The head of the ISA on Ukrainian sociology in wartime

The well-known Belgian sociologist, professor at the Catholic University of Louvain (UCLouvain) and current President of the International Sociological Association (ISA) Geoffrey Pleyers has published the article “What sociology can do in times of war. The resilience and dynamism of Ukrainian sociologists” on Sage Journals, a prestigious international platform for publishing research.

It should be noted that this leader of world sociology actively supports the Ukrainian sociological community: he has taken part in events of the Sociological Association of Ukraine and expressed solidarity with colleagues under war conditions, he knows Ukraine's leading sociologists and their work personally, and so he knows our situation well and is, as the saying goes, on top of the subject.

It is important to note that, in Professor Pleyers's own words, this analytical review grew out of the ISA President's interaction with Ukrainian colleagues: “The article arose from an invitation to give, as ISA President, the opening address and a keynote lecture at the Fifth Congress of the Sociological Association of Ukraine, held in hybrid format at Kharkiv University and online on 20 and 21 November 2025… This article, however, does not seek to summarise the vast, rich and rapidly growing body of work produced by Ukrainian sociologists since 2022. Its aim is more modest: to outline some of the key roles sociology has played in wartime Ukraine.”

The article has three sections, the second of which focuses entirely on wartime Ukraine and examines how Ukrainian sociologists have continued to carry out rigorous and publicly engaged research since 2022, documenting social transformations, civic resilience, democratic values and war crimes amid extreme upheaval, while the third section seeks to bring to the fore the epistemological questions raised by the war, “drawing largely on the thinking of Ukrainian scholars”.

In his thorough article the ISA President poses fundamental questions: what can sociology do in times of war? Is it still useful to conduct sociological research when immediate solidarity is what is needed? Drawing in particular on the experience of Ukraine at war, the author examines some of the key roles sociology has played in wartime: making sense of rapid social transformations, bearing witness to violence and sustaining democratic horizons.

Geoffrey Pleyers observes that since 2022 Ukrainian sociologists have continued to document rapid changes in everyday life and in society, in civic activity, values, resilience and war crimes. Profound epistemological debates have emerged about the conditions, limits and responsibilities of producing knowledge in wartime, touching on the tensions between scholarly precision and civic commitment as well as on the ethical demands of research.

In illuminating the experience of sociology in a society under existential threat, the head of the ISA invites international dialogue and mutual learning about the public, ethical and democratic responsibility of sociology in wartime. In presenting recent research by Ukrainian sociologists, the article invites international scholars to cooperate more closely with their Ukrainian colleagues. Their findings, their methodological creativity and the theoretical and epistemological questions they raise, Professor Pleyers stresses, matter far beyond their national borders. Since 2022 Ukrainian sociology has deepened its international cooperation. The article is therefore an invitation to a dialogue across borders and experiences, pointing to shared challenges while respecting Ukraine's unique context and situation.

The article rests on a qualitative and interpretive review of sociological research addressing both the evolution of the discipline and the major social transformations in Ukraine since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022. The literature review focuses mainly on peer-reviewed articles, academic books and research reports produced by Ukrainian sociologists. The corpus was assembled through academic databases, disciplinary networks and continuous exchange with Ukrainian colleagues, and selected for its relevance to the central question: what can sociology do during a war?

Sociology in wartime Ukraine is a resilient sociology, the ISA President stresses, noting that before the war sociology was already a well-established academic field in Ukraine, supported by an active national association, a strong presence in the National Academy of Sciences, a solid base in universities and research institutes, and participation in public debate. The book edited by Vil Bakirov and Yevhen Golovakha (2018), “Ukrainian sociology in the 21st century: theory, methods, research findings”, portrays a dynamic discipline. Olha Kutsenko and Svitlana Babenko (2024) provided a comprehensive review of the field, synthesising institutional developments, the main research themes, empirical findings and early analyses of the transformations caused by the war that began in 2014 and escalated with Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022. Ukrainian sociologists played a key role at several turning points in the country's recent history — after independence, during the formation of national identity; in 2004, when electoral fraud was exposed thanks to a landmark survey; and in the analysis of major social movements. Regular surveys and sociological analyses have supported Ukrainian society's capacity to understand itself and its ongoing transformations since independence.

Since the war began, Ukrainian sociologists have shown extraordinary resilience. Even after the full-scale invasion of 2022, sociologists continued to teach and to conduct research despite bombardment, displacement and occupation. Under these adverse conditions they produced a substantial body of empirically grounded and theoretically robust research.

Quantitative methods and surveys have traditionally been among the strengths of Ukrainian sociology (Grushetsky and Paniotto, 2025). Thanks to sustained individual and collective effort, survey institutes overcame the organisational, technical and financial difficulties of the first year of the invasion (Klein et al., 2025). The Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences continued its annual surveys of social change, collected in the volume “Ukrainian society in wartime” (Golovakha and Dembitskyi, 2024). The Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) also continued its surveys, later synthesised in the book “War and transformation” (2022–23) (available in English, Grushetsky and Paniotto, 2025).

“Sustaining a methodologically sound and uninterrupted series of surveys documenting social dynamics during a full-scale war is an achievement with few precedents in the history of sociology,” Professor Pleyers writes. This very high assessment by the ISA President is an objective appraisal of many years of achievement by Ukrainian sociology, including the unique longitudinal study “Ukrainian society: monitoring social change”, conducted annually since 1992–1994, whose instrument was developed by Natalia Panina and Yevhen Golovakha and which is currently directed by Serhii Dembitskyi.

Documenting and analysing life in a society at war has become a central aim of Ukrainian social science. The challenge is enormous: a full-scale war changes every sphere of personal and social life, from national and civic identity (Golovakha et al., 2023; Kutsenko, 2025c) to everyday family relations (Kostenko et al., 2024) and intimate religiosity (Karakai and Moskotina, 2025).

In their review of Ukrainian sociology, Olha Kutsenko and Svitlana Babenko (2024: 454) identify “violence and war crimes, mental health, militarisation, de-occupation, forced migration, [and] the return of soldiers home” as the main research themes that surged with the war. Studies of displacement, the transformation of communities, memory, trauma and civic resistance document the lived experience of a society undergoing profound change.

Ukrainian sociologists rely heavily on value research to analyse how the war is changing social and political orientations (Grushetsky and Paniotto, 2025). Unsurprisingly, they show that the war has produced a high degree of national unity: national feeling and identity have grown considerably stronger, while the long-standing social and political divisions that had shaped public debate since independence have narrowed, particularly in attitudes towards Russia, NATO and the European Union. A firm pro-Western consensus has become a defining feature of contemporary Ukrainian identity, as the surveys of the Institute of Sociology of the NAS of Ukraine, KIIS and others show.

Particular attention has been paid to the evolution of democratic values under conditions of fear, militarisation and pervasive violence. Surveys show that the war and widespread violence have intensified Ukrainians' commitment to democratic principles. Drawing on KIIS surveys conducted for the National Democratic Institute, Olha Kutsenko (2025a: 21) reports that “in 2023, 93% of Ukrainians wanted Ukraine to become a fully functioning democracy (...), and 70% believed that the authorities should be criticised for possible wrong decisions” (...).

This article by the head of world sociology about the leaders of Ukrainian sociology and their exceptionally valuable research is an indicator of the international recognition of the achievements of sociology in Ukraine, academic sociology included. The ISA President's appraisal of the body of work by our sociologists as vast, rich and rapidly growing is both gratifying and objective. We hope that this is understood and valued in the same way within the country as well.

Read in full: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/02685809261423129