Development for whom? The case of USAID in Ukraine’s Donbas

Abstract

This commentary investigates the linkages between international NGOs, donor agencies, and their development contractors as a framework for capitalist accumulation and neoliberal rationality in eastern Ukraine. With the onset of a hybrid war with Russia in 2014 – turned into a full-scale war eight years later – the government-controlled areas of the Donbas region have participated in multiple development programs. This commentary critically examines such development policies by focusing on the role of USAID in restructuring local economies and livelihoods. I focus on the USAID Economic Resilience Activity (ERA) to demonstrate that donor programs serve as mechanisms of capitalist accumulation (for development contractors) and neoliberal responsibilization (for conflict-affected citizens). The analysis points to uneven development and the (neo)liberal peace fallacy in Ukraine’s Donbas. At the same time, it corroborates a wider trend in global political economy to obfuscate the interests of development capital with liberal discourses of vulnerability, resilience, and women’s empowerment.

Keywords:

• development
• capitalism
• empowerment
• USAID
• eastern Ukraine

Acknowledgments

An earlier version of this paper was presented (online) at the ‘Critical Political Economy for a new Global Political Economy’ workshop of the Critical Political Economy Network (University of Limerick, Ireland, July 22-23, 2022). I express gratitude to the organizers and participants for their feedback. I also thank three anonymous reviewers and the editorial board of RIPE for their comments that helped improve this article substantially.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 I thank an anonymous reviewer for highlighting this enabling condition.

2 At the same time, Ukrainian oligarchs resisted ant-corruption measures and institutions – the main condition for Ukraine’s EU candidacy – as a threat to their competitive advantage against transnational capital (cf. Ishchenko & Yurchenko, 2019, p. 12).

3 As a caveat, Ukraine’s neoliberal transformation has been more complex and nuanced. For an excellent analysis, see Yurchenko (2018). Baysha (2022, chs. 4-6) zooms in on Zelensky’s administration further incorporating Ukraine into the global neoliberal project as the only ‘normal’ developmental alternative.

4 In this paper, I focus on human capital as a manifestation of neoliberal governmentality, while acknowledging that it intersects a Marxian logic of capital accumulation. A (neo)-Marxian political economy illuminates the logic of profit and capital accumulation which drive capitalist growth; a Foucauldian framework exposes specific discourses which legitimate and reproduce the capitalist ideology. Development can thus be conceptualized as a regime of capital accumulation and market expansion sustained through business-friendly discourses and practices.

5 Influential neoliberal economist Gary Becker defined human capital as ‘activities that influence future monetary and psychic income by increasing the resources in people’ (Becker, 1993, p. 11). These resources include skills, knowledge, or health, for instance, and can be increased through such activities as training, education, or medical care (ibid.). Philosopher Michael Feher conceptualizes human capital as a set of skills and capabilities that must be constantly valued and appreciated; it is a ‘dominant subjective form’ in neoliberalism (2009, pp. 23–27). In turn, political theorist Wendy Brown links human capital to the concepts of ‘neoliberal rationality’ and ‘neoliberal reason’ which ‘economize’ individuals, that is turn them into firms (Brown, 2015, pp. 33–34). On human capital in the development context, see, inter alia, Best (2013); Calkin (2018); Coburn (2019); and Hickel (2014).

6 Taking inspiration from Marx, Bianchi and de Man (2021), for example, analyse tourism development to argue that it serves as a vehicle for redistribution of capital and institutionalization of ‘normative neoliberalism.’ Castro (2004) notes how the market-friendly notion of ‘sustainability’ promotes a utilitarian cost-benefit approach to project implementation. And Neilson (2014) extends a political economic critique by problematizing the ‘value chain’ logic which perpetuates a neoliberal development agenda.

7 Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is a combination of research methods and approaches drawn from the field of critical discourse studies. Its primary purpose is to study how ‘social-power abuse and inequality are enacted, reproduced, legitimated, and resisted by text and talk in the social and political context’ (van Dijk, 2015, p. 466).

8 Some examples of USAID’s projects, for instance, are: ‘support for agricultural and rural development, humanitarian assistance programs, assistance to displaced higher education institutions, development of dual education system, promotion of civic engagement, entrepreneurship development and job creation, economic growth, improvement of social cohesion in communities affected by conflict, promotion of decentralization, increase of transparency of local authorities, fight with human trafficking, increase of quality of medical services and others’ (Semenenko et al., 2019, p. 28).

9 To oversimplify, the first hypothesis states that free market and trade promote peace and security; the second one states that democracies do not fight each other. Both ideas have been highly contested. See, for example, Doyle (1983) and Paris (2010) for an influential defense of the liberal peace theory; and Jahn (2021) and Sabaratnam (2011) for its critique.

10 Jamey Essex (2013, p. 88) attributes the adoption of the 3Ds approach to the altered relationship between development and security, with ‘state weakness and failure’ identified as US key geopolitical and security concerns. This echoes the broader scholarship on the ‘security-development’ nexus (for example, Duffield, 2008; Nagaraj, 2015; Reid, 2012; Stern & Ojendal 2010; Tzifakis & Huliaras, 2015). While much of USAID’s development programming has roots in this paradigm, USAID’s ERA intervention reveals an emphasis on ‘resilience’ rather than ‘security.’ As this commentary argues, this discursive shift serves to legitimate and naturalize neoliberal governance.

11 Since both annual program statements are very similar, I focus on the latest one (APS-ERA-002) in this commentary.

12 In a Foucauldian language, disabled individuals are excluded because their human capitals – defined as a set of skills and capabilities – ‘deteriorated’ and ‘depreciated’ (Feher, 2009, pp. 26–27). I thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting the link between disability and the making of a Foucauldian homo economicus. In theoretical (and political) terms, this also highlights the promise of Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach which accounts for such injustices as disability (see the concluding section).

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Oleksandr Svitych

Oleksandr Svitych is an Associate Professor at O.P. Jindal Global University, School of International Affairs. His overarching research orientation is critical political economy with a global perspective.