Review on the article Ukraine Needs Decentralization to Develop Future Democratic Leaders by Tymofiy Mylovanov (University of Pittsburgh), Roger Myerson (University of Chicago, Nobel prize laureate 2007), Gerard Roland (University of California Berkeley).
Local elections that should have become a social elevator for local elites risk only to worsen a situation with a separatist sentiment that will play into the hands of pro-Russian forces and as a result of tight economic situation have all the chances to get serious outcomes in the East and the South of Ukraine.
At the same time, the authors set correct questions about preparation of new administrative elites. Actually there are almost no alternative commands of state officials after the ‘lustration’ was done. They should be prepared, and local self-government serves as one of the grounds for such preparation, as well as public organizations that collaborate with the governmental authorities on different levels and with/as the political parties that still don’t operate in Ukraine as all-sufficient political organisms.
However the key issue of the publication, in my opinion, how should decentralization be carried out in Ukraine? Whether can it be done with the support of central authorities, which will always try to control processes in the regions?
Decentralization as a process of changes to the Constitution and preparation of other normative acts should be carried out through a dialogue and consensus of local and regional elites. The process of concordance of key positions is a clear determination of powers that must be granted to the central authorities, and also those that are transferred into places and supported by corresponding financial capacities.
Without such a dialogue the decentralization is only the halved measure that will not lead to the end result – greater involvement of community in the process of decision making on pressing issues and opening of social elevator “from bottom to the top”.
Decentralization Week
Hlib Vyshlinsky: It is Important to Understand What Features of the Decentralization are the Key for Emergence of New Political Leaders (Hlib Vyshlinsky, Executive Director, Centre for Economic Strategy)
Decentralization vs. Anti-Centralization (Oleh Zahnitko, Gide Loyrette Nouel)
Sergei Guriev: Decentralisation will Not Work As Long As Large Companies Remain in Government Ownership (Sergei Guriev, Professor of Economics, Sciences Po, Paris)
Struggle For The Constitution Is Going On (Appeal of Vice Speaker Oksana Syroid about the proposed amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine)
Yuriy Hanushchak: Naively to Expect a Breakneck (Rapid) Disappearance of Local Oligarchs Due to the Efforts of Law-Enforcement Agencies (Yuriy Hanushchak, a Director of the Institute of Territorial Development and expert in issues of decentralization of power)
Georgy Egorov: the Central Government Should Have the Authority to Intervene with Force (Georgy Egorov, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, USA)
Opinion on the Draft Law Amending the Constitution of Ukraine Submitted by Oksana Syroyid (Oksana Syroyid, deputy speaker of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, member of the constitutional commission)
Smart Decentralization: a Bottom-up Path Toward Functioning Institutions and Economic Prosperity (Mark Bernard, Assistant Professor of Economics, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany)
Paul Gregory: Ukraine Must be Concerned by the Sabotage of Elections by Russian Money and by Russian Special Operations (Paul Cregory, Hoover Institution, Stanford and University of Houston)
Andrei Kirilenko: There is a 500-Year-Old History of Formal Self-Governance in Ukraine (Andrei Kirilenko, MIT Sloan)
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