Ukrainian big business has preserved its influence in post-Maidan politics despite the political turbulence and changes in the institutional setting of Ukraine’s political regime. Recent studies demonstrate that the core of Ukrainian big business has remained stable and that their strategies to exert political influence have stayed on largely unchanged. Still, it does not mean that the model of business-state relations remained static.
In this talk Dr. Melnykovska will re-examine the system of patronal politics in post-Maidan Ukraine. She will seek to answer several questions: How has Ukrainian big business adjusted its ties to the main political actors within the revised polity and dynamic political processes? How has the balance of power in the state-business relations evolved? And finally, what system of patronal politics has been established? In particular, Dr. Melnykovska will demonstrate how Ukrainian companies exploited the mobility of their capital and offshore vehicles to strengthen their profits and protect their assets and in result increased their autonomy through breaking down the monopoly of the state as the only enabler of rent-seeking and protector of property rights. Also, the legitimation strategies of Ukrainian big business as an additional source of business autonomy will be discussed. The talk will end with several innovative policy recommendations for the Western governments regarding the current reform efforts in Ukraine to root out patronal politics and corruption associated with it.

Inna Melnykovska is an Assistant Professor at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary the Smith Richardson Foundation’s Strategy and Policy Fellow at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University. She is completing a book titled: Global Money, Local Politics: Big Business, Capital Mobility and the Transformation of Crony Capitalism in Eurasia. Inna Melnykovska will be a Petro Jacyk Visiting Professor at CERES in April-June 2018.