Ukraine Decentralization ― Challenges and Implications of the Local Governance Reform After the Euromaidan Revolution

Ukraine’s 2013–2014 Revolution of Dignity also became known as the Euromaidan, which literally means "European Square" and refers to the country’s Association Agreement with the European Union. Viktor Yanukovych’s postponement of the signing of this major treaty preparing Ukraine for a future EU membership application triggered the initial protests leading to the upheaval. Since then, much of Western attention to Ukrainian domestic affairs has focused on reform policies and political conflicts related to the country’s ‘Europeanization,’ i.e. its adoption of EU standards and legislation.

In contrast, a parallel major transformation with little relation to Ukraine’s EU-association process—a multidimensional local governance and territorial reform—has been receiving less Western journalistic and scholarly attention. That is in spite of the fact that the gradual decentralization process that Ukraine’s first post-Euromaidan government started in April 2014 is an exceptionally far-ranging and already advanced reform project. It redefines not only Ukrainian center-periphery interactions, but also state-society as well as government-citizen relations.

This collected volume presents five narrowly focused research papers by Max Bader (Leiden University), Igor Dunayev (Kharkiv Regional Institute of Public Administration), Melanie Mierzejewski-Voznyak (Prague Institute of International Relations), Maryna Rabinovych (Mechnikov University of Odessa), and Oleksii Sydorchuk (Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation, Kyiv). It is the first book-size English scholarly publication on Ukraine’s decentralization, focusing on specific problems as well as repercussions of this multifaceted process and covering issues ranging from fiscal governance to party politics. It illustrates the depth and multifariousness of the impact of Ukraine’s ongoing local governance reform.

Andreas Umland is senior research fellow at the Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation at Kyiv.