INHIBITORS AGAINST INNOVATORS: THE EFFECT OF DELAYED TRANSIT TRANSFORMATIONS

Abstract

The article is devoted to the consideration of the complex issue of the reasons for the «delay» of political transit in the post-Soviet countries in general and in Ukraine in particular. The main author's hypothesis is the assumption that it is the activities of differently motivated subjects (inhibitors and innovators) in combination with the fundamental features of the cultural background of a particular country that determine the pace, overall trajectory and intermediate results of the democratization process. Particular attention is paid to the discussion around the question of whether transit is the only evolutionary trajectory or can be interpreted as a number of alternative directions of progress towards the standards of democratic governance. The object of this article is the features of the socio-political transformation of the post-Soviet countries. In turn, the subject of the article arises a ratio of the socio-political activity of innovators and inhibitors that is unique in national conditions, which directly affects the content and results of the democratic transition. The complex nature of the central research problem presupposes the use of an appropriate methodology, the central place in which is occupied by: a systemic approach, comparative and structural-functional methods, institutional analysis. From the author's point of view, it is this arsenal of methods and research procedures that helps to clarify the nature of the negative results of the socio-political transformation of the transit process in such post-Soviet countries as Ukraine. An analysis of the characteristic features of socio-political transformation in Ukraine indicates that the elite is motivated to conserve political informal practices and postpone changes in any way, and imitation reforms act as a legitimizer of the elite in the eyes of Western investors, creating a positive reputation for progressive reformers for its representatives. The migration of reformers from the state of innovators to the state of inhibitors is due to their desire to become an elite in order to extract economic rent with the help of power. The idea is substantiated that the way out of the vicious circle of quasi-substitution of the elite is associated with the painstaking work of the real supporters of reforms to diagnose the vulnerable elements of the national trajectory of democratization and education of new generations - carriers of innovative types of thinking and supporters of values ​​and procedures of democracy.