Cha(lle)nging Peripherality: ‘Critical Expectation Gaps’ and EU–Ukraine Relations in the Post-Euromaidan Perceptions of Ukrainian Political Elites
Journal: Helsinki University Press eBooks
Year: 2024

Drawing primarily on political elite interviews, this chapter enquires into Ukrainian parliamentarians’ discourse and framings of EU–Ukraine integration dynamics over the past three decades and their joint response to the continued Russian war of aggression since 2014, as well as the handling of the COVID-19 crisis. Analytically framed using the ‘critical expectation gaps’ approach, this study explores how wide or narrow the perceived gap is between Ukrainian political elites’ hopes and expectat