Public administration in the conditions of war: strengths, opportunities, weaknesses and threats for the period 2014-2024 in Ukraine

The war between Russia and Ukraine has deep historical roots going back to the Soviet era and beyond. Simplifying things analytically, the current conflict is the result of historical tensions accumulated over decades, exacerbated to their maximum expression by the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, and Ukraine's subsequent aspirations to move closer to the West, as a free and sovereign nation-state. From the methodological coordinates of SWOT analysis, together with the hermeneutics of documentary sources carefully sectioned for their content and value, the aim of this research was to analyze the strengths, opportunities, weaknesses, and threats of the Ukrainian public administration in the context of the war, during the period 2014-2024. Among its contributions the research answers the following questions: 1) How has the capacity of the Ukrainian public administration evolved to respond to the needs of the population in wartime? 2) What opportunities for reform and modernization has the conflict presented for the public administration? 3) What are the main structural weaknesses that the war has exposed in the Ukrainian administrative system? and 4) What long-term threats does the Ukrainian public administration face because of the protracted conflict? It is concluded that setting clear priorities in the use of limited resources will ensure that the most critical needs are addressed first, a mission for which rational choice theory, proper to the economic conception of democracy, can be very useful.