The World Bank Gives Russia a Big Fat "F"
Filed under: Russia
The World Bank has issued its World Governance Indicators report for 2007, and Vladimir Putin's Russia has -- once again -- been given a dunce cap.
The World Bank reviewed Russia, and 211 other countries, in six governance categories: i) Voice & Accountability, ii) Political Stability and Lack of Violence/Terrorism, iii) Government Effectiveness, iv) Regulatory Quality v) Rule of Law and vi) Control of Corruption.
In five of the six categories, all but stability, Putin's Russia received a lower score this year than it got last year. In "Rule of Law," Russia's score dipped into the bottom 20% of all countries surveyed. The significance of this result is staggering: Russia sits on the G-8 and has a veto in the United Nations Security Council, but 80% of the world's nations, four out of five surveyed, have greater respect for the institution of the law than neo-Soviet Russia does. And lets not forget that Russia has far more convictions and pending cases in the European Court for Human Rights than any other nation; it's been convicted there of political, state-sponsored murder and ordered to pay damages to victim families. To put it mildly, Russia is not qualified to hold roles in these law-based institutions.
The extent of Vladimir Putin's failure to effectively govern Russia is also quite staggering. In "Control of Corruption" and "Accountability," Russia's score dipped into the bottom quartile. In "Regulatory Quality," Russia experienced its biggest drop of any category, a massive 20% slide to approach the bottom third of all countries on the list. In "Stability," Russia experienced its only increase in score, but it still remained in the bottom quartile of all countries surveyed in that category. Its highest score is now for "Government Effectiveness," but here Russia's percentile score dropped from 41 in last year to 38 this year, rapidly approaching the bottom third in this category as well.
The conclusion? Two-thirds of the world's nations are better-governed than Russia. In many specific criteria, three-fourths. That's total, abject failure for a nation with Russia's resources, long history and level of technical sophistication.
There's little new here, only confirmation of a horrifying pattern. Russia's scores from international review entities are consistently appalling, and its World Bank scores last year were also nearly universally lower than the year before.
What's really shocking is not Putin's inability to govern, that's to be expected given his total lack of qualifications. Rather, we should be surprised that Putin continues to enjoy 70%+ public opinion polls approval even as Russia's population plummets and it becomes an isolated pariah in the community of nations due to its neo-Soviet foreign policy, all while its government fails miserably in governing the people who are lucky enough to be left alive. And even more amazing is our own inability to recognize this disaster in the making and respond appropriately.
Putin is offering Russia marginal stability (though still at a horrifyingly low level by international standards) at the cost of every other aspect of civilized society. That's exactly what Stalin offered. How can Russia avoid meeting the USSR's fate?
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