NOT AGAIN (NATION BUILDING)?

This last weekend, I heard a lot of comments on the TV news programs that the solutions to the Ukraine's problems is to make them an economically sound nation.  Sounds like nation building to me.  So here we go again?

The Ukraine has enough natural resources (including perhaps the best farmland in the world) and industry that it should be a reasonably wealth nation.*

It seems by now that we have abundant examples that the transition from a dictatorship (Monarchy, Communism, etc.) to democracy is not easy.  People who have not lived in a democracy have a lot of difficulty transitioning to it.  Take the case of the Ukraine that has suffered much political turmoil.**.  They had the "Orange Revolution" in 2004.   The current government of a few months ago (and elected as recently as 2012) was a duly elected government, including the President Viktor Yanukovych  who was ousted by the mob at Kiev.  But much of the government is corrupt and stealing the country blind, which seems to be the trend.

Now there is to be a new election in May.  But will the results be any better than last time?  The mob represented a very small part of the Ukraine so my guess is that the results are unknown.  Americans are more docile than people in much of the rest of the world and wait for elections to topple politicians, but often the replacements are worse than the incumbents.  Replacing incumbents in the U.S. has resulted in political gridlock.  Though the public complains about the degree of unemployment in the U.S., the voters seem inclined to vote-in those who perpetuate the current situation.  It wouldn't be a surprise to me if the voters in the Ukraine will perform even worse.

So the big question remains, how do you lift an economy and employment when you have an uncooperative government?  Perhaps the biggest success story of nation building by another nation is Japan (Germany had the Wiemar Republic experience to build upon.), but in that case Japan lost a war and had a long occupation to facilitate the change to a democracy.  Are there any examples of nation building that have not involved an occupation, perhaps Brazil?  Perhaps it is too early in the Ukiraine and the Middle East evolution to tell, but the difficulties are clearly apparent in Iraq and Afghanistan or for Egypt and Libya, etc. as well.


*  http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/03/ukraine-failed-state.html
** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verkhovna_Rada