AbstractIn recent years many important developments have been observed in the Ukrainian public administration: reforms in the public-administration system and civil service, improvements in the regulatory framework for their functioning, extension of the rights and powers of local self-government, bringing their activities into compliance with the EU requirements as well as the transformation of civil service according to the European standards.However, reforming public administration in a post-socialist transition country is hampered by the lack of resources and by public mistrust. The Ukrainian state faces these challenges, as well, and it attempts to find the ways to leave behind the situation formed by decades of uncertain public policy and a flapping development vector.Since 2014 key events have taken place that dramatically affected the public administration in Ukraine, i.e.: the elections of a new president instead of the one who fled, the snap parliamentary elections, establishing new civil and military administrations, launching approximately 60 reforms aiming to give the nation a modern shape corresponding to world-wide trends. Special importance must be granted to the public administration (PA) reform because it plays a crucial role in securing the nation’s success in global competition.The goal of this study is reviewing the most important PA reforms occurring in Ukraine (decentralization, civil-service reform, anti-corruption measures, transparency, reviewing the functions of the central executive bodies). The research questions embrace the following: (a) what main directions in PA reforming are perceived by the Ukrainian government; (b) how are the national governmental body’s functions reviewed; (c) what are the obstacles and risks for PA reforming at the national level ? To address these questions, the respective legislation has been analyzed along with some practical steps applied by the government towards the improvement of public institutions’ operation.Our study demonstrates that Ukraine has moved quite a distance from the soviet legacy as concerns public administration; however, the country has not reached the point of no return yet: the positive reform achievements must be supported by steady efforts in order to make them irreversible and to significantly raise public administration’s efficiency.

Civil service as a public institution is called to increase the life quality standards for the population by delivery of high-quality administrative services, forming and ensuring the implementation of the public policy, supervision and control over legal compliance of public bodies’ and officials’ actions. However, in Ukraine it does not fully meet these objectives and requires substantial reforming. The relevance of this study lies in an active interest of philosophers, scientists, and lawyers in the research and definition of socio-economic and political turbulence in modern Ukraine caused by internal and external factors. The paper discusses the innovations of civil service in Ukraine, which are aimed at improving the performance and ensuring the quality of civil service. The results of this paper demonstrate that Ukraine has moved quite a distance from the Soviet legacy as far as civil service is concerned. Nevertheless, the country still has a lot to be done: these achievements must be supported by steady efforts so as to make them irreversible and to significantly increase the efficiency of public administration. In this connection, the civil service reform in Ukraine must be supported not only by policy measures that enhance the professionalism of civil servants, but also by the improvement of their public image. The practical importance is determined by the need to formulate priority ways of raising the country’s economic competitiveness and promoting social welfare.

This paper examines the progress of implementing a comprehensive decentralization program in Ukraine. Ukraine was practically the last country of the former Soviet bloc to undertake a comprehensive decentralization program. The decentralization program was based on three pillars: (1) a reliance on voluntary amalgamation of the local government units, (2) the use of inter-municipal cooperation, and (3) enhanced financial incentives. The authors examine how these policies were implemented as well as the impact on local governments service delivery and fiscal capacity. The analyses are based on available data and the application of statistical tests measuring fiscal resources to the population size and other variables of the local government. The study has revealed some significant flaws in Ukrainian decentralization policy implementation. The voluntary approach eventually had to be abandoned for a mandatory approach. The weak progress in inter-municipal cooperation did not establish improved service delivery across a large number of local government units. The financial incentives with greater sharing of taxes did not provide sufficient additional resources to make the units financially sustainable. Finally, the results of the local government elections held in the amalgamated units did not reveal widespread support for the new units and the decentralization reforms. These issues create significant risks for the final success of the decentralization reform.

After the Revolution of Dignity (2013–2014), the new Ukrainian government set out a number of reforms, one of which – and a successful one so far – was decentralisation, involving territorial amalgamation and re-allocation of public revenues and outlays in favour of the newly-established amalgamated territorial communities (ATCs). This study aims to analyse whether decentralisation is supported by the realisation of the budget transparency principle. We attempt to fill the gap still existing in the research of public sector transparency in Ukraine, concerning the basic administrative level, hereby being limited to big cities and regions. The authors carried out an assessment of budget transparency in newly-established ATCs in four Ukrainian regions by applying a simplified methodology (‘snapshot assessment’) involving 11 measures that could be easily located on the ATC websites. In order to understand the reasons for a particular level of transparency, a polling of ATC heads was undertaken. The findings of the study demonstrate that the overall budget transparency in the newly established ATCs is rather low and subject to significant interregional variation. We find that the local officials overstate the existing level of budget transparency in their communities and are not proactive in their efforts to raise it. The importance of this article lies in substantiating the need for making budget transparency a priority for local officials, as well as in detailing the activity of the state and the local community in this field

Since the global collapse of the socialist command economy, a significant differentiation in social and economic development within the former socialist world has been observed. Economists have pointed out a number of factors which could explain this disparity. One of the most important is market reform of the economy freeing Smith's "invisible hand" that with the support of inclusive political and economical institutions makes it possible for the national economy to thrive and thus achieve higher welfare for the nation. In this article, the influence of various factors on social well-being in the post-socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe is analyzed. Our analysis has revealed that such factors as the level of economic freedom, intensity of economic reform, fostering of human capital, and level of national economy output play a significant role in creating a positive social welfare dynamics in transitional nations. It appears that the importance of these factors may vary within the cross-section of selected countries; thus, different policy patterns with regard to social welfare could be applied depending on factor combinations existing in some specific countries.