COOPERATION AND
COMPETITION
OF
CSO, GOVERNMENT AND
OLIGARCHS
Mikhail Minakov, l’Université Kyiv-Mohila Academy
Les rendez-vous internationaux de l’EHESS, 22 January
2015
PARADOX : FAILING STATE AND
VIBRANT NATION
driven by the forms of self-organization created on
Maidan Ukrainian civil society has taken over spheres
of the state’s emergency responsibilities in responding
to war, political crisis and separatism in 2014
by doing that, civil society organizations have saved
Ukrainian state from collapse in a short-run, but
created critical obstacles for the state’s development
in the longer run
NEW FUNCTIONS OF CSO
Since the flight of President Yanukovych from Kiev on
February 22, 2014 and the transition of power into the
political leaders of Maidan, the indisputable attributes of
government – a monopoly of the legitimate means of
violence and administrative control – have been
functioning with the considerable support and sometimes
even with the leadership of post-Maidan CSOs
NEW FUNCTIONS OF CSO (2)
• defense sector: volunteer battalions fighting Russian
intervention and separatists’ upraising in the Eastern oblasts
• internal security: self-defense groups policing cities and
towns of Ukraine
• counter-propaganda: activists groups fighting Russian
propaganda and promoting the post-Maidan case in Ukraine
and wider
• elections: sporadic attempts to create alternative activist
networks controlling honest count of votes
• lustration: promoting the idea of the necessity of changing
elites in power, mainly in the public service
RESPONSES : POWER ELITES
Those in control of centers of power reacted to the CSO
entering the area of government’s responsibility in the
following way:
• engaging leaders into power (MPs, heads of some
governmental agencies)
• depriving CSOs leaders from sources and media
• criminalizing CSOs leaders
RESPONSES : OLIGARCHS
• After Maidan CSO-oligarchs linkages increased due to
the urgent need to provide volunteer battalions with
ammunition and personal security. Patriotic behavior
provided oligarchs with new legitimacy.
• Today, the usual toolkit of oligarchs’ behavior includes
support to
•
volunteer or army detachments
•
local civic initiative of Self-Defense network
•
local lustration committees
RESPONSES : OLIGARCHS (2)
• oligarchic groups increased their impact on army,
police, and local administration to un-precedented
level
• they somewhat decreased impact on parliament
• the retained impact on courts at previous level
RISKS TO COPE
declining rule of law and state’s efficiency:
independence of volunteer battalions/local activists’
groups undermines the political order
growing role of oligarchs: CSOs add to increase of
independence of oligarchs from legal order and
provide them with additional tools to press
government