Freedom House president addresses question of Ukraine's transition to democracy (09/29/02)

Freedom House president addresses question of Ukraine's transition to democracy

by Oksana Zakydalsky

TORONTO - Is Ukraine still a country in transition towards democracy and a market economy, or has this transition ended and a new type of state taken root? This was the question addressed at the September 13 seminar of the Center for Russian and European Studies (CREES) at the University of Toronto by Adrian Karatnycky, president of Freedom House, in his presentation titled "Post-Communist Nations in Transit: Is Reform Pessimism Justified?"

Freedom House is the publisher of the "Nations in Transit" report, which measures and compares the reform process in the former Communist countries of Eastern and Central Europe and Eurasia. The sixth edition of the series, "Nations in Transit 2002," was published in August.

The report covers 27 countries and analyzes broad trends and the status of reforms related to democratization, the rule of law and economic liberalization. To make the data comparable, both among countries and over time, the report assigns numerical ratings as a measure of the pace of reform. The ratings are based on a scale of 1 to 7, with 1 representing the optimal level of practice and 7 the most repressive level (i.e., the lower the number the better).

On the basis of the democratization scores, the 2002 report groups the countries into three cohorts: Consolidated Democracies (includes 10 countries of Central and Eastern Europe plus the Baltics), Transitional Governments (14, mostly former Soviet republics, including Ukraine) and Consolidated Autocracies (three). Similar groupings are provided for economic policy.

Former Soviet states regress

Looking at trends over the last five-year period, the report shows that there has been significant reform progress in the countries of the first group - their democratization scores improved from an average of 3.12 in 1998 to 2.73 in the 2002 report, while their median democratization score went from 3.55 to 2.13. However, the states of the former Soviet Union show the opposite trend - the average democratization score for the 12 new countries declined from 5.23 in 1998 to 5.41 in 2002 report, while their median democratization score fell from 5.08 in 1998 to 5.41.

Mr. Karatnycky pointed out that these trends are a measure of the widening democracy gap between the Central and Eastern European states (plus the Baltics) and the former Soviet countries, and stressed that this not only shows a legacy difference but represents a major structural variation. The former Soviet states exhibit a concentration of executive power not balanced by other institutions - what he called "hyperpresidentialism."

The lack of democratic progress in the former Soviet states has generated a new literature of pessimism concerning reform and reform potential. Some analysts investigating democracy theory have taken the position that these states have found a stable and systemic way of governing with none of the trappings of participation. Although they want to strengthen their legitimacy, at the same time they seek to fend off any kind of change of power.

Labeled as 'ambiguous regimes'

Instead of being labeled as transitional states, the former Soviet countries, Ukraine among them, are called - ambiguous regimes, hybrid regimes, pseudo-democracies, façade democracies or illiberal democracies. It is claimed, furthermore, that these states are at durable endpoints in their evolution and that it was a fallacy of the policy community to project the trends and capabilities of the Central and East European states onto the former Soviet plane.

Mr. Karatnycky mentioned two examples of this type of analysis - the articles "Thinking about Hybrid Regimes" by Larry Diamond and "The End of the Transition Paradigm" by Tom Carothers, which appeared in the Journal of Democracy (published in April and January, respectively). Both authors offer a skeptical look at the quality of democratic reform in the former Soviet Union. Mr. Carothers concludes that efforts to promote change in those countries have largely failed and much of the democracy aid has been wasted.

Reform potential remains

Mr. Karatnycky disagreed with this evaluation and maintained that the above authors have underestimated the level of political dynamism and reform potential of some of the former Soviet countries. "I would argue that, although they are right on certain fundamentals, there is an excessive pessimism, not about what has occurred, but about what kind of opportunities hybrid regimes may represent for limited but significant space for civic organizations and for alternative forms of social communication that allow one to compete or contest the efforts of the regimes, to inform the public and to structure public awareness in advance of political campaigns," he said.

Mr. Karatnycky explained that the "pessimists" fail to give due weight to the civil society that has emerged in, for example, Ukraine, and cited the "Nations in Transit 2002" country report on Ukraine, where the Civil Society indicator improved from 4.25 in 1998 to 3.75 in the 2002 report (the only one of the four indicators - political process, civil society, independent media, governance and public administration - measuring democratization to have done so).

"When we look at how civic mobilization has occurred, sometimes aided from the outside but often through the latticework of internal institutions, I would argue that there is a lot of potential, that the seeming stability of control, the control of the media, the use of administrative resources, the stealing of votes, the manipulations and harassments - all of these do not eliminate the possibility of peaceful regime change. Although they are constraining the natural development of the opposition, it has not been to a degree that excludes the possibility of breakthroughs and victories," Mr. Karatnycky pointed out.

Empowerment of the people

People have been empowered and have created alternative ways of communicating, organizing and mobilizing. Mr. Karatnycky argued that in some of the post-Soviet countries, particularly in Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Ukraine, there still is potential for change. This is less so in places that are authoritarian dominant-party states with no substantial space for political activity and peaceful reform and where there is only a very nominal opposition.

As an example that the pessimistic view of reform in the so-called hybrid states needs modification, Mr. Karatnycky referred to this year's March elections to the Verkhovna Rada in Ukraine. "In those elections, despite the massive effort by the ruling authorities to influence public opinion in the media which is directly controlled by the government or by allied oligarchs, the public overwhelmingly supported the parties of the opposition. Only about 20 percent of the voters backed parties loyal to President Kuchma. Furthermore, post-election polls suggest that the majority of the voters would not only cast their votes for an opposition or reform candidate in the next (presidential) election (Viktor Yushchenko in particular) but even in the top four or five preferences, there was no one that could be called a standard bearer for the President," Mr. Karatnycky explained.

It should be pointed out that this discontent has been taking place during a period of economic growth. Thus, in an environment of a growing economy, regime hegemony over the media, authoritarian tactics, official harassment and a civil society that has been perceived to be relatively passive - discontent and opposition are evident. Elections are a good testing ground for the theory of whether the so-called hybrid states have found a formula to control and maintain stability and to marshal it effectively for the maintenance of power by the governing regime.

Grassroots mobilization

Mr. Karatnycky described three mechanisms that were at work in the recent Ukrainian elections. Firstly, there was a lot of grassroots mobilization and, although Ukraine is a large country, it was possible for several of the opposition candidates to have a substantial number of rallies in the two months of the election campaign. Yulia Tymoshenko conducted a blitz across the country in relatively well-organized fashion. Despite the instructions of the presidential administration to block her from any access to the media, it was impossible, in view of the crowds, for the media to completely ignore her and maintain some credibility with their constituents.

Secondly, there was an array of newspapers, not of great circulation - community papers and handout publications - that escaped the framework of censorship and became the vehicle through which the programs and activities of the opposition were presented.

And finally, the electorate is aware of the role of the non-governmental sector and of its place in society. There is a network of activists throughout Ukraine - student groups, local liberal intelligensia, social services-related activists (e.g., environmental and others) and people who were active in the nationalist ferment in the last years of the Soviet period and who are used to organizing and taking part in meetings. All of these came together to get the word out, to get people out in the squares, to distribute materials and literature. Mr. Karatnycky claimed that this political dynamism has been overlooked by the "pessimist" literature.

A transition paradigm

"We have to think in a new way about how the opposition is able to function within this type of hybrid regime. In that sense, I would argue that the reform pessimism that we hear so widely spread in the media and the policy community and in governments is not entirely justified. I do draw a distinction between some of the central Asian authoritarian regimes - I think Belarus is also a much harder case - but in the middle area of these ambiguous or hybrid regimes, I would argue for the continuation of a transition paradigm and for the maintenance of a transition strategy," Mr. Karatnycky said.

In his introductory essay to "Nations in Transit 2002," Mr. Karatnycky wrote: "Furthermore, because civil society is not merely a sui generis component of democratic life - it also presses for improved performance by a broad range of political, legal, social and economic institutions - an active civil society encourages better performance in most of the other categories that the 'Nations in Transit' series surveys and rates. This suggests that there is reason to remain cautiously hopeful about the reform potential of Ukraine which seems to have veered from the reform path."

"Nations in Transit 2002" is available online at: www.freedomhouse.org.

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