In a Cycle of False Necessity? Escaping from Embedded Quasi-Institutions and Building a New System of Public Administration and Management in Ukraine*

Abstract

The Western push for immediate and sweeping administrative reforms in independent Ukraine conveys little respect for the deeply embedded social patterns developed in the Soviet Union as the average Ukrainian attempted to survive. Drawing on the theory of critical legal theorist Roberto Unger, the authors explore the experience of Ukraine in the transition from Soviet society to a market economy governed by a democratic constitution, with the aim of better understanding barriers to building a new system of public administration in Ukraine and arguing that efforts at transition must begin with an understanding of the current necessitarian environment and its impact on the realization of reform.