What Makes Ukraine Resilient in theAsymmetric War? A Study of Local Governments' Emergency Responses

Ukraine has demonstrated strong resilience in the face of the full-scale Russian invasion since February 24, 2022. Local authorities in particular continue to provide public services and respond to crises arising from massive internal displacement and Russian attacks on critical civilian infrastructure and housing. This study illuminates how local authorities ensure the effectiveness and legitimacy of their emergency responses using elements of collaborative governance. The findings challenge conventional security thinking confined to military terms. Instead, they highlight the importance of a collaborative approach to managing complex crises. New thinking about national security should include network-based instead of hierarchy-based approaches and partnership-oriented instead of client-service-oriented philosophy in citizen-state relations. The study is based on an original survey of 241 local authorities, interviews and focus groups with public officials at the local and regional levels, and is co-authored with Oksana Huss (Bologna University).
Presenter:
Dr. Oleksandra Keudel is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Public Policy and Governance at Kyiv School of Economics. She did her doctorate and post-doc at the Free University of Berlin. In her research, she focuses on local democracy, social movements and civic engagement, and business-political arrangements at the local level in Ukraine. She also cooperates with the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe in Ukraine, the National Corruption Prevention Agency of Ukraine and U-LEAD with Europe on the issue of local government integrity. She is a Petrach Visiting Scholar at IERES.
Moderator:
Dr. Robert Orttung is a Research Professor at IERES and the Director of Research for Sustainable GW. He is editor of Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Demokratization

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