David Dalton

Supervisor: Professor Andrew Wilson and D r Pete Duncan

Twitter: @DaveDalton42

Blog: https://davephdblog.blogspot.com/

Present status: PhD candidate; post-graduate tutor on political sociology and transition economies modules.

Working title of thesis: The wealth-defence politics of the Ukrainian oligarchy and its economic impact, 2014-17.

Research: My research is about the Ukrainian oligarchy, focusing on the post-Maidan period. It draws on the disciplines of political sociology, political economy and macroeconomics. My main interest is in identifying the links through which the political practices of the oligarchy—an institution of informal political influence that brings together the holders of great wealth with successful politicians and the state elite—can be shown to have affected Ukraine’s economic policy and performance. My empirical research topics are on the changing patterns of wealth of the Ukrainian super rich; the impact of financial political power on economic legislation in the Verkhovna Rada (parliament); continuity in oligarchs’ extractive financial schemes in the gas sector; and how the survival of the oligarchy post-Maidan, through the cost of the nationalisation of PrivatBank, has undermined key claimed economic policy successes in public finances and banking.

Research interests: Informal politics and economics in eastern Europe, especially Ukraine and Russia; transition politics and economics; economic growth and living standards; wealth, inequality and class in eastern Europe; neo-classical economics; institutional economics; Marx and Weber; structuralism and post-structuralism; the sociology of elites and state breakdowns.

Research Centre Affiliation: UCL Centre for Comparative Studies of Emerging Economies