Despite having similar stories of conception, post-Soviet Eurasian states (including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan) have varied widely in their transition to independence, their ability to create successful democratic institutions, and the protections provided for the political rights and civil liberties of their citizens. As is the case with Russia, many of the post-Soviet states’ transitions to democracy were never fully realized, and many began to slide back towards authoritarianism – in some cases, even after adopting more liberal policies and democratic institutions following independence. By 1998, Russia had reversed many of its democratic policies and began obstructing political parties, canceling gubernatorial elections, and adopting tight restrictions on freedom of press and assembly. By 2004, Russia had reestablished itself as strongly authoritarian under President Vladamir Putin, and many of the surrounding non-Baltic post-Soviet states followed suit. The coinciding backslide of democracy in Russia and the surrounding states begs the question of if and how Russia may be impacting the political development of other developing nations, specifically post-Soviet Eurasian states.  

Russia, however, is not the only autocratic superpower in the region that may be impacting the political development of new/developing nation-states. According to data from the World Bank and The Observatory of Economic Complexity, since 1989, China’s GDP has grown at an average of 9% per year, and their global exports have increase from $330 billion in 2000 to $2.65 trillion in 2020, meaning they have far surpassed Russia in terms of economic power. China is far from a model democracy, having one of the most repressive governments in Asia and providing minimal political rights and civil liberties compared to other states with comparable GDP. Over the past two decades, China has made both explicit power-moves in terms of establishing regional hegemony in Taiwan and Hong Kong, as well as implicit power-moves through financial projects such as their “Belt and Road Initiative”, establishing trade networks, and the purchasing of foreign debts. Thus, it is possible that, in addition to Russia, China has played a significant role in the global shift towards autocracy in the last two decades.

Thus, the underlying question driving my research is: How have Autocratic Superpowers contributed to the global backslide of democracy and human rights over the last two decades? As Human Rights literature and International Development literature have proven, states with representative governments, strong institutions, and high levels of personal freedoms tend to have lower numbers of human rights violations, are less likely to deal with political violence / uprisings, and generally provide a greater standard of living for their citizens. Therefore, it logically follows that the global backslide of democracy and democratic values have coincided with a global backslide of respect and protection of individuals’ rights. In this paper, I will explore whether dependence on authoritarian super-powers (particularly Russia and China) for trade and economic growth has led to a deterioration of political rights and civil liberties for citizens in developing states. To do so, I will focus specifically on the case of post-Soviet Eurasian states. 

Spencer Chrein is a 2023 Political Science graduate from Washington University in St. Louis and a 2023 Fall Intern at the Washington International Trade Association. 

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Chapter I: Global Trends and Prospects

A. TOO CLOSE TO THE EDGE

1. A year of serial crises

After a rapid but uneven recovery in 2021, the world economy is in the midst of cascading and multiplying crises. With incomes still below 2019 levels in many major economies, growth is slowing everywhere. The cost-of-living crisis is hurting the majority of households in advanced and developing countries. Damaged supply chains remain fragile in key sectors. Government budgets are under pressure from fiscal rules and highly volatile bond markets. Debt-distressed countries, including over half of low-income countries and about a third of middle-income countries, are edging ever closer to default. Financial markets are jittery, as questions mount about the reliability of some asset classes. The vaccine roll-out has stalled, leaving vulnerable countries and communities exposed to new outbreaks of the pandemic. Against this troubling backdrop, climate stress is intensifying, with mounting loss and damage in vulnerable countries who lack the fiscal space to deal with disasters, let alone invest in their own long-term development. In some countries, the economic hardship resulting from these compounding crises is already triggering social unrest that can quickly escalate into political instability and conflict.

The resulting policy challenges are daunting, especially in an international system marked by rising distrust. At the same time, the institutions of global economic governance, tasked since 1945 with mitigating global shocks, delivering international public goods and providing a global financial safety net, have been hampered by insufficient resources and policy tools and options that are “rigid and old fashioned” (Syed, 2022; Yellen, 2022). Even as growth in advanced economies slows down more sharply than anticipated in last year’s Report, the attention of policymakers has become much too focused on dampening inflationary pressures through restrictive monetary policies, with the hope that central banks can pilot the economy to a soft landing, avoiding a full-blown recession. Not only is there a real danger that the policy remedy could prove worse than the economic disease, in terms of declining wages, employment and government revenues, but the road taken would reverse the pandemic pledges to build a more sustainable, resilient and inclusive world (chapter III).

As noted in last year’s Report, the pandemic caused greater economic damage in the developing world than the global financial crisis. Moreover, with their fiscal space squeezed and inadequate multilateral financial support, these countries’ bounce back in 2021 proved uneven and fragile, dependent in many cases on a further build-up in external debt. The immediate prospects for many developing and emerging economies will depend, to a large extent, on the policy responses adopted in advanced economies. The rising cost of borrowing and a reversal of capital flows, combined with a sharper than expected slowing of China’s growth engine and the economic repercussions from the war in Ukraine, are already dampening the pace of recovery in many developing countries, with the number of those in debt distress rising, and some in default. With 46 developing countries already severely exposed to financial pressure from the high cost of food, fuel and borrowing, and more than double that number exposed to at least one of those threats, the possibility of a widespread developing country debt crisis is a very real one, evoking painful memories of the 1980s and ending any hope of meeting the sustainable development goals (SDGs) by the end of the decade.

The acceleration of inflation beginning in the second half of 2021 (figure 1.1) and continuing even as economic growth began to slow down in the final quarter of the year has led many to draw parallels with the stagflationary conditions of the 1970s. Despite the absence of the wage-price spirals that characterized that decade, policymakers appear to be hoping that a short sharp monetary shock – along the lines, if not of the same magnitude, as that pursued by the United States Federal Reserve (the Fed) under Paul Volker – will be sufficient to anchor inflationary expectations without triggering recession. Sifting through the economic entrails of a bygone era is unlikely, however, to provide the forward guidance needed for a softer landing given the deep structural and behavioural changes that have taken place in many economies, particularly those related to financialization, market concentration and labour’s bargaining power.

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