How Ukraine keeps society going despite the war

Despite being at war since February 2022, Ukraine has managed to maintain public services. A new study from Linköping University points to the collaboration between citizens and public authorities as a key factor in this. According to the researchers behind it, there are lessons to be learned for other countries should war or crisis come.

“Everyone, right down to the family and the individual, makes crucial decisions in times of deep crisis. It’s important that all actors are mobilized, pull together and cooperate,” says Mariana Gustafsson, docent in political science at the Department of Management and Engineering at Linköping University.

The study, conducted in the Dnipropetrovsk region in 2023 and 2024, is based on survey responses from 239 public officials and 882 Ukrainian citizens. It has been supplemented with ten in-depth interviews with public officials and active members of civil society. All in all, it gives a picture of how society’s functions were transformed during the war. The results have been published in the journal Government information Quarterly.

Collaboration and digitalization

The study shows that extensive collaboration has emerged between all levels of society—collaboration that was previously sporadic. Citizens in civil society have been able to identify new needs early on through their local networks and develop relief efforts together with authorities and international organizations. This has made it possible to, for example, quickly create digital services to help war veterans or those who have had to flee their homes. Citizens and organizations have become active co-creators rather than passive recipients, making the efforts robust and credible.

The digital platform Diia, a central location for government services in Ukraine for the past few years, has played a key role in this, as a number of functions, originally developed in civil society, could quickly be connected to it. More than half of all Ukrainians now have the app on their phone.

Trust is the key

But the researchers emphasize that the collaboration rests on trust within society—a belief that individuals, organizations and public authorities are actually doing what they are supposed to be doing. This belief was not always evident in Ukraine but has slowly grown since the Orange Revolution in the mid-00s. The war has since brought everything to a head, although serious problems with corruption remain. There are lessons to be learned by other countries about the importance of strengthening citizens’ confidence in democracy and its institutions.

Trust is created through authorities being flexible and actively working to include civil society, but also through citizens themselves becoming more active, according to Gustafsson. This is a challenge in all developed democracies, where engagement and participation in civil society have decreased over time. The conditions for a functioning society, even in times of crisis and war, must be created in advance.

“Don’t forget that trust is a commodity. This is something that public authorities, civil society and all of us have to work on continuously. We have seen many warning signs that civil society must become more dynamic and active,” says Gustafsson.

The researchers point out that the study does have some limitations. Because of the war, it has been difficult to achieve fully representative survey data. Moreover, the survey was only conducted in one of Ukraine’s regions.