Ukraine’s Government from 1991 to 1994

Part 1 introduced my theory that Ukrainian “institutional uncertainty” is why everyone’s adoption experience is different. Part 2 was a specific example of the institutions themselves causing the uncertainty. Eventually people stop believing their government and institutions when they are lied to over and over.

So back to the Verkhovna Rada, the law making institution.

The communist party was banned by law (not sure but I think this happened on August 24, 1991). The former communists simple declared themselves independent and continued to associate and caucus as a group.

The Rada created by the 1994 election had a lot of factional fighting and people searching for identity. The idea of political parties was being worked out. Parliamentary deliberations became deadlocked over philosophical debates rather then legislative issues.

Here is a quote about other governmental institutions.

Ukraine inherited from the former Soviet state only 13,000 government administrators. Perhaps this was a sufficient number of run a Soviet colony, but it is certainly far too few to staff the institutions of a modern, independent state of 52 million souls. The United Kingdom, for example, a country with roughly the same population as Ukraine, has nearly half a million administrators.

From: State and Institution Building in Ukraine

Now the civil service is the backbone for good government. And while adopting we are dealing with civil servants. The civil service administrates the law. Regulations are created to govern the civil servants. Typically laws are created and regulations follow soon after. Now Ukraine did hire more civil servants. But they had to deal with the problem of training them and how to govern their role.

I am going to skip a lot of information on the civil servants and the Jan 1, 1994 civil service law. But here is an interesting quote,

It was obviously impossible and inadvisable to write the entire regulatory framework at once……… estimated that some 90 substantial regulatory documents would have to be written once the law was adopted.

From: State and Institution Building in Ukraine

So is it any wonder that civil servants are still winging it? 12 years later there are still gaps in regulation.

To be continued……

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Institutional Uncertainty
Chernobyl
Ukraine’s Government from 1991 to 1994
Ukraine’s Government from 2000 to 2006
Why is everyone’s adoption experience unique?