When Business and Politics Mix: Local Networks and Socio-political Transformations in Ukraine

Abstract

This article identifies patronage networks in three Ukrainian regions and develops some ideas on the relation between these networks, economic and political openness, and the provision of public goods. The research represents a rich empirical study linking business and politics in three regions (Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, and Ivano-Frankivsk) with different levels of openness and democratic reform. Formal and informal ties between politics and business are identified using primary (interview) and secondary data. By focusing on the local rather than national level in Ukraine, the article provides a comparison between different levels of patronage and type of networks. This study relates the empirical exploration of patronage networks in post-communist setting to a broader theoretical framework of limited access orders. Our findings show that although a multiplicity of networks might be a necessary condition for the opening of access to political and economic resources, it is not a sufficient one. We find that a single dominant network achieves a relatively high level of citizen satisfaction with public service provision, while the presence of multiple networks is not necessarily associated with citizen satisfaction with public goods provision.