Starry Aspirant

Large-scale migration, a deep recession and severe damage to industrial capacity are among the main effects (for The Chartist) A month and a half into the latest phase of the Russia-Ukraine war, Russia’s attempt to take the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, appears to have been checked, and its forces to have withdrawn from Ukraine’s northern regions, leaving large-scale human and material destruction in their wake. The purpose of the withdrawal, according to military analysts, may be to regroup and refocus on expanding Russia’s territorial hold on the eastern Donbas regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, parts of which have been under de facto Russian control since 2014-15. While the course of the war will determine the political, social and economic future of the main protagonists—that is, of Ukraine and Russia—and will also have a significant impact across the Eurasian continent more broadly, its outcome remains uncertain. Nonetheless, it is already possible to say something of the scale of the dam...

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 ...

When the town was closed for winter I’d wear my winter overcoat and sit on beaches throwing stones to see which ones would float. All afternoon, as I sat in the beach what I was trying to be was out of reach. And in the days that followed I’d walk the shoreline of the sea and shudder in premonition of my death but did not let it bother me. That world is gone. It’s fallen through. It’s time is over. When can we start anew? For a while when you’re young, wo oh, you can take it in your stride or on the chin and you greet all of your woes, wo oh, with mock tears and a tiny violin. Yes, that’s all gone, and soon I will be too but before I’m over, I’d like to start anew. If I could roll again across the stones onto a beach as the day comes to a close and badly dance about a bonfire flames and feel the sand beneath my toes! But all the while I was thinking of the beach what I was trying to be was out of reach. So, even when we lived like dogs it felt like we were free running from pillow to l...

The routine can make you tetchy in this little ship of ours, cooped up in here for two months now with the destination Mars. And even if we survive, you still think were gonna make it out alive? Easy days are hard to take. In space, no one can hear you bark. The birdsongs play in the hydroponics bay, but isn't it just whistling in the dark? And even if we survive, you still think were gonna make it out alive? What is it that we lost? What have we undone? All we were looking for was another sun. Where are we headed now? It's into the unknown, but it doesn't look like we'll be going home. So the nebulae are blooming around the heart of a neutron star. Am I awake or am I dreaming? Maybe we have come too far, and even if we abide will we ever dare to take a step outside? Last week, it was a belt of asteroids that was keeping us on our toes. Some days it's hard to know what this is for. Maybe just see where this wormhole goes. But even if we survive, I wonder if we'r...

“Almost 70 deputies work for Kolomoisky, and another 100 for Akhmetov” reads a recent headline in Ukrayinska Pravda . The article then catalogues some of the actions in the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian legislature, that these parliamentarians are said to conduct on their patrons’ behalf. But Ihor Kolomoisky and Rinat Akhmetov are only the most high-profile of the handful of leading oligarchs who have dominated Ukraine’s political and economic life for more than two decades, usually to its detriment. Two sides of the same coin A striking feature modern Ukraine is not just the ongoing influence in public life of such figures, but also the resilience of the oligarchy as an institution across episodes of serious political disjuncture, including the Maidan revolt of 2013/14, which seemed for a short time to threaten its survival. An oligarchy is a political system dominated by a social minority of wealth holders. If wealth is the characteristic source of oligarchs’ social power, it is b...

I thought I saw Luke Skywalker check into our beach hotel for a winter break. Older now, but still with poise and assurance, he strides through the automatic doors, wheeling a squeaky travel case in his wake. At the reception, he dashes off his signature with a flourish as if to please the concierge, then turns gracefully towards the lift, swishing behind him his coco-powder cape. And I thought I saw him out on the bluffs next morning early, muttering incantations under his breath. Who set fire to the natural log? What is East Grinstead? Why is the sun? The cold rain drizzles, but his cape is good for all weathers. In the bay, a shark is doing backstroke, pretending to be a surfboard. The sparrow-hawk stuck on the air current above one shoulder is Luke’s mind: it's just one more Jedi party trick. His girl, who is too young for him, is dressed in a silky lilac two piece and she wears pristine lilac boots. At nights they sing like crickets on the dancefloor. The disco ball accentuate...

A review of Marko Bojcun’s Towards a Political Economy of Ukraine: Selected Essays, 1990-2015; Ukrainian Voices, vol 3; Ibidem-Press, Stuttgart. A. The history of post-Soviet Ukraine could be written as that of a succession of self-serving political leaderships, and of inspiring but failed popular protests, resulting in chronic economic underperformance that has left the country’s dwindling population among the poorest in Europe. A glance at IMF data, for example, shows the country vying for bottom place in the European income rankings with Moldova. In these essays, written close on the events they analyse, Marko Bojcun reminds us that this need not have been the case, and that other trajectories at times seemed possible. One example is to be found in an article from 2001, in which the prospect of Russia’s European integration is still in the air, just about, whereas from the vantage point of today, this is almost unthinkable. B. The collection covers key waypoints in the politic...