BISS and website of the expert community of Belarus «Nashe Mnenie» ("Our Opinion") has published the Belarusian Yearbook – 2010, a new issue of the series presenting annual integrated analyses of developments in the key segments of the state and society. The Yearbook is a contemporary chronicle of Belarus offering the reader a clear picture of how the modern challenges facing the authorities, opposition, economic agents and regular citizens came about.
The run-up to the presidential election campaign of 2010 predetermined the developments in almost every segment of social and state life, including the sectors that have traditionally stayed out of politics – sports and pop-culture. The critical overspending of resources and power with a view to ensuring Lukashenka’s victory in the presidential election anв brutal dispersal of the December 19 rally preconditioned the crisis of the year 2011 – the legitimacy crisis, currency crisis, credibility crisis, and a very likely large-scale socio-economic crisis of the fall of 2011. Apart from having other adverse effects, the actions of power-wielding agencies on December 19 nullified the efforts of the authorities to ensure a balanced foreign policy throughout 2010, and stood behind the critical dependence of Belarus on the main foreign political partner – Russia – in 2011.
The authors of the Yearbook indicate the following key trends of the year 2010:
- Decision-making authority is concentrated within a progressively narrowing group of people who bear no responsibility for implementation: the analysis of processes in the Presidential Administration and power bloc shows that special services and security agencies have become virtually subordinate to the Presidential Administration, or, to be more precise, to Viktar Lukashenka, the national security aide to the president. This fact had a decisive influence on the December 19 decisions and predetermined the special role of a new institution that Alexander Lukashenka formed as late as 2011 – the “security officials club”, which is to a great extent responsible for the developments in the spring and summer of 2011;
- The deteriorating administration crisis manifested itself in a misalignment of policies pursued by state institutions, primarily due to the widening gap between those making decisions and those responsible for implementation. The prerequisites for the crisis, manifested in the evident lack of coordination between the government, National Bank of Belarus and the Presidential Administration, as well as between various governmental agencies, emerged because of the inability of the government to resist the pressures coming from the Presidential Administration in the economic policy domain;
- The series of successful attempts to fit into the regional political and economic context through modifications of the foreign political paradigm became a trend that was ruined by late-year developments;
- Less successful, but not less persistent attempts to overcome the isolation of the state and society were made throughout the year by both sides, but then again, the outcomes of the December 2010 events froze all the positive trends;
- Belarus has made a name in the global economic system, mostly as a borrower, and completed the year as a debtor with vague repayment prospects;
- Finally, the stepped up money issue and growing foreign trade deficit in 2010 inevitably entailed the currency crisis of 2011.
The indicated trends shaped in 2011 a situational maze, which, by all appearances, has no really reasonable ways out. However, the track record, if analyzed, can at least pick the lesser evil.
Download the PDF version of the Belarusian Yearbook – 2010 in Russian and Belarusian or English.
Belarusian Yearbook-2010 is available in html format in Russian and English.
Send your orders for printed copies to apex@belinstitute.eu
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The Belarusian Yearbook is a long-term joint project of the Belarusian expert community. Contributing to this Yearbook were independent analysts and experts, as well as specialists representing various think tanks, including the Belarusian Institute for Strategic Studies (BISS), Institute for Political Studies “Political Sphere”, Research Center of the Institute for Privatization and Management, Agency of Humanitarian Technologies – Centre for Social Innovation, NOVAK axiometrical research laboratory, Independent Institute of Socio-Economic and Political Studies (IISEPS), Belarusian Economic Research and Outreach Center (BEROC), Centre for Eastern Studies (Warsaw), Polesski Fund of International and Regional Studies (Chernigov), eBelarus research center.