Політичні дослідження (Apr 2023)
The legitimacy of power: determining factors in post-war Ukraine
Abstract
In the center of the article is an analysis of the transformation of Ukrainians and civil society during the first year of the full-scale Russian-Ukrainian war, conducted by the author with the aim of determining the possible limits of the format of the post-war normalization of the defects of Ukrainian democracy. Among the defects is the functioning of power, which gains the influence due to the electoral procedures of electoral democracies, but does not receive final legitimation due to the lack or even absence of public trust. The political product of the crisis of legitimacy of power intransit Ukrainian democracy is a weak state with dual institutions and an asthenic state of Ukrainian society with a dual national identity. The full-scale Russian-Ukrainian war created unique grounds (for the first time in 30 years after the renewal of Ukrainian independence) for the localization of the influence of the crisis of the legitimacy of power on the Ukrainian political system. The value evolution of Ukrainians, the active formation of national and civil identities, the unification of society, the formation of high level of trust of Ukrainians to the authorities, and the acquisition of new experiences by civil society — all these factors give hope for the formation and implementation ofconventional instruments for overcoming crises and, accordingly, for the active promotion of Ukrainian democracy towards consolidation. The author notes that the qualitative construction of anti-crisis policies for the nearest future requires avoiding voluntarism when assessing the modernization potential of society, which determines the reforming potential of civil society. An objective look at modern Ukrainians forces us to recognize the fact that we have preserved a certain value dichotomy, certainly in much smaller sizes than on the eve of February 24, 2022. The axiological specificity of modern Ukrainians will also determine the post-war opportunities of civil society. Therefore, civil society will be active in the areas of supporting reforms, resuming all democratic procedures and processes after the end of hostilities, and actively formation of a new culture of discourse within the country. Advocacy of liberal democracy requires the participation of an exogenous actor.
Keywords
