Ukraine’s Disilusionment With Democracy
Joshua Tucker at the Monkey Cage offers a link to a new Pew Global Attitudes Project titled “The Pulse of Europe 2009: 20 Years After the Fall of the Berlin Wall”.
This seems like the most noteworthy table:
We can see that in eight of the nine post-communist countries, a majority of the population continues to approve of the change to democracy; in four of these countries at least 70% of respondents approved. Ukraine is the clear outlier here, with support having dropped by 42% to only 30%. Particularly interesting in these findings is the fact that a greater proportion of Russians than Ukrainians continue to approve of the change to a multiparty system, despite the fact that the latter actually has functioning multiparty politics while one would be hard pressed to claim anything of the sort exists in the former.
Basically Ukrainians hate freedom. Or more seriously, a big part of the problem is that a hefty chunk of multi-party politics in Ukraine consists of just reiterating an entrenched regional/linguistic divide between the more western-oriented and more eastern-oriented halves of the country.
40 Responses to “Ukraine’s Disilusionment With Democracy”
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November 12th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
Where’s Serbia/Yugoslavia on the list?
November 12th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Good thing we don’t have any reason to be disillusioned with our democracy here in the good old USA.
November 12th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
But how much of that divide is fed and financed by Russia?
November 12th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Hector – These are just the Warsaw Pact countries of Eastern Europe, Yugo wasn’t one.
I think the thing with these numbers is that they pretty well mirror the legitimacy of the elections held in each country. What Tucker says isn’t all wrong, but in actual levels of electoral fraud, Ukraine’s record is worse than Russia’s. Same for Bulgaria actually. Looks like what turns people off democracy is electoral fraud pure and simple.
November 12th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
But how much of that divide is fed and financed by Russia?
Really? That’s the first thing that comes to your mind? The scary Russian bear?
November 12th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Which naturally raises the question, if you don’t believe in democracy, does it matter if you’re in the majority?
November 12th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Given his track record on Russia, Matt’s pretty clear sighted on this one – democracy tends to have problems in countries with ethnic tensions, and Ukraine is certainly a country with ethnic/regional tensions. Still, it’s a fairly silly poll, isn’t it? How can you ask Russians with a straight face if they’re happy with their transition to “democracy”? When did that change take place, and why did no one bother to tell the Russians about it? At least Ukraine sort of has a democracy.
November 12th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
There’s not a single democracy on this planet, they are all oligarchies. And as far as “freedom” is concerned oligarchical democracy and democratic centralism are not far apart; there are pluses and minuses in both.
November 12th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
I would think that a lot of the disillusionment was caused by economic conditions .From what i understand the Ukraine’s economy is in the toilet.I would be curiouse to see how the other Baltic countries besides Lithuania feel.My understanding is that they are doing badly economicly as well.This is not to say that political crises in the Ukraine and Hungary aren’t the main reason for the disillussionment.
But you could say that while almost all Americans favor democracy.Most democratic institutions are doing badly in the polls[Congress ect,]. Obviousely when the economy gets bad people get angry at the government [no matter who leads it or whether it's the governments fault to begin with].
November 12th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Or are they saying what Churchill said – “Democracy is the worst form of government except all the other that have been tried.”
Would they prefer to go back to a dictatorship, monarcy, fudalism?
November 12th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
@ jmo,
Possibly Ukrainians and Bulgarians look at a country like Belarus, basically not a democracy and with a state-controlled planned economy, and see higher GDP growth per capita (10.7% vs 7.8% and 6.7%) and higher income equality and decide they’d like that too?
Each country has to find the government that works for them. You can’t just plunk down Denmark’s social democracy in every country and assume that it will work.
Afghanistan is one big example, i think, where something that is not a democracy might be a far better choice for the majority of Afghanis than the weak, hopelessly corrupt and criminal “democracy” they have now.
November 12th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Pete from Baltimore makes the key point. Ukraine has been hammered by the economic crisis, possibly the worst-hit country in the world.
November 12th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Wow, Aqua, you – and a thoughtful comment? What the hell is going on here, is that a spoof?
November 12th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
I think the results of this poll would pretty well mirror answers to the question of whether your life is better now than it was before the end of communism. For most Ukrainians the answer to this question would be no. People are generally poorer and provided with less government services. The education and medical systems have suffered. Things like homelessness, drug use and crime are problems now in Ukraine that either didn’t exist or weren’t known about in Soviet times.
Also, I think the cultural divide between Russians and Ukrainians is overblown. They are not really that different, certainly less so than many other ethnic groups that share countries. There are some small differences and animosities that are constantly exploited by Ukrainian politicians.
November 12th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
I would think that a lot of the disillusionment was caused by economic conditions .From what i understand the Ukraine’s economy is in the toilet.I would be curiouse to see how the other Baltic countries besides Lithuania feel.My understanding is that they are doing badly economicly as well.This is not to say that political crises in the Ukraine and Hungary aren’t the main reason for the disillussionment.
There is, of course, the small matter that the country is ungovernable. A mixed presidential-parliamentary system in that country has made impossible concerted, consistent public option in the pursuit of a consistent set of goals, and as currently constituted it would be hard to figure out who actually runs the country. This sort of has killed all accountability, and in the absence of accountability democracy becomes a shell and nothing more.
November 12th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Aqua Regia Says:
November 12th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
@ jmo,
Possibly Ukrainians and Bulgarians look at a country like Belarus, basically not a democracy and with a state-controlled planned economy, and see higher GDP growth per capita (10.7% vs 7.8% and 6.7%) and higher income equality and decide they’d like that too?
=========================================================
Belarus isn’t on the list either and should be
November 12th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Regarding comment 14 by AL
MR AL
I would basicly agree with your statement. i would also add that expectations are part of this.The question was probably taken by many to mean ” Are things the way you thought they would be?”.
It’s easy to forget that 20 years ago there were realistic worries that Russia and the Ukraine would go to war over who got what of the old Soviet navy.The average unemployed Ukrainian probably doesnt think about that right now and i can’t blame them.
November 12th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Agreed Campesino. It would be interesting to see a poll about how satisfied Belarussians are with their (in practice) one-party system.
November 12th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Credit this to a friend (the great John Trudell), but, it’s no coincidence that word FREEDOM consists of FREE and DUMB. Alright, it’s phonetic, but, wherever the cry goes out for “Freedom!” – anyone buying into it is pretty fuckin’ Dumb. Freedom for what? To exploit others, to rape, pillage, and poison the earth, to enslave peoples, a litany of horrors that never ends.
November 12th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Aqua Regia Says:
November 12th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Agreed Campesino. It would be interesting to see a poll about how satisfied Belarussians are with their (in practice) one-party system.
=====================================================
What do you want to bet the government didn’t allow them to poll in Belarus?
November 12th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Situated here in Kiev, where I’ve lived for years and years, I can say that that poll makes sense to me. The years since the Orange Revolution have been an absolute disaster in terms of governance, and the blame has to fall on all parties. The country wouldn’t be worse off bringing back Kuchma, the scumbag who ran the country until the Revolution.
‘Course, the truth is that a huge number of Ukrainians and other residents of the former Soviet bloc would have been happy living under one-party Soviet rule forever as long as they could have gotten some better consumer goods out of it. Americans, who tend to be Americanists, tend to have trouble with that fact — it’s not “freedom” or “America” that most Soviet people wanted, it was a bitchin’ car to drive down teh sidewalk and scatter pedestrians with, or a sweet flat-screen. I’m not talking the Sakharovs, I’m talking about the normal guy in the street.
Point is, Americans/Americanists have probably always overestimated the level of affection in a place like Ukraine for multi-party rule in principle.
November 12th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Wasn’t Romania part of the Warsaw Pact? I wonder what their numbers are like.
On one hand, it seems like their communist government really sucked even by typical communist standards, and on the other hand, their current government sucks by post-communist Eastern European standards too, so I wonder how they compare to an all-around more “regular” country like Czechoslovakia and its daughter states.
November 12th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Also, I think the cultural divide between Russians and Ukrainians is overblown.
It’s not quite that simple. Galicia – the area around Lviv/Lvov – is very different from Russia. It was never under Russian control until 1939. Even speaking Russian in Lviv is asking for trouble, and the dialect of Ukrainian there is almost unintelligible to Russian speakers. The Carpathian part of Ukraine is also a world unto itself. The rest of Ukraine has been Russian controlled since the 17th century, or is basically former Ottoman land resettled by Russians (Odessa, the Crimea) in the 18th and 19th centuries and is really not that different from Russia, not even linguistically.
November 12th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
East Germany emphasiced a lot that they were suposedly a democracy, even in the country name “DDR=Deutsche Demokratische Republik=German democratic republic”. So this does not necessarily signal support for democracy by the actual meaning of the word. This looks like a survey that was not very careful designed. Takes some control questions and careful translations due to the subtile meaning shifts.
Kind of a fishy statistics run here recently.
November 12th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Asked my friend who lives in Kyiv about it:
“life sucks anywhere these days… moreso here. i’m pretty sure in 10 years when most of the 60+ respondents are dead it will be 50-50. the elderly still remember the good ole’ stable ussr days”
So yeah, basically what the other posters said.
November 12th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
There are some small differences and animosities that are constantly exploited by Ukrainian politicians.
Oh my: Al is right, and so is Myles.
The issue in emerging democracies becomes one of how you limit the embedding of those animosities in the party system and the political dialogue — or, if they’re going to be embedded no matter what because of linguistic/religious distinctions (see: Belgium, Canada, Northern Ireland) to create structures that offset them to some extent.
The Ukrainian constitutional system, w/r/t who’s in charge, has proved an ill fit when you have three pols at the top of the ladder — Yushchenko, Yanukovych and Tymoshenko — who have huge egos, large factions and hate each others’ guts.
November 12th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Re: These are just the Warsaw Pact countries of Eastern Europe, Yugo wasn’t one.
Ah, that makes sense.
Re: On one hand, it seems like their communist government really sucked even by typical communist standards, and on the other hand, their current government sucks by post-communist Eastern European standards too, so I wonder how they compare to an all-around more “regular” country like Czechoslovakia and its daughter states.
I’d suspect Roumania has one of the lowest levels of nostalgia for the old days, precisely because the Ceaucescu era was so horrid. As far as I know, Roumania was technically part of the Warsaw Pact, but had an increasingly anti-Soviet and pro-Chinese orientation (as did Albania).
In general, the Chinese-satellite countries (North Korea, Cambodia, Albania and Romania) seem to have s*cked a lot more then most of the Soviet satellites.
Re: Possibly Ukrainians and Bulgarians look at a country like Belarus, basically not a democracy and with a state-controlled planned economy, and see higher GDP growth per capita (10.7% vs 7.8% and 6.7%) and higher income equality and decide they’d like that too?
Great point, Aqua Regia. I don’t much like the Belarusian leader, but there’s a lot to be said for the way they’ve managed their economy, and there is a very good case that neither liberal democracy nor capitalism is well suited for Belarus.
Re: Afghanistan is one big example, i think, where something that is not a democracy might be a far better choice for the majority of Afghanis than the weak, hopelessly corrupt and criminal “democracy” they have now.
Indeed. Increasingly I’m starting to feel that we made a big mistake in 2002 by not restoring the Barakzai monarchy. A monarchy could potentially have provided stability and order to Afghanistan, and most importantly it could seem legitimate to traditionalist/conservative Pashtuns who might otherwise turn to the Taliban.
November 12th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
In general, the Chinese-satellite countries (North Korea, Cambodia, Albania and Romania) seem to have s*cked a lot more then most of the Soviet satellites.
North Korea was predominantly a Soviet satellite until the end of the Cold War.
Koreans and Vietnamese have zero love for Chinese. Plus, it was the Sovs who had put up with Kim the Elder in exile.
The current China/DPRK axis is totally of necessity; Kim can’t stay afloat without them, and the Chinese get a puppet and no massive, crippling refugee problem.
November 12th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
Re: North Korea was predominantly a Soviet satellite until the end of the Cold War.
Yes and no. It was Mao, not Stalin, who sent large numbers of troops into Korea to fight the Americans on Kim’s behalf.
November 12th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
Yes and no. It was Mao, not Stalin, who sent large numbers of troops into Korea to fight the Americans on Kim’s behalf.
Which they did, Hector, because Stalin told them to. Obviously, Mao agreed with the idea, or he never would have done so, but still.
In 1950, the Sovs were still the undisputed Big Dawg of the Communist Community. Everybody was a lesser partner. They also had the only Red Bomb.
November 12th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
Aqua Regia Says:
November 12th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Possibly Ukrainians and Bulgarians look at a country like Belarus, basically not a democracy and with a state-controlled planned economy, and see higher GDP growth per capita (10.7% vs 7.8% and 6.7%) and higher income equality and decide they’d like that too?
Why do you think that Ukrainians or Bulgarians know or care very much about Belarus. The fact that they all labeled as East Europe, doesnt mean that they are well-informed of each other.
I can guarantee that whatever the reasons where behind answers of Ukrainians and Bulgarians, example of Belarus was not amongst them.
November 12th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
Al, my compliments. Best comment I’ve ever read from you here. Seriously.
November 12th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
Re: Which they did, Hector, because Stalin told them to. Obviously, Mao agreed with the idea, or he never would have done so, but still.
Greg,
Thanks for the correction- you certainly know more about this then me.
I still maintain that China had a penchant for picking some extremely creepy proteges in Pol Pot, Hoxha, Ceausescu, and the fellow who founded the Shining Path.
November 12th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
No, you’re absolutely right.
I mean, North Korea only seems fucked up in contrast to other countries in the here and now.
When old man Kim was running the Hermit Kingdom, Pol Pot and Ceausescu made him look pretty sane.
I think what gave Rumania a certain measure of independence was that it was in the Warsaw Pact, pretty decently sized in population, far away from both Germany and even Turkey, and finally, Ploesti might not have been what it was in the 30s and 40s, but still, it had the hydrocarbons.
Moreover, its moves towards an alternative to Moscow made things stricter, not looser, and as a result, the Politburo probably thought it pretty damn annoying, but not particularly dangerous.
Oh, and the innate craziness meant that Rumanians were perfect for operations that required the ability to deny knowledge.
November 12th, 2009 at 11:40 pm
“Why do you think that Ukrainians or Bulgarians know or care very much about Belarus. The fact that they all labeled as East Europe, doesnt mean that they are well-informed of each other.”
It may be true in the case of Bulgarians, but Ukrainians share a long border with Belorus.
Several years ago I visited St. Petersburg, and I took a train from Warsaw (and a bus to Helsinki before returning to USA). So I had a brief glimpse at Belorus.
I spend several hours waiting for Odessa-St. Petersburg train in a cute train station in eastern Belorus, complete with a nice ceiling fresco of Lenin exhorting masses.
The thing is that millions of Ukrainians work in Russia, and many travel through Belorus. There are many mixed families (I have friends that are Moldovan-Belorus couple, both Russian-speaking US citizens). On our excursion in St. Petersburg we had two girls working as guides — one very proud native Petersburgian, the other, from Western Ukraine.
November 12th, 2009 at 11:53 pm
Regarding comment 34 from Greg
MR Greg
I would have to respectfully disagree with you .By any standard , and compared to damn near anyone,Kim Ill-Sung was a pretty evil guy.We probably wont know the full details until the North Korean government falls.As bad as Ceausescu was , i still would have wanted to live in Romania rather than North Korea.
As for your comment about Romania carrying out operations for Russia, im not sure what your refering to, so you could be right.But i think that its possible that you were thinking of the Bulgarians .They’re the ones who killed people with the posion tipped umbrellas.And some people think that they had a hand in the shooting of John Paul 2[ who knows if thats true, but there was some evidence as i recall] .
I agree with the rest of your points though.I hope you are not offended by my respectful disagreement and i wish you the best MR GREG.
November 13th, 2009 at 12:09 am
The Bulgarian intelligence services certainly did a lot of nasty things for the Russians. Not sure about the Romanians.
November 13th, 2009 at 12:20 am
For what its worth , since many people have brought up Ceausescu, his last speech is on youtube.Its the one where he is talking and suddenly realises that the crowd is booing him.As an egomaniac ,this is startling to him.And the look on his face is incredible.It’s defintly worth watching.Just go to youtube and punch in” Last speech of Ceausescu”.
November 13th, 2009 at 2:01 am
If I remember Everything Is Illuminated correctly, Ukrainians are total fuckfaces who hate everyone and everything.
November 13th, 2009 at 7:39 am
Why do you think that Ukrainians know or care very much about Belarus.
They were part of the same country for 300 years, they all speak Russian, and Kiev is only a few hours drive from Minsk. Lots of people have relatives on the other side of the border. When I lived in Ukraine old women were constantly talking about how much better their friends (old women) lived in Belarus and about how handsome young Lukashenka was.
If I remember Everything Is Illuminated correctly, Ukrainians are total fuckfaces who hate everyone and everything.
You should do your best to forget that novel, it’s a piece of shit and the author knows nothing about Ukrainians.