Download Ru2- The failure of post-Soviet bloc democratisation

The failure of post-Soviet bloc democratisation
By Vartan Oskanian
Al-Jazeera, Qatar – 19/4/2014
How to put post-Soviet republics on track for healthy and sustainable
development.
The Ukrainian crisis has focused the world on Russia, bringing back
memories of the Cold War. By extension, attention is centred on the Baltic
States, the former Soviet republics and the countries of Eastern Europe. In
the process, the magnifying glass is on the paths these countries have
chosen since their independence, their political evolution and ultimately
to the state of their economies today.
The day the Soviet Union collapsed, the economies of Ukraine and Poland
were on similar footing. Both countries' GDP per capita was the same few
thousand dollars. Today, Poland's is nearly $14,000 per head, more than
three times that of Ukraine's approximately $4,000.
The ratios of the three Baltic republics today, compared to the three
Caucasus republics, is the same, if one compares Estonia, Lithuania and
Latvia with Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, minus the latter's oil
revenues.
Books and studies providing insight into discrepancies between rich and
poor nations, successful and failed, offer reasons which abound from
geography to natural resources, and ethnic conflicts. But increasingly, the
new research narrows the reasons to two: good governance and institutions.
Paul Collier in his ground-breaking The Bottom Billion and more recently
Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson in Why Nations Fail point out that
nations thrive when they develop "inclusive" political and economic
institutions, and they fail when those institutions become "extractive" and
concentrate power and opportunity in the hands of only a few.
Healthy and sustainable development
Let me add my own picks to these reasons for the current state of nations
in the former Soviet republics. In my experience in and out of government,
we must rethink four fundamental notions if we are to put our countries on
the track to healthy and sustainable development.
First, we who have embarked on new, liberal, free-market development have
misunderstood "development" and its ensuing challenges and have seen them
as merely economic in nature. Development is a political process, not an
economic one. It requires political changes in society and an organised
process of engaging both elites and public, without threatening one or
discouraging the other. Development doesn't mean spending money on
infrastructure alone; it means infrastructures that are designed and
maintained by a responsive state apparatus with functioning governance
systems.
Developing into a modern economy requires the provision of fair and
transparent public services. Access to the sea and endless barrels of oil
do not add up to a functioning economy. Only political will and a change in
political thinking can bring that about. Our countries must develop
politically in order to develop economically.
Second, pretence at democratisation is dangerous and counterproductive. It
distorts the relationship between government and the governed, raising
expectations that can't be met, and obstructing progress that could be
taking place elsewhere in society. There are many prosperous countries in
the world which are not democratic, and don't pretend to be. Singapore is
one example of a thriving country where democratic rights are largely
suspended; the United Arab Emirates is another.
If the elites in our countries really only want economic development, then
there should not be a show about democratisation. Governments, who repeat
the predictable democratic formulations but don't have sufficient trust in
their people to respect the electoral process, or to govern openly, force
citizens onto the streets.
Third, the Soviet-era definition of power continues to distort the modern
concept of legitimate authority. World leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson
Mandela and Martin Luther King had no power but operated from a position of
authority. They accomplished things that changed the world.
Except for a brief period immediately after independence, our societies
have not experienced governments who enjoy the consent of the governed.
Hard power, exclusive and brute power, hereditary power, can continue to be
exercised, but that will not assure our leaders the authority they require
to bring about significant, lasting political or economic change. Economic
growth, and change, depend foremost on confidence and trust.
Wild, textbook capitalism
Finally, our adherence to the wild, textbook capitalism that we adopted as
we tore away from communism is not working. We can, and must consider a
more modern, compassionate form of public-private partnership that will
allow the state to intervene where necessary to support strategically
important sectors and enable economic growth.
Unfortunately, in the absence of rule of law, public-private has sometimes
come to mean using public resources to help private friends. If certain
entities in the private sector sink rather than swim, it must not be
because the government has not done its part to create an enabling economic
environment.
The fundamental bottleneck that impedes change in all these spheres is the
absence of institutions and an across-the-board acceptance of rule of law.
Although the developed world has been able to transfer support and
assistance, it has not succeeded in transferring strong institutions. Even
economist Milton Friedman, just a decade after the fall of the Soviet
Union, explained that if in the early days of independence, his appeal to
all the new states was before and above all else, to privatise, a decade
later, he had come to the realization that possibly it is rule of law that
is more basic.
Indeed, we have to rethink these fundamental ideas. After all, we were the
subjects of an unprecedented experiment, and more than two decades later,
we have to graduate from the laboratory and shape our own destiny.
In this high-stakes geopolitical tug of war that has begun to play out in
Ukraine, our understanding of the importance of institution-building and
good governance will very much determine whether we will be able to make
the right choices and go after those who have demonstrated the efficacy of
good governance and institution building.
*Vartan Oskanian is a member of Armenia's National Assembly, a former
foreign minister and the founder of Yerevan's Civilitas Foundation.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not
necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/04/failure-post-soviet-blocdemocr-201441512210693991.html