Ukrainian Society

20-32

Authors: Savelyev Yu. B.

The article aims to answer the question whether peculiarities of Ukraine’s population values prevent development of Ukrainian society during a period of independence and what should be done for its successful modernization. Based on the longitudinal data of the World Values Survey (WVS), the European Values Study (EVS) 1990’s – 2010’s as well as the data of the Research Institute of Credit Suisse Group the article demonstrates that high levels of poverty and social inequality are barriers for the development of Ukraine and impede the spread of emancipatory post-materialist values among the population. Application of modernization and value change model, which was developed by R. Inglehart et al., indicates absence of substantial value cleavage in Ukraine. Also the relationship between value orientations and paternalist expectations of the population is not observed. It is found that despite the fact that there are fewer people who share emancipatory values compared to other East European countries, Ukraine, nevertheless, also encounters a latent fundamental shift from traditional materialist value priorities towards emancipatory post-materialist orientations. Yet, Ukraine is poorer and has significantly more unequally distributed wealth than the rest of neighboring countries. Based on the research results one can predict that the increase of well-being and a corresponding rise in a sense of existential security among the population will accelerate the change of values that will create opportunities for civic participation and more effective control over the state institutions. Discovered significance of historical effect in value change leads to a substantial elaboration of the existing modernization model. The efforts of national government, local authorities, international organizations, civil society should be directed at assistance to Ukrainian people in becoming capable social agents and escaping “the poverty trap”. Thus, the purposeful and competent policy of Ukrainian government, true institutional reforms, restriction of “crony capitalism” rent-seeking practices and social inequality reduction provide a chance to modernize Ukrainian society successfully.

42-57

Authors: Stehnii O. G.

Author analyses social importance of the natural environment for the activities of various social actors; the necessity of taking into account ecological and sociological theories of social practice, social events and institutional models that have ecological value. The prevalence and social significance of the processes and phenomena of the double socio-ecological nature is noted. The need for a sociological reflection of environmental issues is explained by the fact that social community, with the exception of extreme conditions of environmental and technological disasters, does not just react to biophysical parameters of the environment, but also perceives social problems caused by the anthropogenic load on the natural environment, including environmental risk conditions of everyday living. Special attention is given to clarification of the terms “social ecology”, “environmental sociology” and the use of the concept “environment”. It is noted that the permanent coexistence of various views on the social interpretation of nature, without a real desire to reach consensus in the terminology of sociological study method of environmental issues, reproduces the isolation of national researchers from the Western sociological school. The paper suggests retrospective of major domestic studies conducted by social scientists on environmental issues for the entire period of Ukrainian independence. Ukrainian sociologists’ approach to the study of environmental issues is based on the assertion that the causes of environmental problems, the results of their impact on human society, like the possible ways of solving are related to processes of social regulation. The essence of this regulation is determined by the mechanism of the formation of social relations stable forms between the subjects of social interest on risk-reflection, adequate nature and severity of environmental problems. As evidenced by the analysis, over the past decade, the Ukrainian sociologists have focused on the study of the environmental component of balanced social development; various aspects of ecological consciousness; the social consequences of the Chernobyl disaster; the influence of environmental factors on health and well-being; the study of particular environmental problems; the study of environmental policy and environmental rights of citizens. The most empirically developed area is the study of the public opinion attitude towards the environment. Author emphasizes the importance of scientific and practical value of public opinion monitoring on environmental problems and the need for relevant methodology for the study of specific social communities on this matter.

72-87

Authors: Suprun N. A.

The article dwells upon the study of framework conditions and institutional determinants of the corporate sector development of the national economy, which include: catch-up nature of the economy and accelerated institutionalization of the business environment; the lack of long historical evolution of market relations and the culture and forms of business communication; government protectionist policies as an active factor in the development of corporate forms of business; the influence of the external environment and the practice of the Western norms borrowing (import). It is shown that the development of the corporate sector during the privatization process, which was characterized by asymmetry of information and market opportunities, aborted competitive environment has become, in fact, the bureaucratic redistribution of state property and its transformation into private. Under these circumstances, a merger of the political elite with the business elite took place, and the formation of private bureaucratic ownership, with the dominant feature of nomenclature component. The result of this process was the rapid concentration of share ownership and establishment of corporate governance insider model with the subsequent reorientation of corporate business by creating a more “investment closed” organizational forms and mechanisms of corporate control. Under the conditions of underdevelopment of important market infrastructure institutions (stock market, registry and depository systems), which are designed to limit the negative effects of power and ownership monopolization in corporations, insider control becomes one of the most influential institutional barriers for the corporate entrepreneurship effectiveness. Feature of the insider control is its bureaucratic-nomenklative origin. Because of the the corporate sector institutional strains, the national economy functions as a shadow mechanism of capital redistribution and preserves insider control. It is determined that significant institutional constraints for the effective development of the corporate sector are informal institutions, economic nihilism and majority absentism of minority shareholders; priderite as the willingness of smallholders to shift management control functions over to other persons; the lack of public confidence in the institutional reforms.

100-109

Authors: Balakireva O. M., Dmytruk D. A.

The level of the populations’ trust to the National Bank of Ukraine remains low: only 12% trust it, and 81% do not trust it. The trust balance is “minus” 68 percentage points. Ukrainian banks are trusted by less than 15,5% of the population, 77% do not trust them, in particular 47,4% – do not trust them fully. Conditional trust balance to the Ukrainian banking system is “minus” 62 percentage points. The vast majority of the population suffered significant losses from hryvnia depreciation, which resulted in a number of negative consequences for the well-being of Ukrainians: 96,4% said that their purchasing power reduced; 91,6% of respondents confirmed that it had become difficult to pay utility bills; 89,5% of respondents noted the fall invalue of wages; 82% mentioned the devaluation of pensions and social benefits; 80,7% believe that their hryvnia savings have depreciated; 75,1% refused the usual leisure; 46,6% became debtors. According to the survey results, 8,8% of the respondents said that they have deposits in banks. For the last 2 years, 4,1% of respondents personally lost deposits in troubled banks, another 9,4% have family members who have lost their deposits. Evaluating the activities of the NBU, only 7,4% of respondents noted that the main controller has made sufficient efforts to rescue banks, in which citizens of Ukraine have lost their savings. Only 10,3% believe that NBU sufficiently protects the depositors’ rights (interests) in Ukrainian banks; 8,2% – that NBU made enough for the dishonest bank owners to be able to escape justice; 20,6% believe that NBU is interested in a stable hryvnia exchange rate. The balance of trust to the NBU Governor V.O. Gontareva is “minus” 77 percentage points. Only 3,7% of respondents would trust their savings to her personally. More than 2/3 of the adult population (68,9%) are ready to support deputies’ appeal to the President of Ukraine to demand the resignation of V.O. Gontareva. For the past two months, 13,2% of the respondents had cases of delayed or unpaid salaries and pensions. The income per capita, which would ensure today’s real subsistence level, respondents identified as close to 5,000 UAH (average value – 4,925 UAH), which is 3,5 times more than the one guaranteed by the state.