Modern decentralization of local self-gorvenment in Ukraine: sources and perspectives of development

Abstract

A complex process of reforming local self-government bodies on decentralization principles is taking place in today’s circumstances of building the Ukrainian State. It will eventually provide real development of the regions; the finances will not be redistributed between the center and periphery, but will be stored in communities for their economic development, education and healthcare purposes. Ukrainian regions had similar experience of decentralization in the past. The present article is dedicated to interpreting the results of it on the terrains of the south-Ukrainian region during the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries. The author studies the causes, the development and the decline of decentralization policy as well as the attitude to it from the part of the local elite. The attempt has also been made to answer the question: why the decentralization policy failed in the Russian Empire and what values decentralization policy should be based on.