Mikhail Minakov, l’Université Kyiv-Mohila Academy Les rendez-vous internationaux de l’EHESS, 22 January 2015 COOPERATION AND COMPETITION OF CSO, GOVERNMENT AND OLIGARCHS

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