produced a succinct survey of this literature, which would be a good starting point for investigation. From a more sociological perspective, the “stubborn structures” approach of Bálint Magyar and Bálint Madlovics (2019) examines the role of persistent cultural values in undermining externally devised formal institutional arrangements. The research would also engage with the “policy” literature, both from Western but especially from Ukrainian sources.
Outputs. The key output of my proposed research would be the publication of an evaluative academic paper setting out the main factors behind the failure of national governance reforms in contemporary Ukraine, along with some suggestions, perhaps, of how institutional reform policy might be adapted to take account of these. As a step on the way to the production of this article, in the first year of the post, I would produce a critical review of the academic and policy literatures on reform of governance institutions. This would feed into the design of the evaluative paper. I also would aim, depending on the funding available, to organise a workshop or small conference to bring together academic and policy specialists on this issue, and to present my interim research plans. One aim of this would be to improve my research plans by exposure to constructive criticism, ahead of the substantive evaluative research.
What would this research contribute? The main contribution of my proposed research project would be to the emerging debate on why current approaches to national governance reform in contemporary eastern Europe tend to fall short, adding suggestions of how this might be addressed. This would add to the literature on political economy development in post-communist societies a comparative, evaluative study of problems of governance reform in contemporary Ukraine. It would also bring to bear on the wider policy debate over institutional reform in Ukraine the latest thinking in this academic field, helping to lay the groundwork for the formulation of more effective policy.
In short. The research will examine critically the design and implementation of reforms of Ukraine’s national governance structures attempted after the crises of 2014 and 2020, from the perspective of the political economy of institutional development, using a comparative and evaluative approach. Following up on the policy implications of my PhD on the Ukrainian oligarchy as self-reproducing institution, it will contribute to debates on the role of institutional reforms in development in the area where academic research and policy-making meet.
Research problem. The problem that my research proposal addresses is that successive attempts to reform Ukraine’s national governance structures—whether encouraged from the outside as part of the loan conditions of the international financial institutions (IFIs) during an economic crisis, or developed domestically as “de-oligarchisation”—have had problems in instigating lasting institutional change, even when driven by extreme necessity, such as the onset of war with Russia from 2014.
Importance of the topic. A key argument of my PhD thesis is that the modern Ukrainian oligarchy, as an evolving alliance of leading political office holders with the heads of the main business-political networks, is recreated across crises by means of a repertoire of habitual, informal political and economic practices. By restricting political and economic competition, however, this institution acts as a fetter on Ukraine’s economic development, creating a persistent negative feedback loop between low state capacity and low investment. In this light, successful reform of national governance structures is perhaps the most important domestic development issue facing Ukraine, with implications not just for future prosperity, but also for national security through the link to technological development, and so perhaps for the country’s viability as a sovereign state over the longer term. My research proposal therefore takes as its starting point key conclusions of my PhD—that the Ukrainian oligarchy is reproduced not just by material incentives, but by these mediated through social actors’ shared institutional norms, for example—and aims to flesh out the policy implications of them.
Research questions. Questions designed to address different aspects of the research problem are grouped below. These would be whittled down and refined in the process of producing a critical review of the literatures on political and economic institutional development as an aid to concretising the research design.
1) How do the “de-oligarchisation” plans of Arseniy Yatsenyuk in 2014 and Volodymyr Zelenskyi after 2020 compare in terms of motivation, aim and scope? What kind of national governance reforms have external actors (IFIs) tended to recommend?
2) How far did national governance reforms progress after the Euromaidan revolution and the Covid pandemic? How can such progress, and its impact, be measured?
3) Why do political economy governance reforms fail to take hold in Ukraine, even following severe crises?
4) What drives institutional change, especially of national level political and economic governance structures, and the underlying informal socio-cultural norms in which they are embedded? Are there examples of countries that, from a similar starting point as Ukraine, have had more success in widening political participation and developing a better-functioning rule-of-law state, on which Ukraine could draw?
5) How might policy on reform of Ukraine’s high-level governance institutions be tailored to the "patronal" political economy culture that underlies them, so offering a better chance of reform success?
Thesis. The thesis for my research proposal is that governance reforms tend to fail because they do not take into account the nature and scope of Ukraine’s actually existing governance structures, as well as the specific political culture in which they are rooted. This suggests, for example, that the Ukrainian oligarchy as an institution cannot be transformed by undermining the activities of a handful of oligarchs or their networks, as in successive de-oligarchisation drives. Rather, the oligarchy is a much wider, deeper and more institutionally joined up structure, in which a relatively large number of people, across administrative bodies and economic sectors, have a material stake. Patronal democratic vs liberal democratic capitalism.
Research design. At this stage, a comparative and evaluative approach to the design, using both quantitative and qualitive methods, seems appropriate to addressing the research problem. The comparative element would look at the aims and outcomes of governance reforms in Ukraine following crises in 2014 and in 2020, in their respective political and economic contexts, looking for similarities and differences in conception and obstacles faced; and in selected other countries that have had more success with such policies. The evaluative element would aim to assess the design, scope, implementation and impact of Ukraine’s governance reform drives. A key task of this part of the investigation will be to identify and develop conceptually the dimensions of institutional governance to be measured, selecting the most suitable indicators from the available data sources, following an assessment of their pros and cons. There are many possible data sources to consider, produced both inside and outside of Ukraine. To track reform progress, it might be possible to use or adapt the national governance criteria developed by the EBRD for their lastest "sustainable market" concept. Vox Ukraine has also constructed a “reform index”, with a governance component. Policy impact might be assessed through the change in levels of popular trust in political and economic institutions, perhaps using data for Ukraine produced by the International Republican Institute (IRI), a US think-tank, or from local sociological organisations—such as the Razumkov Centre and the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KISS). Taking account of Ukrainian perspectives on this issue will be crucial for the success of the project. One way I plan to do so is to organise fieldwork interviews with representatives of anti-corruption bodies and think-tanks in Ukraine, such as the NABU and the Anti-corruption Action Centre.
Which literatures? On the economics side, the relevant literature is concerned with identifying the determinants of institutional change across post-communist eastern Europe. For her Handbook of Comparative Economics (Palgrave, 2021), Elodie Douarin has produced a succinct survey of this literature, which would be a good starting point for investigation. From a more sociological perspective, the “stubborn structures” approach of Bálint Magyar and Bálint Madlovics (2019) examines the role of persistent cultural values in undermining externally devised formal institutional arrangements. The research would also engage with the “policy” literature, both from Western but especially from Ukrainian sources.
Outputs. The key output of my proposed research would be the publication of an evaluative academic paper setting out the main factors behind the failure of national governance reforms in contemporary Ukraine, along with some suggestions, perhaps, of how institutional reform policy might be adapted to take account of these. As a step on the way to the production of this article, in the first year of the post, I would produce a critical review of the academic and policy literatures on reform of governance institutions. This would feed into the design of the evaluative paper. I also would aim, depending on the funding available, to organise a workshop or small conference to bring together academic and policy specialists on this issue, and to present my interim research plans. One aim of this would be to improve my research plans by exposure to constructive criticism, ahead of the substantive evaluative research.
What would this research contribute? The main contribution of my proposed research project would be to the emerging debate on why current approaches to national governance reform in contemporary eastern Europe tend to fall short, adding suggestions of how this might be addressed. This would add to the literature on political economy development in post-communist societies a comparative, evaluative study of problems of governance reform in contemporary Ukraine. It would also bring to bear on the wider policy debate over institutional reform in Ukraine the latest thinking in this academic field, helping to lay the groundwork for the formulation of more effective policy.
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