The Business-superman: Oligarchs Justifying Giving in Post-Soviet Ukraine

This paper examines the self-proclaimed public role of two Ukrainian oligarchs with special attention to how they justify their initiatives surrounding giving. Since the term oligarch has generally negative connotations in Ukrainian society, individuals who are in the public eye and perceived of as oligarchs have a strong need for legitimacy. The assumption is that the increased engagement in giving among the wealthy elite is connected to this need. Building on the theory of justifications and logics of worth by Boltanski & Thevenot and Boltanski & Chiapello, this study examines the donors’ perspective of the phenomenon: How do wealthy elite actors and their charitable organizations’ representatives explain their engagement in giving and their choice of philanthropic causes? The analysis builds on interviews with oligarchs published in the Ukrainian and international press as well as original interviews with foundation directors and employees. This paper demonstrates, on the one hand, an increasingly strong preference for efficiency, systemic approaches and statistics, belonging to the managerial world of worth. On the other hand, reference to authority, responsibility, loyalty and personal connections, belonging to the domestic world of worth, are also important in the value system. These two types of worth logics, in combination with a rhetoric of the inefficiency of the state, create the promotion of a self-appointed business-superman. Contrary to Schumpeter’s thesis of the dying entrepreneur, the dynamic of justification logics suggests that the current kind of capitalistic entrepreneur is highly sensitive and adjustable to social and political changes.