GENDER EQUALITY AND SOCIAL INCLUSION AS A SIGN OF THE SUSTAINABILITY OF UKRAINIAN CIVIL SOCIETY DURING AND AFTER THE WAR WITH RUSSIA

Abstract

This article is devoted to researching the complex interactions between a society’s efforts to approach best practices of social inclusion and gender equality implementation in policy development processes and the ability of such a society to maintain its commitment to liberal and human-centered values in political life. Using the methods of stylized facts and comparative politics, we ground the applicability of the two-stage model of acquiring the institutional capacity to implement the principles of gender equality and social inclusion in the activities of the authorities. The first stage of this model involves the ability to accumulate additional costs to take into account and meet the special needs of vulnerable and discriminated-against groups in the process of policy development and implementation. The second stage entails the ability to achieve the efficiency of such expenditures in order to extract social outcomes through the reduction in the number of marginalized groups and the expansion of participation in the functioning of civil society institutions, ensuring the broad representation of all socio-demographic strata of the population. The stylized facts collected in this article may be the first (and are certainly not comprehensive) evidence that Ukraine is at the stage of forming the capability within society to benefit from the implementation of the principles of gender equality and social inclusion, both at the nationwide level and the level of individual organizations.