No / This paper brings new evidence on the impact of services liberalization on the performance of manufacturing firms. Using a unique database of Ukrainian firms in 2001-2007, the authors utilize an external push for liberalization in the services sector as a source of exogenous variation to identify the impact of services liberalization on total factor productivity (TFP) of manufacturing firms. The results indicate that a standard deviation increase in services liberalization is associated with a 9 percent increase in TFP. Allowing services liberalization to dynamically influence TFP through the investment channel leads to an even larger effect. The effect is robust to different estimation methods and to different sub-samples of the data. In particular, it is more pronounced for domestic and small firms.

Yes / We empirically investigate the impact of different ownership groups on companies’ investment in Ukraine with a novel dynamic investment model where investment is based on present and historical levels of profitability (market-to-book value of equity) and lagged investment. Groups include state, insider, non-domestic, financial and financial and industrial group (FIG) ownership. Contrary to the literature, we find that the past level of profitability significantly affects investment; the presence of and increases in state ownership have a negative impact on firms’ investment, as is the case for non-domestic and financial companies’ ownership. Insider and FIG ownership have no impact on investment. We explain the results by the extent of liquidity concerns (hard and soft budget constraints) and the extent of asset stripping for the corresponding ownership group and relate them to over- and underinvestment, and to the free cash flow or cash constraint hypothesis.

Strategic narratives are vital for states to frame issues, goals, and preferences to convey a rationale for military actions in global conflicts. Russia’s warfare in Ukraine, coupled with the rise of Telegram as an independent information platform, has fostered the rise of military bloggers within the Kremlin-controlled media ecosystem. This thesis explores the role and functioning of these military bloggers in shaping strategic narratives during the Russo-Ukraine war. To do so, the thesis compares three critical junctures in the war as case studies using a mixed-methods approach. The thesis has found that milblogs operate within a pre-determined strategic narrative framework outlined by the Kremlin. The findings further indicate that while operating within this frame, the Telegram operators have the capacity to shape strategic narratives and, at times, are the driving force behind the official narrative production. The study provides new insights into the Russian information environment by shedding light on the milbloggers' roles as legitimators, amplifiers, and, at times, opposition. While de-monopolizing the information environment to include milbloggers has served the Kremlin well so far in the war, giving up power might pose severe problems for the Kremlin in the future, potentially impacting the outcome of the war in the long run.

This study is a diachronic comparative analysis of russophobic discourse and enemy images in Helsingin Sanomat's (HS) editorials before and after the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the beginning of a full-scale War in Ukraine in 2022. The aim of the research is investigating shifts in discourse and opinions within Helsingin Sanomat's editorials regarding the Russian actions. This study uses editorials by HS as its data. Utilizing the analytical framework of framing theory by Robert Entman, the study focuses on how Russia is framed in the editorials and by employing a diachronic comparison method, the research explores shifts in the frames over time, in this case the before and after of the two major geopolitical events. The study found that there has been a significant change in frames, especially between the two events, most notably after the beginning of the war in Ukraine, there is a drastic change to the former.

Ukraine is currently in the throes of revolution. Will this popular uprising move Ukraine closer to the West and a democratic government or strengthen the country's ties to Putin and Russia? Viktor Yanukovich's second round victory in the 2004 presidential election was nullified by Ukraine's high court due to rampant electoral manipulation. Viktor Yushchenko, supported by hundreds of thousands of protesters in the 2004 Orange Revolution, became president and ushered in, what many hoped would be, a more democratic government. Infighting and competition among the Orange coalition soon rendered the Yushchenko government ineffective. Ukraine's progression towards democracy slowed and ties to Russia began to flourish once again when Yanukovich became Yushchenko's prime minister. In 2010, Yanukovich was elected president in another second round election against Yulia Tymoshenko that observers and academics deemed free and fair. Unfortunately, a new evaluation of both the 2004 and 2010 elections presents a much less encouraging view of Ukrainian politics. As shown in this paper, electoral manipulation was present in both the 2004 and 2010 elections. Additionally, both parties participated in manipulatory behavior in both elections. This finding challenges much of the academic literature to date on Ukrainian politics. In support of this finding of corruption by multiple candidates, a unique list experiment was administered to raion (county) level administrators in Ukraine. These administrators were asked about their views regarding electoral manipulation. The results of this experiment suggest that these administrators are still very influenced by and, arguably, willing to engage in electoral manipulation. The experiment shows that, at least at the raion level, Ukrainian governance has not become more democratic. Overall, the prognosis for democratization efforts in Ukraine is not good. / text

Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited / This thesis provides a critical analysis of the development of the military staff officer education and training system in Ukraine. The chronological scope of research includes a period from January 1992 to December 1998. The research examines the status of officer training after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the reasons for the creation of a national higher military school in Ukraine. The research also covers the evolution of ideas and opinions on Ukraine's creation of its modern system of officer personnel training from 1992-1998. This thesis traces the process of the creation of the national system of the officer personnel training and its influence on the organization of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. It examines the roles of influential bodies of State power and military authorities in solving the conceptual questions of reforming the system of higher military education. The author describes and provides his own interpretation of the events, facts and phenomena related to the creation of the officer personnel training system and its influence on the creation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. / Major, Ukrainian Army

Zakarpattia Oblast of today's Ukraine has been a part of Hungarian Kingdom, Czechoslovakia, Soviet Ukraine and then, after collapse of Soviet Union, Ukraine. The main goal of this thesis is to deal with the efforts of Rusins to gain the autonomy since 1848, the economic and social potential to become the autonomous part of Ukraine today and to deal with the question whether Rusins could be considered as the nation or not. Due to isolation of this peripheral part of the state by Carpathian Mountains, Zakarpattia has always been the center of autonomic tendences. According to M. Hroch term "nation" should have its objective (by which he meant language, history, culture etc.) and subjective traits (to realize themselves as a part of the nation). There is rusin language, history and culture, but the national consciousness of beeing Rusin is still missing.

L'emploi informel est devenu un sérieux défi pour l'économie ukrainienne et des pays en transition au cours de l'adaptation aux conditions du marché. La tendance du nombre de travailleurs qui participent au secteur informel est en hausse depuis les dernières années. Dans mes recherches, je vais présenter l'état actuel de l'emploi informel en Ukraine et les pays en transition. Une attention particulière est accordée à la répartition du travail entre les différentes catégories de population, en divisant les individus en cinq catégories (employés formels, employés informels, travailleurs indépendants formels, travailleurs indépendants informels et chômeurs) selon la définition de l'emploi informel de l'OIT. Nous examinons le marché du travail en utilisant les données de Ukrainian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey pour l'Ukraine et Survey on Living and Income Conditions pour les pays en transition et nous élaborons la fonction des gains du capital humain pour le marché du travail en appliquant la fonction de répartition des gains de Mincer, afin d'étudier les facteurs qui déterminent les revenus et le choix de l'emploi de l'individu en Ukraine et les pays en transition. / Informal employment became a serious challenge for the Ukrainian economy and economy of transition countries during the adjustment to market conditions. Trends of the number of workers participating in the informal sector have been rising for the last years. In my research I will present the current state of informal employment of Ukraine and transition countries. Detailed attention is paid to labour distribution across different population categories by dividing the individuals into five categories (formal employee, informal employee, formal self-employed, informal self-employed and unemployed) following the definition of informal employment from the ILO. We examine labour market using the data of the Ukrainian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey for Ukraine and the Survey on Living and Income Conditions for transition countries and we design human capital earnings function for labour market by applying Mincer earnings distribution function in order to investigate the factors that determine the individual’s earnings and choice of the employment status both for Ukraine and transition countries.

« Survivre » (viživati) est un mot du terrain. Il souligne plusieurs aspects de la vie quotidienne : - les efforts constants à déployer pour trouver de quoi se nourrir, s’habiller et payer un logement, des soins ou des études ; - la dégradation perçue du niveau de vie ; - une aspiration à mieux, à une économie « développée » et stable ; - un certain ressentiment contre l’Etat, « ceux qui dirigent et décident » (pri vladi), ou les employeurs, ceux qui ne payent plus le travail à sa juste valeur (robota ne cinuêt’câ). Ces sentiments sont encore accrus sur le terrain ukrainien par les conséquences économiques de la guerre à l’Est du pays depuis 2014. De fait, l’inflation est repartie à la hausse, dépassant les 60 % en avril 2015, après la période de relative stabilité des années 2000 et un retour à la normale depuis les effets de la crise financière internationale en 2008-2009.A partir d’un terrain dans un canton du centre de l’Ukraine, la thèse remet en perspective cette impression de « survie ». Par-delà le sentiment partagé d’une débrouille généralisée, apparaissent des régularités sociales, dont l’enquête s’évertue à restituer les logiques sociales, c’est-à-dire à saisir les formes de « l’informel ».La thèse s’appuie sur les concepts et méthodes de la sociologie du travail et de l’anthropologie économique, croisant une littérature spécifique aux espaces postsocialistes, surtout en langue anglaise, et les acquis des travaux récents de la sociologie des classes populaires en France. L’ethnographie y a joué un rôle central. Elle s’est appliquée à la fois à l’observation des espaces domestiques et des scènes de travail, mais également au travail des administrations locales et à leurs usages des catégories statistiques et règlementaires. Elle est complétée par un usage extensif d’archives, d’entretiens menés avec des responsables régionaux et nationaux du monde agricole et d’une base statistique (Ukrainian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey) regroupant les données sur plus de 7000 trajectoires dans 3000 ménages. Les chapitres successifs explorent diverses scènes sociales : « l’espace domestique », les champs des entreprises agricoles locales, les chantiers de construction et les marchés des produits agricoles.Ainsi, la recherche fait ressortir divers processus sociaux de régulation des activités économiques, en-deçà et au-delà de tout encadrement légal. Elle met notamment en avant deux aspects saillant de cette régulation. D’une part, l’organisation du travail agricole dans les entreprises locales témoigne de la reproduction de rapports hiérarchiques datant de la période soviétique, malgré les transformations du régime de propriété et des relations d’emploi suite à la privatisation des terres agricoles. Les multiples conflits locaux et les formes de domination, qui se retrouvent dans d’autres études de cas sur les espaces post-socialistes, justifient une approche en termes de classes sociales. D’autre part, l’observation de diverses scènes sociales et de leur superposition a permis de montrer le rôle de l’interconnaissance et des effets de réputations sur les classements et les positions occupées par les personnes rencontrées sur les marchés de l’emploi ou les marchés des produits agricoles. Les sociabilités locales, marquées par la division sexuelle du travail mais aussi par des inégalités économiques, jouent un rôle déterminant dans la différenciation sociale et dans les opportunités d’accès aux multiples marchés.Le terrain ukrainien, de par les bouleversements qu’il connaît depuis 25 ans, offre un point de comparaison à une réflexion sur les modes d’institution des pratiques économiques qui ne prennent pas pour acquis les cadres légaux ou statistiques et, par eux, les échelles régionales et nationales des études des phénomènes économiques. En s’appuyant sur l’ethnographie, la thèse tente ainsi d’apporter sa contribution à une sociologie globale des classes sociales, attentive à l’espace et à l’histoire des rapports sociaux. / In Ukraine, rural inhabitants regularly use the verb “viživati” (to survive) to describe their situation and their diverse economic activities. In so doing, they highlight different aspects of their practices: - their permanent efforts to make the ends meet, to provide their family with food, clothing, health care or tuition fees; - the decline of their standard of living; - their desire for a better life in a “developed” and stable economy; - the temporary and fragile balance of their daily arrangements; - and a resentment against the State, “people in power” (“lûdì pri vladi”) or employers, who do not pay as they used to (“robota ne cinuêt’câ”). This local perception of economic realities is reinforced in Ukraine today in the afterwards of the upheaval of Maidan and the war on the eastern part of the country in 2014. Inflation rate increased and reached 60% in april 2015. This new crisis happen after a period of growth and relative stability during the 2000s.Through a field research in a district in central Ukraine, the thesis explain and qualify this impression of generalized “survival”. It shows the social regularity and reproduction beyond coping practices. The research catches and sketches the social logics, which give forms to the mostly “informal” economy.The analysis is based on methods of sociology of work and economic anthropology. It discusses two corpuses: the post-socialist studies, mostly in English and specialized on this area, and the sociology of social classes that is recently developed, in France notably. The ethnographic and localized field research has been central to this analysis. It has allowed an observation of different relations (domestic, commercial transactions or employment relations) and also of local administrations who try to regulate economic activities. The research stem also on archives material, on interviews with local and national officials and on statistical analysis. The data from the Ukrainian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey, which comprise more than 7000 observations and 3000 households, have been used to test the hypothesis from the field. The successive chapters of the thesis explore different social spaces: domestic spaces, the fields from agricultural enterprises, building sites, markets of agricultural products.The main results concern the social processes of local economic regulation, beyond and below legal and administrative rules. On one hand, the local job market is dominated by agricultural enterprises. Despite the reforms of privatization and the new system of employment, those enterprises are still in the hands of the former soviet managers or their heirs. Maintained hierarchies in the system of production stand in favor of an approach of the local situation through the reproduction of social classes.On the other hand, in a context of uncertainty and institutional transformation at a national level, groups of affiliation and local reputation play an important role in determining social positions. In postsocialist rural areas, the social structure is not only defined through positions at work but also out of work, on markets of agricultural products. The sexual division of labor and the small economic differences between households are structuring for social differentiation and inequalities. Position in local groups of affiliation is determinant to get access to larger markets and to long distance transactions.This field research in Ukraine, through the upheaval of the past 20 years, represents an opportunity to question approaches of social spaces in context of crisis. Frames of institution of economic practices and the national level of analysis of social hierarchies can not be taken for granted. In this way, the localized ethnography proposed here is a contribution to a global sociology of social classes.

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