Workshop on Contemporary Ukrainian Politics (WOCUP)

This year’s theme was Informal Politics: Regime Change and Ukrainian Democracy. The role of informal politics in shaping Ukraine’s politics has traditionally been either overlooked (through a focus on formal politics and inappropriate Western concepts) or misunderstood (through an overly simplistic lens of “corruption”). The 2024 WOCUP’s aim is to support an exciting wave of new theory-driven scholarship that sheds fresh light on where, why, and how informal politics can contribute to regime change and democratization in Ukraine and elsewhere, either by stimulating or undermining it.