Do the EU and Ukraine speak the same language? The various notions of resilience before the military intervention

ABSTRACT

The concept of resilience has become a leitmotif for the current foreign policy narrative and practices of most Western states and international organisations. It has been more visible due to the pandemic crisis and accentuated significantly in the midst of the escalation between Ukraine and Russia. This article first discusses various notions of resilience, especially unpacking state-centred and societal approaches to resilience. In the empirical section, it identifies and compares the views and approaches to the resilience of the EU and Ukraine. The qualitative content analysis shows that their views on resilience identified in the official documents have differed substantially over the last few years. Yet, the top-down (or state-centred) approach clearly dominates in both environments. While the EU links resilience to stabilisation of the area, Ukraine has formulated the concept only recently, connecting it first with the desire to belong to the EU community, but soon tested it in the face of a Russian attack. Therefore, the war has triggered severe discussion, not only about the future commitment of the EU to the Eastern region but also pushes both actors (often unwillingly) towards adapting their societies in a rapidly changing world and possibly towards reformulating the concept as such.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. We wish to thank the anonymous JCES reviewers, Dr Zbyněk Dubský and Dr Oksana Holovko-Havrysheva for helpful comments and constructive recommendations on earlier drafts of the article.

2. The majority of elites had belonged to the Communist party and were not ready for changes.

3. Before gaining independence in 1991, strong horizontal ties were formed among the patriotic population, united by the idea of independence. After 1991, the traditional stability of society compensated for the immaturity of the state’s social institutions. The Revolution of Dignity became an important starting point for the next stage of the acquisition process of state institutions of national resilience in political, military, economic, cultural, humanitarian and other aspects, the potential of which is inherent in Ukrainian society.