"The political processes are also mined" - KIU doctoral student Anastasia Rodi researches Ukrainian democracy during the war

Anastasia Rodi, you are researching the effects of the war on Ukrainian democracy. Why did you choose this topic for your dissertation?
I have been working as a journalist for several years and have written a lot about the war against Ukraine and about domestic political processes. I decided to also investigate these processes as a researcher in order to bring even more expertise to these analyses.

What exactly do you want to investigate in your work?
I want to explore how various restrictive instruments introduced into Ukraine's democratic institutions during the full-scale invasion affect the functionality of these institutions and what this means for the quality of democracy. I also look at how democracy is perceived by the Ukrainian population and how much trust there is in democratic institutions. It is an interesting paradox that 93 per cent of Ukrainians want a fully-fledged democracy in the country, but at the same time have very little trust in democratic instruments - only 15 per cent of the population trust parliament, for example.

Your dissertation project is entitled "Demining Democracy", what do you mean by that?
I developed this metaphor to illustrate that war not only mines the ground, but also the political processes. After the war, demining will be necessary - also in democratic institutions and processes. I decided to document and analyse current decisions and processes because they are already influencing Ukraine's post-war democracy.

Which areas are particularly mined - to stay with your metaphor?
For example, it's about how decisions are currently being made in the country - which is actually a parliamentary-presidential republic. But the decisions are currently in the hands of a single person: the President. There are clear security reasons for this, but it is of course problematic for the quality of democracy.

Another example is media freedom. Some media outlets have been restricted or blocked, again due to security concerns. So on the one hand, there is no full media freedom. At the same time, however, you can see investigative journalists researching cases of corruption, for example - even in times of war. If you take a closer look, you can see that not everything is black and white. The current processes and decisions, as well as the reactions of civil society, will be decisive in determining what happens here after the war.

In your opinion, what is the current state of Ukrainian democracy?
I am only in the first semester of my dissertation, but what I can say for sure is that Ukraine remains a democracy despite the war. The war has very different and absolutely non-linear effects on democratic processes and institutions. Some of these institutions are strengthened by the war, others are undermined. On the one hand, there is a restriction of human rights. But at the same time, we are seeing a stronger mobilisation of civil society. Society remains very lively and active.

What methods do you use in your research?
I conduct elite interviews and interviews with ordinary citizens. I focus on five groups: opposition politicians, journalists, activists, the military and people who experienced the occupation. I am trying to cover different perspectives and also different regions of Ukraine. In March, I will be travelling to Ukraine for the first interviews. I am also analysing political speeches and comments by Volodymyr Zelensky on the subject of democracy. I am interested in how he sees democracy as the country's President during the war and how he communicates Ukraine's democratic values to the outside world. Finally, I would like to analyse data in order to evaluate surveys on the perception of democracy.