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Decentralization Reform: An Effective Vehicle for Modernization and Democratization in Ukraine?

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Decentralization, Regional Diversity, and Conflict

Part of the book series: Federalism and Internal Conflicts ((FEINCO))

Abstract

A number of issues are delaying visible results of modernization efforts and decentralization reform. These are Ukraine’s de-industrialization, the conflict in and around Ukraine, centralization of administrative tasks, an absence of well-defined responsibilities, lack of the organizational, technical and financial resources of local authorities, duplication of structures, and in some cases the resulting weakness and incompetence of local authorities. This chapter examines the link between decentralization and modernization. Considering decentralization reform as a vehicle for modernization, the chapter shows how it can be an effective strategy to promote modernization, and focuses on key obstacles and solutions to improve local governance and public sector performance and to strengthen the economy in ways that enhance citizen wellbeing and democracy. It concludes with a discussion of necessary conditions for the successful modernization of post-Euromaidan Ukraine within the decentralization reform framework.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    “Path dependence” is an important concept for social scientists engaged in studying processes of change. Being based on models of technological development used in economics, the first wave of scholarship in political science and sociology applied the concept of path dependence to political institutions, emphasizing lock-in and increasing returns (Pierson 2000), self-reinforcing sequences (Mahoney 2000), and the “mechanisms of reproduction” (Collier and Collier 1991) of particular historical legacies. These works played an important role in developing arguments about historical causation and interdependency of global development, when less-developed countries follow the development logic of more advanced states with successful democracies. Referring to the social developmental sequences, it was later labeled “path dependent social dynamics” (Durlauf and Young 2004, 21; Blume and Durlauf 2006, 15). The path-dependence theory of democracy underwent a harsh critique for overstating the degree of institutional stability of the exemplar democratic states (Thelen 1999; Alexander 2003; Crouch and Farrell 2004; Hacker 2011).

  2. 2.

    Huntington (1991) argued that international structural factors during the 1970s were the causal sources for initiating Third-Wave democracy. Under structural factors he understood the “regional contingency factor” or the Soviet equivalent of the “domino theory,” where the success of democracy in one country causes other countries to democratize. He suggested that post-Soviet states are being influenced by democratization effects, most notably by the efforts to spread democracy by the European Union and the United States.

  3. 3.

    Political mobilization is a framework utilized to understand political participation in a transition period.

  4. 4.

    https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld.

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  1. University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Olga Oleinikova

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Correspondence to Olga Oleinikova .

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  1. Security Studies Programme, Foreign Policy Council “Ukrainian Prism”, Odesa / Kyiv, Ukraine

    Hanna Shelest

  2. Faculty of Law, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Maryna Rabinovych

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Oleinikova, O. (2020). Decentralization Reform: An Effective Vehicle for Modernization and Democratization in Ukraine?. In: Shelest, H., Rabinovych, M. (eds) Decentralization, Regional Diversity, and Conflict. Federalism and Internal Conflicts. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41765-9_11

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