Lessons from the Ukrainian Transition: Reform Driving Forces in a Captured State

Description

This research project, led by CASE Ukraine, is a part of an international GDN project entitled "Understanding Reform". Within its framework, reports analyzing the causes of success and failure in the realization of social and economic reforms in 30 countries will be prepared.

The purpose of the Ukrainian study is to deepen the understanding of the dynamics of reform in that country, helping to define the economic, political and social determinants of the reform process against a perspective of other transition and developing countries. For the authors of the research, the most relevant framework for addressing the various questions concerning Ukrainian reforms is the concept of the 'capture' of the state by vested interests, according to which economic changes in Ukraine between 1991 and 2001 should be described in terms of a game between competing interest groups within the country's elite.

The two-year project, coordinated by Vladimir Dubrovskiy, will be concluded in 2005. The following economists are engaged in research: Vladimir Dubrovskiy (CASE Ukraine), Malgorzata Jakubiak (CASE), Janusz Szyrmer (CASE Ukraine), William Graves (The Bryant College), Olexiy Haran (School for Policy Analysis of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy), Evhen Golovakha (the Democratic Initiatives Foundation), and Oksana Novoseletska (CASE Ukraine).

A brief overview of the history of Ukrainian reforms, the project's main research hypothesis and the methology are described here.

Two analogous projects GDN carried out by CASE are:
1. Understanding Reform: The Case of Poland [more...]
2. Russia: Political Determinants of Economic Reforms [more...]