Political influence and economic impact of Ukraine’s oligarchic system
The argument of my thesis so far: 1. Oligarchs and oligarchy are differentiated from other kinds of elite and elite rule by extreme wealth. 2. Wealth conditions the methods and logic of oligarch political strategies and actions. Large wealth differentials can stoke social and political tensions, creating specific kinds of protection problems for oligarchs, but permits the purchase of protection, whether coercive or political/ media influence. 3. The original and subsequent wealth-enhancing economic schemes of the Ukrainian oligarchs are characterised by indirect extraction via the state. Some schemes are more transient than others, as modes of extraction of this kind evolve. 4. Once in motion, the economic-political relationship goes both ways: wealth leads to political influence, but political position and influence can allow the accumulation of wealth. 5. Despite the existence of wealthy oligarchs at the head of big business networks, with similar