Ruslan Zaporozhchenko

V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University

CV: My name is Ruslan Zaporozhchenko. I am a PhD student of the Department of Political Science at Karazin University (Kharkiv, Ukraine). The topic of my dissertation research is "Political Forms of Space Organization in the Context of Modern Globalization Processes". For more than 6 years I have been engaged in scientific research covering the issues of empires and modern states, power and sovereignty, hegemony and ideology, political space and order. I explore the way in which the various contemporary "polities" organize space, constitute political order, and reproduce structures of violence, consent, submission, and coercion. I analyze all this with an emphasis on the processes of globalization and geohistorical transformations.

Presentation title: (Post)imperial space and its transformations: from the war in Ukraine to social protests around the world

Abstract: The war in Ukraine has become, perhaps, the most significant event of the 21st century. However, this war has also become a bifurcation point in a vast global space, where almost every month there are social movements, attempts to overthrow the government, pre-revolutionary events, and so on. I see in this a certain geohistorical pattern, within which the Empire is located. It was the empire - as a political form of space organization and a form of political order at the same time - that for many centuries was a universal form of space optimization. Empires arose in different centuries, in different regions, and had different durations of existence. However, one fact remained important: the empire always "played" with space, which laid certain risks for potential states of the future. Let us recall the processes of decolonization around the world in the 20th century. We have seen how these processes led to protracted liberation (colonial) wars, revolutions and uprisings, civil wars, and so on. That is, a certain "post-imperial paradox" arose when it was necessary to simultaneously fight the empire and begin the process of state-building.