The Impact of Economic Crisis: Russia, Belarus and Ukraine in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

The differential participation of the post-communist countries in the world economy both conditions and mediates the effects of shocks from the world system. Major differences exist between leading European members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) (Russia, Belarus and Ukraine) and the post-communist New Member States (NMS) of the European Union. In responding to the financial and economic crisis of 2007 onwards, countries of the CIS were relatively less dependent on, and less integrated into, the world financial system than the NMS; consequently, direct contagion from the world financial crisis, although significant, had less impact on them compared with the NMS. While Russia, Belarus and Ukraine share some economic and structural features, they also have important differences. Economic crises were results of transformation trajectories as well as of financial contagion from the West. Future economic scenarios for Russia, Belarus and Ukraine involve not only exchange with the world system, but greater domestic development and participation in semi-autonomous economic blocs, including the wider CIS.