NEWSWATCH: “How Western aid enables graft addiction in Ukraine” – Washington Post/Neil A. Abrams, M. Steven Fish
Over the past 25 years, Western donors have funneled billions of dollars into post-communist Ukraine, with two main goals: helping the country build a self-sustaining, competitive market economy, and laying the legal and regulatory groundwork for a law-governed state. … the hopes that accompanied the EuroMaidan movement of 2014 have crashed on the rocks of renewed asset-grabbing …. gains from modest successes in economic reform have been washed out by impunity at the top along with a lack of progress in civil service reform and movement toward a law-based state. … Can Western aid actually support the cause of reform in Ukraine? Or is Western assistance enabling an entrenched elite to continue stealing and avoid building a functioning state? And what can social science research tell us about the answers to these questions?