Attitudes About Privatization And The Shadow Of Communism: 25 Years Of Anti-Market Scepticism

The authors investigate changing attitudes towards privatization of land and enterprises in Ukraine. The support of privatization declined dramatically in Ukraine from 1992 to 2018. Such a reversal of initial positive attitudes towards privatization has been observed in some transition countries. The literature suggests two hypotheses to explain this reversal. According to the shadow of communism hypothesis, people who were socialized during the period of communist regimes internalized specific ideas critical to privatization. The second one implies that people in social strata who have been disadvantaged by transition hold more negative views toward privatization. The authors review the previous literature and present new data from the Ukrainian Society survey. The data suggest that the shadow of communism hypothesis explains the case of Ukraine quite well.