Ukraine and the (Dis)integrating “Empire of Capital”

Abstract

This chapter combines a neo-Gramscian approach with analysis of imperialism to analyze transformations of the state-sosciety complex in Ukraine throughout geopolitical shifts. It describes the interaction of Ukraine and the “empire of capital” through connections between local kleptocracy, lobbyist groups, international organizations, and transnational capital. From this perspective, the author addresses the four main important political myths circulating in discussions around Ukraine: the myth of necessary transition; democracy; “two Ukraines”; and the Russian and communist “Other”. It places these myths into a chronology of Ukraine’s postsocialist development in terms of a struggle between competing oligarchic networks, leading up to Maidan and the events that followed, meaning both a crisis of the domestic legitimacy of oligarchic rule and also a crisis of the international position of Ukraine, which effectively lost its national sovereignty in various areas. In the last parts of the chapter, the author argues for her prognosis of a “third Maidan” which she published in late 2017. This “third Maidan” took the unexpected form of Zelensky’s presidential campaign, and alongside the Orange Revolution and Maidan underlines the domestic and international problems of Ukraine.