Cross-dimensional network of democracy promotion: public administration reform in post-Euromaidan Ukraine

ABSTRACT

The article seeks to explain why the restructuring of the Ukrainian public administration – a key element in democracy promotion – has been patchy, in spite of EU’s substantial investment in the reform process. On the basis of analyzing EU and Ukrainian documents as well as process-tracing and interviews with stakeholders, the paper highlights limitations of explaining the outcome of Ukrainian civil service reform exclusively through functional cooperation, structural factors or civil society mobilization. Drafting and passing new public administration legislation was impossible without civil society mobilization; high-level intergovernmental pressure or functional cooperation would not have been able to achieve this on their own. Subsequent challenges with the implementation process show that the active involvement of civil society does not automatically lead to effective reform. Ultimately, it is the collaboration – often across informal channels – between high-level diplomats and state-representatives, actors involved in functional cooperation and civil society activists that makes reform possible.

KEYWORDS:

• Eastern partnership
• democratisation
• public administration reform
• functional cooperation
• linkages/leverage
• Ukraine

List of Interviewees

Interview 1 – Expert from Reanimation Package of Reforms, Kyiv, 2017

Interview 2 – Staff member of the European Commission, 2017

Interview 3 – Expert of Reanimation Package of Reforms, Kyiv, 2017

Interview 4 – Expert from Reanimation Package of Reforms, 2015

Interview 5 – Representative of Verkhovna Rada, Kyiv, 2017

Interview 6 – Representative of the National Reform Council, Kyiv, December 2016

Interview 7 – Expert from Reanimation Package of Reforms, Kyiv, 2017

Interview 8 – Member of SIGMA-OECD Expert Group in Ukraine

Disclosure statement

Dr. Vsevolod Samokhvalov was Marie Curie Research Fellow at the University of Liege and Vrje University of Brussels. He currently works for the European Research Council Executive Agency. The present paper was produced before the author joined ERCEA. The view expressed here are purely those of the writer and may not in any circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of the European Commission.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. See (Fukuyama 2013; Grzymała-Busse and Jones Luong 2015) for a discussion about the link between the quality of government and democracy.

2. See Post-Soviet Affairs 35:4 on the role of structure and agency in political transformation in the post-Soviet region.

3. A special task force within the European Commission that provides expertise for the implementation of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement as well as coordinates with EU member states and international donors supporting the Ukrainian reform process.

4. A consultative body under the President of Ukraine tasked with planning, promoting and tracking the implementation of post-Euromaidan reforms.

5. All Ukrainian and Russian-language sources have been translated by the authors.