HISTORICAL AND MODERN NARRATIVES OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN UKRAINE

Abstract

The article identifies the importance of local self-government as the basis for building any democratic state, emphasizes the prerequisites for its development in Ukraine. The historical stages of domestic local self-government corresponding to the models of local self-government (pre-colonial model, colonial model, reactionary-national model, soviet model, model of perestroika and early Ukrainian nationalism, and modern model of local self-government) are given. The possibility of making decisions on local policy at each of these stages is explored. To do this, five criteria for assessing the historical stages of domestic local government, in particular, the criterion of full independence, the criterion of partial independence, the criterion of limited independence, the criterion of declared independence and the criterion of hybrid independence. The stages of local self-government reform in Ukraine during the independence of our state are described. The difficulties of implementing the decentralization reform in the period from the proclamation of Ukraine's independence to the adoption of the Concept of reforming local self-government and territorial organization of power are described. The historical aspects of the formation of the legal support of decentralization reform in Ukraine are studied. The attitude of people to the decentralization reform is considered. The peculiarities of the new administrative-territorial system in Ukraine are determined. Possible problems in establishing the necessary balance between decentralization and centralization, which would correspond to the real socio-economic and political conditions of the country’s development, the implementation of structural reforms in the field of public administration. The preconditions for changing the administrative-territorial system are singled out, the statistics of its reform are given. The need to reform the administrativeterritorial units, which is due to the reform of decentralization and the need to delineate functions and powers, is emphasized. Plans and tasks of the current stage of local government reform in Ukraine are presented.