The effects of wars: lessons from the war in Ukraine

ABSTRACT

War remains a central feature of global politics and has been a core focus for politics and international relations, history, economics, sociology as well as other cognate disciplines. The analysis of the effects of war has, however, tended to be compartmentalised by sub-disciplines. This article proposes a heuristic framework to map the effects of war in terms of ripple and backwash across a range of interconnected layers of societies. Through this framework, the article then introduces a set of empirically rich and theoretically informed studies from across multiple disciplines which examine the first consequences of the war in Ukraine. Taken together, these studies show that the war has had deep and complex effects affecting human life; human development; economies; values and attitudes; policy and governance; and power distribution and relations around the world. Although broader international public interest in the war may have waned within weeks of the invasion, the effects of the conflict have been deep and continued in many areas, but also differentiated across space and time. Traditional public policy concepts used to frame the effects of “external shocks” such as punctuated equilibrium and critical junctures may overlook such deep-seated and diverse effects, warranting the multidisciplinary lenses used in this volume.

KEYWORDS:

• War
• conflict
• policy change
• policy continuity
• international relations
• political science
• Ukraine

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-60470900 and http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67843, last accessed 27/2/2024.

2 See: https://data.unhcr.org/en/situations/ukraine, OHCHR (2024), and https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/25/zelenskiy-puts-figure-on-ukrainian-soldiers-killed-for-first-time-at-31000, last accessed 27/2/2024.

3 Data refers to financial, humanitarian and military commitments by 41 countries, between 24 January 2022 and 15 January 2024, as reported by the Ukraine Support Tracker (Trebesch et al. 2024).

4 See https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_49212.htm, last accessed 19/3/2024.

5 The Eastern Neighbourhood Policy covers a range of countries, including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pierre Bocquillon

Pierre Bocquillon Lecturer in EU Politics and Policy at the University of East Anglia. He is a scholar of of EU and comparative European Politics, whose research focuses in particular on the politics and policies of energy and climate change.

Suzanne Doyle

Suzanne Doyle Lecturer in International Relations at the University of East Anglia. Her research interests include nuclear history, transatlantic relations, US and British defence policy and security studies.

Toby S. James

Toby S. James Professor of Politics and Public Policy at the University of East Anglia. He is also Distinguished Fellow and Adjunct Professor at Queens University, and co-Director of the Electoral Integrity Project. His research focuses on democracy, elections and the policy process.

Ra Mason

Ra Mason Sasakawa Associate Professor of International Relations and Japanese Foreign Policy at the University of East Anglia. He is author/co-author of Japan’s Relations with North Korea and the Recalibration of Risk, Regional Risk and Security in Japan, and Risk State. Ra’s research focuses on Okinawa and the security of the East China Sea.

Soul Park

Soul Park Lecturer in International Relations at the University of East Anglia. His research interests include international security and foreign policy analysis in the Indo-Pacific.

Matilde Rosina

Matilde Rosina Lecturer in Global Challenges at Brunel University London and Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her research focuses on migration policy and politics in Europe.