Technology-Driven Sociopolitical Transformations in Ukraine: Analyzing the Gendered Impacts of the Russian War in Ukraine
The ongoing research investigates how ICT-enabled civic engagement during the Russian war in Ukraine nurtures a cohesive culture and advances gender parity through collective action. It explores the role of women and LGBTQIA+ in leveraging digital instruments for delivering solutions and providing people-to-people and people-to-government services aimed at supporting voluntarily mobilised peers and newly emerged vulnerable groups such as veterans. The study addresses how these efforts reshape societal values towards enhancing resilience and equality, and contribute to democracy-building. The focus is set on the gendered dynamics of service co-production within virtualised, internationalised volunteer networks. The research design integrates democratisation, social mobilisation, and gender theories to propose a lens at their intersection for analysing the role technology plays in civic engagement – at “action arenas” (Ostrom, 2009). It employs semi-structured interviews with civic activists. Based on ongoing research, the project aims at producing a project application offering the unpacking of the ICT-enabled civic engagement phenomenon.
Main Research Topics
- Democratization in Eastern Europe
- ICT-enabled civic engagement
- Gender
- Equality
- Co-production
- P2P & P2G digital services
Curriculum Vitae
- 2025: DAAD-Guestprofessor for Summersemester 2025, Seminar for Slavistik & Lotman-Institute, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany
- 2022 – 2025: Research fellow (Phillipp Schwartz Initiative; Stiftung für Kulturwissenschaften), Marie Jahoda Center for International Gender Studies, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany
- 2022: Research fellow, Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, University of Tartu, Estonia. Project manager and research fellow in digital democratic transformations in Ukraine; organizer and guest professor at the International Summer Academy “Post-War Revitalisation of Cities in the Digital Era”
- 2021 – present: Associate Professor at the department of Public administration, Dnipro University of Technology, Ukraine
- 2008 – 2021: Associate professor, Institute for Public Administration under the President of Ukraine
Publications and Presentations
- Matveieva, O. (2025). Social mobilization in wartime Ukraine: the connection between gender identity, national unity, and societal transformation. Journal of Gender Studies, 1–30. https://shorturl.at/AKHBn
- Gustafsson, M., Matveieva, O. et al. (2025). Adaptive governance amidst the war: Overcoming challenges and strengthening collaborative digital service provision in Ukraine. Government Information Quarterly, 42(3). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2025.102056
- Navumau, V., Gustafsson, M., & Matveieva, O. (2025). Digital Technologies and Citizen Agency During Crises: Democratic Engagement in Ukraine and Belarus. Rethinking Citizenship in Central and Eastern Europe: ed. by N. Kolleck and I.P. Karolewski. Bristol University Press. 109-137. https://shorturl.at/J05ut
- Matveieva, O. (2024). A gender perspective on the role of technology in democratic development through wartime civic engagement. Journal of Gender Studies, 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2024.2387197
- Matveieva, O., Mamatova, T., Borodin, Ye., Gustafsson, E., Wihlborg, E., Kvitka, S. (2024). Digital Government in Conditions of War: Governance Challenges and Revitalized Collaboration between Local Authorities and Civil Society in Provision of Public Services in Ukraine. In T. X. Bui (Hrsg.), Proceedings of the 57th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) (S. 2002–2011). University of Hawai’i at Manoa, Hamilton Library. https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85199758254