Defining Security and the State: An Analysis of the Ukrainian Volunteer Battalions and the Renegotiation of the Public-Private Divide

Abstract

To counter separatist forces in its eastern region Donbas, the Ukrainian government legitimized the mobilization of volunteer battalions in April/May 2014 through a government Decree on Mobilization. However, the anti-government rhetoric and undermining of government policy by some volunteer battalions poses questions about their interaction with the Ukrainian state. To study this contested interaction, this thesis makes use of network analysis as its main analytical framework, as it allows for the analysis of changing relations between a variety of actors within a security field. Through qualitative research, including interviews with a number of former battalion members and local experts, I have come to several conclusions. First, important variations between volunteer battalions’ characteristics account for differing interactions with state actors. Second, I argue how control over different types of capital proves to be crucial in the maintenance of a powerful position within the security field. Furthermore, by applying these findings to other analytical frames, such as securitization theory and Migdal’s state-insociety approach, it is argued how the emergence of these volunteer battalions and their implicit and explicit claims about security and the state have contributed to a renegotiation of the state’s public-private divide.