Politicians in Ukraine cited inspired goals when they called for decentralization in 2014, including the promotion of democracy and improved efficiency in the delivery of government services. Indeed, after decades of power being concentrated in the capital, Ukraine needed more democracy. It also inherited a centralized state model that gave local councils very few responsibilities, and administrative divisions made for small territorial units that are impossible to manage efficiently. Yet, the main factors behind the decision to decentralize the country have been political and geopolitical.
Even though that regional and city administrations now have more responsibilities for local services and larger budgets than their predecessors, the old system still remains. The complex geopolitical factors are also still in place. The new administration will need to complete the decentralization reform by carefully dissembling the archaic system.
There are two major complicating factors. On one hand, there is no consensus on the role of the state – some want to see it strengthened to protect the country’s unity. On the other hand, decentralization is supposed to play role in addressing the Russian-backed separatism on Donbas.
It is becoming increasingly clear what the Russians have in mind for Donbas – a federal-like land that remains within Ukraine, but operates as a Russian political, and possibly military, protectorate with the ability to block major national and geopolitical moves and with significant independence to manage their own internal affairs. The Russian plan seems to resemble the Südtirol arrangement presented in a different geopolitical context. Very recently a diplomatic row threatened to disrupt Italy’s Alpine province over the question of national identity and whether its German-speaking inhabitants should have the right to Austrian citizenship. This has led to tension between the countries. The Russians have adopted this approach on Donbas as well issuing Russian passports to the residents.
Outside of the same security and political structures enjoyed by Italy and Austria, the situation with Ukraine will play out differently than it has in the border regions of two core EU countries. The Russian plan has created some red flags for the country and the new Ukrainian administration on the road to decentralization.
If the early days of this administration may give any indication, it will try to centralize and exert new powers over the city of Kyiv and the regions through the appointment of loyal presidential representatives across the country into the state oblast and district administrations. Even though on several occasions President Volodymyr Zelensky subjected the selection of his envoys to the lively public debate, the institution of state “governors” is archaic and non-democratic. The state administrations should be abolished, and Ukraine needs to decentralize further. What the government also needs to keep in mind is that centralization and decentralization should not be considered as mutually exclusive.
The state administrations in the regions are creating more red tape and are duplicating many municipal functions and processes. With them decentralization becomes a very intensely political and, at times, ugly process. Decentralization, by definition, features struggle between national government entities and local elites over which levels and whose team members do what, and with whose revenues. This is why the new administration should be advised against following their central government instincts.
Instead, they should start developing the consensus in the society by promoting the culture of acceptance and respect for diversity and the sovereignty of the individual, and freedom of the regions to manage their affairs. They should promote and develop a political system in which the central government has limited powers over how the regions manage their own affairs in all important aspects. In this new system, there is no place for a state administration on the ground and citizens should refer directly to their municipalities and regions. On a local level, the central authorities should not be set to manage or to intermingle into local affairs, but rather to uphold the Constitution and order together with freedoms of individuals.
The central authorities should strengthen their fiscal, law-enforcement, military, national security and judicial functions together with the power to tax and build national roads and ports. Ukraine should consider enlarging municipalities and merging several oblasts into bigger administrative unites up to 10 million people. They should be able to elect their self-governing officials. This will disrupt the power of current local elites concentrated in one oblast. Such new regions may never block the country’s decisions. They should not be allowed to have its own constitution, police or military. They may not have regional political parties that exist today in some cities and regions. The state property should largely be moved by the central government to the local level requiring quick and transparent privatization of most of such assets. No one region should be allowed to impose its ideas on another and on the central government.
Decentralization is more a political process than an administrative value. It is also a civic dimension. It increases the opportunities for people to take interest in public affairs and, however slowly, get accustomed to using freedom. Zelensky and his administration should always promote and encourage this.
