The emergence of a post-orange economic development model in Ukraine?

Abstract

This article analyzes the peculiarities of the emergence of a post-orange economic development model in Ukraine when the global financial crisis rebalanced political forces away in Ukraine from ‘orange’ parties which favoured the Washington consensus and a pro-western foreign policy towards so-called ‘blue and white’ forces, led by PRU, which represented national capital and favoured a more constructive relationship with Russia. The paper argues that Ukraine’s geopolitical location, in which the west and Russia compete with each other for influence, will ensure that the country’s path of development will likely remain conflicted. The paper concludes that first, some fiscal consolidation and reallocation is required to create either an entrepreneurial or a developmental state; and second, whilst emotion and soft power pulls Ukraine westwards hard calculation should make it look to Eurasia too.