1. What impact do vision, values, and getting to value added have in achieving an edge on corporate citizenship? What are the underpinning themes of citizenship and systems thinking? Provide examples and research to support your thinking. <\/p>\n
2. MANAGERS OF THE GRAY ZONE<\/p>\n
DECEPTIVE APPEARANCES
In this way Ukraine and other former communist countries are fully in line with the Soviet tradition where the Communist Party\u2019s dominance was exercised largely outside formal institutions and aside of, or even against, written rules.<\/p>\n
The peculiarity of these systems, D\u2019Anieri explains, is not just that they lack rule of law, but that they are run under rule by law, in which the law is a weapon to be selectively applied against one\u2019s adversaries. In this regard, he maintains, \u201cthe \u2018absence of the rule of law\u2019 is not simply something that just exists like bad weather. Rather, it is something that results from the accumulated efforts of interested actors to ensure that decisions support their political interest.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pursuit of political goals by going outside the established rules \u2014 the author\u2019s definition of \u201cpower politics\u201d \u2014 is in Ukraine heavily concentrated in the executive branch and includes selective law enforcement, regulation of the economy, influence over the media, and other measures. The use of money as well as the use of, or threat of, violence are important aspects of power politics. \u201cAt crucial times in Moscow, Kyiv, and elsewhere, vital institutional decisions have been determined by the ability of different actors to apply physical force.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, the author sums up, \u201cto understand post-Soviet Ukrainian politics we need to understand \u2018power politics\u2019 as well as institutional design. Institutional design will help us understand the effects of different arrangements. Power politics will tell us why certain rules have been adopted and why the rules do not apply equally to all actors.\u201d<\/p>\n
ROOTS OF POWER POLITICS
D\u2019Anieri, an American scholar and university administrator who specializes in analyzing the region\u2019s political and economic institutions, asserts that the concentration of power in the hands of the executive is the key to understanding politics in post-Soviet Ukraine and elsewhere in the former Soviet Union.<\/p>\n
No separation of powers had ever existed in the system where the Communist Party held a total\/totalitarian monopoly on everything. In practical terms it means that neither legislature nor judiciary had been ever perceived as independent bodies designed to check and, if necessary, to curb the executive from abusing power.
The second important aspect of that burdensome legacy is the remains of party-state control of the entire economy, which laid the foundation for the eventual mutual reinforcement of political and economic power in the post-Soviet states and, as D\u2019Anieri aptly remarks, for large-scale corruption that both supports and is supported by this vicious circle:<\/p>\n
\u201cPolitical authority was a necessary and sufficient condition for acquiring economic power and wealth [in post-Soviet countries], sometimes on a fantastic scale. Simultaneously, economic power was necessary and nearly sufficient to obtain political power\u2026 To put it simply, political power is highly concentrated in Ukraine because it started out that way, and because the system tends to reinforce that concentration rather than to disperse it.\u201d
D\u2019Anieri recognizes, however, that the system did not necessarily have to move in that direction. Ukraine could have avoided the consolidation of authoritarianism had reformers pushed through institutional changes more vigorously. This would have been no easy task, of course, since they had rather limited support in the society at the time and could barely muster a strong pro-reform majority in the parliament.<\/p>\n
The main constraint, though, was probably psychological. So long as the new state\u2019s independence was not secured, the reformers tried not to antagonize the local, rather territorial than national, nomenklatura who opportunistically supported Ukraine\u2019s pro-independence drive. This inevitably placed them in a much weaker bargaining position vis-\u00e0 -vis the ancien regime than was the case in other post-communist countries. Nevertheless, this segment of the political class could certainly have been much more active and purposeful in their demands for early parliamentary elections immediately after independence, for adoption of a new constitution (not passed until 1996), and for other institutional changes like judicial reform, a new electoral law, and new regulations to promote the role of political parties in coalition-building and government-making.<\/p>\n
In brief, their main goal should have been to strictly separate powers and, in particular, to strengthen the legislature as the main counterbalance to the executive that had been traditionally overpowered since Soviet times. Instead, as D\u2019Anieri notes, Ukraine \u201cbuilt its new institutions very much within the institutional framework constructed by the Soviets (and with almost all of the same personnel).\u201d In a sense, this was part of the cost incurred by prizing national independence over political revolution. Predictably, the old system fought back. \u201cUkraine\u2019s slide to authoritarianism,\u201d D\u2019Anieri contends, \u201cwas a result of fundamental imbalance in the distribution of political power \u2026<\/p>\n
The system was very vulnerable to a chief executive who sought to use the state apparatus to control both the economic and political spheres in the country.\u201d
It was true that \u201cLeonid Kravchuk did not seem to be such an executive, [n]or initially did Leonid Kuchma,\u201d but this mattered little in view of a broader and much more powerful institutional logic. The logic of power politics implies, in particular, that any ambitious leader tends to amass his power and expand his prerogatives, and any powerful institution tends to convert its de facto power into legitimate power and vice versa. Therefore, D\u2019Anieri notes, \u201cwe should not necessarily conclude that the politicians themselves are different \u2014 that Western politicians are inherently honest and that others are not. The difference seems to be in how far politicians can go in different countries before something or somebody pushes back. \u2026 In liberal democracies, politicians who become increasingly powerful tend to engender increasing opposition.<\/p>\n
In electoral authoritarian systems, in contrast, political and economic power tend to centralize, such that those who initially gain an advantage can then use that leverage to create further advantage. This self-reinforcing cycle is limited only by the competence and lifespan of the ruler.\u201d
Thus, separation of powers and mutual checks among the different parts of government and different interests in society is the only way to prevent usurpation of power by the strongest player. The institutions, D\u2019Anieri suggests, should be crafted in such a way that the personal virtue of politicians is irrelevant.
The \u201cbenign\u201d behavior of Kravchuk, president from 1991 to 1994, and the early Kuchma hardly stemmed from their benign law-abiding nature or sheer good will.<\/p>\n
At many times and occasions each proved to be a rather typical post-Soviet man with a profoundly uncivic political culture and a deeply entrenched belief that ends justify means, winners take all, and any law is inferior to political and\/or economic expedience.
It looks more likely that neither Kravchuk nor the early Kuchma had yet accumulated enough political and economic resources to effectively implement power politics. Not until the end of his first term could Kuchma accrue the needed resources and acquire the needed skills to combine masterfully coercion and manipulation, bribery and blackmail, intimidation and cooptation.<\/p>\n
ELECTORAL AUTHORITARIANISM
The system Kuchma created was certainly not unique: there are a great many countries characterized as partial (delegative, illiberal, imitative) democracies \u2014 i.e., countries that, being basically authoritarian in terms of unchecked concentration of power in the executive, yet make extensive use of democratic rhetoric and employ seemingly democratic institutions and procedures.<\/p>\n
The main goal of these hybrid regimes, as D\u2019Anieri aptly remarks, is to \u201cyield some degree of democratic legitimacy without succumbing to democratic control.\u201d In other words, they strive to achieve undemocratic goals through quasi-democratic means, to avoid genuine political competition without overt political repression and dictatorial brutality that might evoke international condemnation.
To this aim, three broad categories of resources are employed: \u201ccontrol over law and administrative enforcement, control over large sectors of the economy, and patronage (control over government jobs).\u201d The concentration of these resources in the hands of the executive had been, by and large, predetermined by the initial imbalance of power inherited from the Soviet state, and the inability of civil society and the democratic opposition to fix the problem.
Two major factors facilitated the process in the 1990s: societal fragmentation and what D\u2019Anieri defines as the \u201cnonrevolutionary nature of political change in Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first factor made virtually impossible any consolidation of political opposition and enabled the post-Soviet elite to wield divide-and-rule tactics to good effect. The second factor resulted in slow, incoherent, and often confusing reforms that provided an excellent opportunity for the elite to pursue power in a highly ambiguous legal environment.
Partial reforms created an economic gray area between plan and market that \u201callowed well-placed actors to get richer than they could either in a fully planned or fully marketized system.\u201d Rather predictably, these rent-seekers did their best to \u201chalt further reform in order to \u2018freeze\u2019 the economy in this highly lucrative intermediate position.\u201d
One might argue also that a gray zone emerged and was deliberately frozen in a legal sphere where a great many laws were either missing or overlapping, contradictory, incomplete, confusing, arbitrarily interpreted, or poorly enforced.<\/p>\n
This was a kind of no-man\u2019s land, an unmarked territory up for grabs, a place where might makes right and the strongest players can broaden their holdings by sheer force. The institutional logic is simple: \u201cpartial reform of a system with concentrated power leads to continued concentration of power.\u201d Hence, \u201cgiven the original distribution of power in Ukraine in 1991, the partial opening of the system made it easier, not harder, for those with power to consolidate it. \u2026 As a result, the powerful become more so, and those with lack of access to resources find themselves increasingly shut out.\u201d
By the mid-\u201990s the situation had become ripe for a large-scale privatization now that the main players in Ukrainian politics and the economy had accumulated sufficient resources to carry it out in the most beneficial way. The blessing, however, was mixed.<\/p>\n
The dubious sources of their wealth and murky course of privatization made them potentially easy targets for the surveillance and law-enforcement agencies subordinated directly to the president. All of them appeared to be on the hook, and it was up to President Kuchma now to decide who would be punished and when, and who would be generously granted an extended probation.
Selective application of law became a powerful instrument of official, albeit informal, blackmail employed by the president and his associates. It allowed them to reestablish a kind of order throughout the country, making the state institutions work and seeing that taxes were paid and the oligarchs stayed obedient. But the side effect of this relative success was a gradual elimination of pluralism \u2014 since it was \u201cpluralism by default\u201d (so described by the political scientist Lucan Way): pluralism accompanied and supported by state fecklessness, rather than democratic norms, traditions and institutions.<\/p>\n
The kind of authoritarianism that flourished in Ukraine, one that builds legitimacy through seemingly free elections and other ostensibly democratic procedures, differs substantially from the traditional one that maintains power primarily through ideology or coercion. But the effectiveness of this system, as D\u2019Anieri aptly remarks, has clear limits. The executive\u2019s power is significant but not total. Elections are manipulated in multiple ways but not thoroughly rigged. The authorities can tip the balance in their favor in a close race but \u201cit is much more difficult to use such methods to overcome a very large deficit in popular sentiment.\u201d
And this is exactly what happened in 2004 when the incumbent Kuchma picked out a highly unpopular prime minister, Viktor Yanukovych, to succeed him in the presidency.<\/p>\n
To make Kuchma\u2019s bad situation worse, the opposition unexpectedly united, civil society proved to be stronger than was assumed, and elites defected from the president\u2019s camp much more massively than anybody could have foreseen. All these factors combined with the international pressure made the defeat of the electoral authoritarian regime inevitable. One should not forget however, that \u201cKuchma failed not because he was constrained by institutions but because, in the end, he was confronted by superior power.\u201d The Orange Revolution marked rather a departure from authoritarianism than the arrival of a full-fledged liberal democracy. \u201cThis is so not only because in Ukraine there are still retrograde and corrupt political forces that have no intention of admitting defeat. It is also true because the institutional basis for liberal democracy is still incomplete.\u201d<\/p>\n
RECRAFTING THE INSTITUTIONS<\/p>\n
The Orange Revolution brought about a number of important institutional changes that made Ukraine\u2019s return to Kuchma-style authoritarianism rather unlikely. They include, first of all, constitutional amendments which substantially limited the president\u2019s power and expanded the prerogatives of the prime minister and parliament. In addition, the mixed proportional-majoritarian voting system was replaced by a pure proportional system that eliminated elections in single-member districts where power politics thrived most. And finally, the rules governing the functioning of parliament were adjusted to the constitutional changes. In particular, they now require the creation of a majority coalition in order for a government to be formed. This provision, alongside with proportional representation, is expected to boost the development of the parties and to strengthen their sense of political responsibility for the government they form.<\/p>\n
All these changes, however, were made during the revolution in haste, with numerous inconsistencies and contradictions. Most importantly, no effective barriers were erected against the continued use of selective law enforcement. The \u201crough-and-tumble nature of Ukrainian politics\u201d remained unchanged. Rather than moving towards a liberal democracy, Ukraine is more likely today to return to the Kravchuk era, \u201cwhen the division of executive power among president, prime minister, and parliament led to constant infighting and stalemate\u201d \u2014 a state of what Thomas Carothers has cogently termed feckless pluralism. Then, the paralysis of key institutions and ensuing political and legal chaos had heavily compromised the very idea of parliamentary democracy in the public\u2019s eyes and paved the way for Kuchma\u2019s eventual hyperpresidentialism. Now, much deeper, broader, and more coherent institutional changes are needed to secure Ukraine\u2019s democratic transition.<\/p>\n
The 2004 constitutional amendments have thus far fostered a kind of \u201coverlapping powers\u201d system rather than clearly separating the branches of government and establishing strong checks and balances. Again, as in 1996 when the new constitution was adopted or in 1991-92 when the old Soviet one was patched up in the wake of Ukraine\u2019s independence, all the changes reflect far more the existing balance of powers, the bargaining position of participants, than any idealistic drive to create a perfect document and facilitate the development of liberal democracy and rule of law.<\/p>\n
In his perspicacious analysis of the 1996 constitutional process, D\u2019Anieri remarks that \u201cthe way in which the constitution was adopted was much more important than its content.\u201d He refers here to Kuchma\u2019s ability to go outside the constitutional process, to use extralegal \u201craw power\u201d and force the parliament to pass his version of the document under the threat (however dubious from the legal point of view) of dissolution.
\u201cThis, not the advent of a constitutional order, was the key outcome. \u2026 While many saw the adoption of the 1996 constitution as a triumph for Ukrainian democracy, because the new document was superior on paper to what it replaced, it was in fact the beginning of the end of constitutional government. \u2026 When the constitution can be ignored by the president, or when he can credibly threaten to ignore it, the quality and details of the constitutional provisions lose their importance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ironically, much the same can be said of the 2004 institutional changes and the eventual behavior of all the key actors. On one hand, the Kuchma constitution was substantially patched up during the revolution \u2014 just as the Soviet constitution had been in 1991. On the other hand, the amendments neither clearly separated the branches of government and unequivocally defined their prerogatives, nor satisfied the president, the prime minister, and the parliament. Each side calls for further revisions of the document \u2014 not for greater efficiency but primarily for personal or corporate gain, and each side undermines, ignores, and compromises various clauses of the existing document in the meantime. <\/strong> All the major political players seem to be satisfied with a legal gray zone \u2014 as long as they can hope to assert their own authority over the disputed area. Sooner or later, the strongest, the smartest, or merely the luckiest player will outplay the rivals and establish his or her own version of \u201cmanaged democracy\u201d in a poorly managed realm. People would cheer the savior. If only the players would come to terms with a simple truth: that goals do not justify the means, winners should not take all, and political expediency cannot be superior to law. The next step would be to parcel out the gray zone and choose trustworthy arbiters to manage it. This solution looks simple but, as D\u2019Anieri suggests at one point, it depends much more on societal norms than institutions. Starting from the very top, everyone must accept a simple but difficult truth: good or bad, it\u2019s the law. By Mykola Riabchuk<\/p>\n Read \u201cManagers of the Gray Zone\u201d. What can be taken from the understanding and evaluation of the leaders of Ukraine that is applicable to the three spheres? How are the gaps suggested in the political power and informal actions meaningful in understanding the three spheres and the impact this can have on other countries or cultures?<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 1. What impact do vision, values, and getting to value added have in achieving an edge on corporate citizenship? What are the underpinning themes of citizenship and systems thinking? Provide examples and research to support your thinking. 2. MANAGERS OF Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55198\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Remarkably, no one who laments the deficiencies of the constitution apparently is concerned for legal reform, an independent judiciary, and strict and uniform implementation of laws.<\/strong><\/p>\n
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