If the East were the West

I am about to start preparing to take the CAE, thus I thought it would be a good idea to make some posts in Shakespeare's language. I know it can be a little be tedious for some people, but I am not interested on those who can't read in English, so... Here it goes. I hope there aren't too many mistakes.

I like chaining themes and ideas. I started with Serbia, wrote about the European Union and that led me to Germany. The shortage of ideas led me to the Soviet Union, which is not far away from the Reich. Now, therefore, I ought to continue the geographic linkage. Coincidentally, I have begun to re-read the papers I wrote in the last couple of years. Reviewing some gruesome works of the first years, I found a little gem written for Political Theory III. For some mysterious reason, the teacher praised me the short essay, but rated it at an eight. I don't care: I liked what I did, so I will share a summary of what I wrote for those willing to read me.

Obviously, for those who have already read me, the research is about an other pair of countries difficult to find for the average human. These are Estonia and Ukraine, hence the essay's name is: "Reform, parties and democracy: the miracle of Tallin and the disenchantment of Kiev". The paper was born of my interest on the post-communist transitions in Eastern Europe during the nineties.

I was told to put more pictures, so here is a map:

I have also been told not to give so much for granted, so I clarify that Estonia is the green little country, while Ukraine, the orange one. Both states were members of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, having Estonia had a brief period of 22 years of independence after the WWI.

In a 1992 report, the Deutsche Bank predicted that Ukraine would be the most successful ex-Soviet country for its natural resources, strategic position and high levels of education and training. Estonia, meanwhile, was a region where the independent status was achieved by singing and without a drop of blood during the approach of Russian tanks.

My hypothesis was that the bold institutional reform, particularly of the political parties system, helps to explain the phenomenal Estonian success and growth. Ukraine, in contrast, owes its vicious circle of corruption, economic recession and choking democratic to the fact that those in power simply didn't leave the power.

In Estonia, a curious thing happened: the Revolution (one, being Latin American, finds it difficult to classify as a revolution an independence process almost conflict-free) was led by people in their thirties. For example, the government's first cabinet led by Mart Laar had an average of 32 years old. The wide successive victories of liberal and center-right parties did not prevent the formation of non-Communist center-left parties, as the Coalition Party. Instead, the nomenclatura (the Communist elite) failed to win seats in the Riikogu (Estonian parliament) and in 1995 only got 316 votes.

In Ukraine, on the other hand, the Ruj (an anticommunist movement) did not dare to fight for the government because it consider itself inexperienced on management issues. This allowed Kravchuk, First Secretary General of the Communist Party, to be who negotiated with Moscow the independence in the Belavezha Accords. After, came Kuchma from 1994 to 2000, having previously been a communist leader. The country thus transformed from Soviet communism to crony capitalism. Not only the extensive coorruption stole the country's wealth, but also led to a state of things in which, for example, 70 journalists were killed during Kuchma's government.

So it is easy to understand why, among other reasons, economic perfomance (and, therefore, development) were dramatrically opposed. The World Bank does not provide GDP growth data for Estonia before 1996, so I take this year as a starting point for a simple 10 years graph that illustrates the compared growth of GDP in percentages:

Source: World Bank

In 1997, Estonia grew by 13% while Ukraine decreased by 3%. If my Excel worked, I could complete the chart and add the previous five years reporting even much more impressive numbers. In 1995 Estonia ended the period of GDP decline caused by the economic shock, while Ukraine took four more years to do so. Coincidence? We are talking about two states that, beyond their clear size difference, belonged to the same country until years earlier.

While many in Latin America talk about the "nineties" as a dark decade, in other latitudes was an age of miracles and dreams. Not only Estonia, but also the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary demonstrated that in Europe the happiness no longer ends in Vienna.










And this is an FanArt that appears in Google Images if you search "Estonia and Ukraine". I do not know what the artist intended to portray, but I found it tender. Who might be who?