Abstract
The victory of the EuroMaidan, with Yanukovich’s flight to Russia in February 2014, once again raised hopes of real change, reminiscent of the days of the Orange Revolution. Two years of governing by the new leaders is of course too short a time frame to render a definitive judgment, particularly since a full presidential election took place only in May 2014, and a new parliament, prime minister and permanent cabinet was not fully in place until December 2014.
‘We have launched a number of important and very
difficult reforms. However, the public wants more.’
President Poroshenko Speech, Feb.15, 2016
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Notes
- 1.
That the war should not be made an excuse for inadequate progress on reforms will be argued in the final section of the chapter.
- 2.
The author, along with four other foreign advisors to the government at the time, wrote several articles in the Ukrainian press arguing that the opportunity was ripe for far greater reforms, even on the fiscal side. They included Anders Aslund; Basil Kalymon of the Ivey School; Kahha Bendukidze, former minister of economy in Georgia; and Daron Acemoglu of MIT.
- 3.
Aslund (2015).
- 4.
Schadler (2014) typifies the sceptical position.
- 5.
Though there is a minor, forgivable, exaggeration in this: the improvement is said to have been from 2014 to 2015; in fact Table 8.2 shows most of it came in 2014.
- 6.
Turkmenistan is not included in the sample as it does not allow such an exercise.
- 7.
This section relies largely on media reports from Ukraine, in particular the weekly summaries of the Ukraine Crisis Media Centre.
- 8.
All citations concerning the EU are from the EU website.
- 9.
Ukraine Crisis Media Centre, 24–30 November 2015.
- 10.
Reported in Ekonomichna Pravda (2015).
- 11.
Freedom House (2015) Freedom in the World 2015, accessed at https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world-2015/table-country-ratings on 15.01.2016. Note the ratings are for the year 2014; ratings for 2015 were not yet available at the time of writing.
- 12.
The Economist (2015).
- 13.
Khmara (2016), p. 2.
- 14.
Poshva (2015).
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Havrylyshyn, O. (2017). Reforms and Performance under Poroshenko. 2014–Present. In: The Political Economy of Independent Ukraine. Studies in Economic Transition. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57690-3_8
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