The Ukraine Contrarians

Dan Drezner's attacks on skeptics about the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine coming from some elements of the British left strike me as rather apt, but as Yushchenko seems to have uniform support in the blogosphere (for whatever little that's worth) I won't pile on with criticism, but instead try to tease out what value exists in contrarian arguments. For one thing, the contrarians are almost certainly right that realpolitik plays a large role in explaining the level of Western interest in and commit to reform in Ukraine (and some other recent developments in other post-communist countries). Unlike the contrarians, I'm not exactly sure what's wrong with that. In Eastern Europe (unlike Latin America, the Middle East, and Russia where the issues are more complicated), the concept of "imperialism" bears a Russian (or, for the more historically inclined, German) stamp, and democracy-promotion and mild nationalism have proven to be an effective tool for advancing American and Western European interests over the past 25 years. When ideals and interests are in pretty good alignment, that should be regarded as a good thing, not a reason to abandon interests and ideals alike.

The more apt contrarian point is that a single reformist victory (if it happens) does not a democracy make. Typically, you can't tell whether or not a given event was a democratic watershed until several years after it's happened when the putative reformists lose, and then again whenever whoever beats them loses. After a few peaceful transfers of power you can say democracy has really started to consolidate itself. That the more popular guy takes power after one disputed election isn't really here or there, especially under circumstances where neither side is squeaky clean. In many Eastern European countries the carrots of membership in NATO, the EU, or both have proven to be powerful incentives keeping countries on the path toward democracy even when many influential actors seem inclined to go another route. The presence of non-trivial opposition to the reform movement in the Russophile east and the Russian government's large degree of interest in preventing Ukraine from drifting out of its orbit will make this process much more difficult to undertake in Ukraine. If Russia itself were still moving toward liberalization, that might be a different matter, but things being what they are continues strife and crisis seem rather likely.