The transitological paradox of ukrainian society and the ontological limits of formal change

Abstract

For a long time, Ukrainian transition was interpreted within the horizon of institutional optimism, according to which the transfer of democratic procedures and legal models was expected to transform social practices automatically. The experience of post-Soviet transformation has demonstrated a different outcome: the formal attributes of democracy may coexist quite stably with informal networks of influence, patronal dependencies, and selective enforcement of law. In the Ukrainian case, this is not a temporary anomaly but a deep disjunction between institutional form and lifeworld modes of action. Hence, the problem of the ontological limits of formal change possesses not merely a political and legal but also a socio-philosophical significance.