Ukraine may finally have a cabinet able to introduce radical reforms. For the first time in independent Ukraine’s history, its ministers are young and Western. Youth matters, as it’s a measure of the degree to which individuals are still captives of the Soviet past. Western attitudes and experience also matter, as they presumably reflect the willingness and ability of the ministers to embark on pro-Western reforms.
The composition of the new cabinet was announced on December 2nd. Most commentators focused on the fact that three of the ministers were foreigners—an American, a Lithuanian, and a Georgian. That was certainly indicative of Kyiv’s willingness to think “out of the box,” especially as two of the three received the crucial economic development and finance portfolios.
But the objective characteristics of the 20 cabinet members are no less important. Their mean age is 43.7; their median age is 44.5. (I was unable to find the date of birth of one minister: judging from his appearance, I calculated it at 45.) Here’s the age breakdown: 59, 50, 49, 49, 49, 47, 47, 47, 46, 45, 44, 44, 43, 40, 38, 38, 38, 36, 35, 30. The majority have spent more time living in post-Soviet than in Soviet conditions. The 59-year-old was 36 when the USSR collapsed, and the 30-year-old was only 7, but all the others were somewhere between 12 and 26 in 1991. And if you consider that Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika marked the end of Soviet totalitarianism, then the caesura gets moved back to 1986—which means that most of the ministers were between 7 and 21 when the Soviet world began to end.
No less important, the ministers are remarkably Western. Exactly one-half have studied abroad for some period of time; one-half have also had some form of extended experience with the West, whether in business, politics, or diplomacy. If you count all the individuals with either Western educations or Western experience (Western education and experience don’t always go together), then the number of ministers with some acquaintance with the West rises to 12—or 60 percent. In other words, these people know the West. They understand Western institutions and Western rules of the game. According to economist Anders Aslund, “All but two of the 20 ministers speak English, while only two ministers spoke English in President Viktor Yanukovych’s last government.”
Do these characteristics automatically mean that the ministers will promote pro-Western reforms? Of course not. On the other hand, these are just the features we would expect to see in a pro-Western, pro-reform cabinet. Naturally, one can criticize each individual minister for this or that—and the Ukrainian press has gleefully, and rightly, done just that. (Thus far, no exceptionally embarrassing skeletons have been found.) In the aggregate, however, this is an excellent group that has the knowledge and experience to introduce radical change. No less important, this is a group that probably understands that Ukraine’s economy could collapse in the absence of reforms and that the West will help Ukraine only if it embarks on reform.
So the news from Ukraine, at least with respect to the government, is quite good—finally. Given the positive nature of this development, it’s all the more bizarre for liberal, level-headed Western commentators to repeat the Kremlin’s line on the continuing threat of fascism in Ukraine. Here’s the celebrated author Anatol Lieven, currently a professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Qatar:
Kiev’s dependence on … oligarchs and on nationalist militias to fight the war in eastern Ukraine represents a serious and growing threat to Ukrainian democracy and to the spread of liberal values in Ukraine.
A worrying sign in this regard was the appointment last month of Vadim Troyan as regional chief of police in Kiev. His regiment, the Azov battalion, is known for links to the far right and his promotion seems largely in reward for his group’s participation in the fighting in eastern Ukraine.
But wait: doesn’t Kyiv’s appointment of a democratic cabinet represent a serious and growing promotion of Ukrainian democracy and of the spread of liberal values? Isn’t it at least worth mentioning, if only to provide some balance? Doesn’t the appointment of 20 pro-reform ministers trump the appointment of one right-wing cop?
And just why was Troyan appointed? Lieven obviously doesn’t know (hence his use of two conditionals “seems largely”), but if he had done some research, he might have learned that Interior Minister Arsen Avakov “seems largely” to have wanted a tough individual with the guts to implement his planned radical reform of the militia in a key province.
Personally, I don’t care for the Azov Battalion’s ideological leanings, and I share Lieven’s knee-jerk distaste for anyone sharing them. On the other hand, Troyan completed the Kharkiv University of Internal Affairs, proved himself in difficult fighting in eastern Ukraine, and was associated with Avakov’s former business partner, Oleksandr Lypchansky. None of this excuses Troyan’s politics—whatever they are—but it does suggest that Avakov wasn’t rewarding Azov when he promoted Troyan. Instead, he was promoting his own reform agenda and drawing on someone with the requisite experience and the old-boy connections. Avakov was acting like a Western politician, but that banality does not, alas, fit the sexier narrative of fascists lurking behind every tree.
