Reframing Wartime Society: Resistance and the Risks of Resilience in Ukraine

The protracted societal resistance of Ukraine against Russia’s invasion has not only brought profound transformations within Ukrainian society but has also revealed distinctive characteristics of a wartime society and the foundations of its resilience in the liberative struggle against an external aggressor. What features strengthen a society's resilience in wartime? What societal risks (threating social cleavages, demographic changes, institutional crises etc.) might emerge at the end of the war as consequences of wartime challenges and ongoing radical societal changes? In searching for answers to these questions, we apply a synthetic theoretical framework grounded in a structural-agency approach, enhanced by cultural and historical sociology lenses. This framework allows us, first, to differentiate the deeply-rooted manifestations of the phenomenon of society at war from the short-term trends in its dynamics by considering the factor of time. Secondly, it focuses on the synergy of subjective (emotional and value-driven) and objective (socio-structural and agentic) factors and risks of societal resilience against external aggression.

The empirical analysis of societal resilience factors and risks is conducted across six dynamic dimensions that reflect the proposed theoretical framework: (1) perceptions of threats, meanings of war, and possible outcomes of its conclusion; (2) core socio-cultural values directly linked to the situation of anti-imperial liberative warfare (national independence, freedom, democracy); (3) national and civic identity; (4) sociogroup solidarities and tensions; (5) willingness to resist the enemy and defend national independence; and (6) civic activism and volunteerism. The empirical analysis draws on publicly available data from international and national sociological monitoring studies conducted in Ukraine during the full-scale war and the preceding period.