Inside the Policy Black Box: Ukraine's Legal Approximation after Euromaidan, 2014-2019
Inside the Policy Black Box: Ukraine's Legal Approximation after Euromaidan, 2014-2019

Summary/Abstract: The EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, signed in 2014, entailed Ukraine’ obligations of legal approximation to the EU’s norms. Despite political will, strong international support and the legacy of the 2013-2014 Euromaidan movement, Ukraine was behind all possible deadlines for approximation of national legislation to the acquis communautaire. In this pilot study, we combine the theoretical developments from literature on public policy and social movements with empirical findings from expert interviews carried out in Kyiv in 2019. We mapped the key actors of legal approximation policy monopoly and analysed their conflicting interests. Our findings suggest that Euromaidan indeed opened a policy window for legal approximation. At the same time, the entrance of new actors into the policy monopoly had led to the decentralization of powers. Decrease in the relative influence of each actor pre-empted systemic work on legislative approximation. The unexploited window risked entrenching the stasis within the policy monopoly and further delaying policy reform.

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