Cooper and Kaldor Recast Russia-Ukraine War Through 2014 Civicness Lens

1 articles · Updated · peacerep.org · Aug 13

An open-access Globalizations article argues the Russo-Ukrainian war is not just a conventional territorial conflict but also fits key elements of “new wars” theory.
Russia is presented as a consummate “new war” actor shaped by post-Cold War instability, while the conflict itself emerged from organized violence beyond a simple state-versus-state frame.
Ukraine’s trajectory since 2014 marks the main distinction from many “new war” cases: it has maintained legitimate, if evolving, political institutions rather than a “mutual enterprise” of predatory violence.
Building on the authors’ earlier work on “civicness,” the article casts the war as a struggle between rival logics of authority and says Ukrainian resistance gained a “just war” character through internationally constituted civicness.