State-Level Effects on Elite Imitation

Abstract

This chapter begins to evaluate state-level learning by separating the pooled data used in chapter 4 by country. The basic relationships established in chapter 4 now tested for Ukrainian and Russian elites separately. In chapter 1, expectations for different effects in Ukraine and Russia were suggested based on the hypothesized effects of differing “formative experiences” for each state. These expectations are elaborated and tested here and in next chapter 6.

… O pointless, damned nation

When will you be free? When

Will our own Washington come to us

With a new and just law?

And someday he certainly will come!

—Taras Shevchenko, Iurodyvyy

… But he had read Adam Smith,

And he was deeply economic,

That is he understood how to judge,

How a state becomes wealthy,

And what makes its livelihood, and why

Gold is not needed,

If it just has a product.

—Alexander Pushkin, Evgenii Onegin