Big Business and Politics in Ukraine: the Evolution of State-Business Relations

Abstract

Ukrainian big business has preserved its influence in Ukraine’s politics despite the political turmoil of the critical democratising junctures and reverse autocratic trends. Still, its relations with politics have changed from president to president. The article elaborates how the political embeddedness of Ukrainian big business evolved and what model of state-business relations developed in each presidential period. It demonstrates that Ukrainian big business increasingly relies on its ties with the country’s parliament to counterbalance the President’s powers. As a result, state-business relations have changed from a concentrated model to a diffuse one.