Decentralization Reform In Ukraine Since 2014 From The Perspective Of Political Identity Construction

Since Ukraine’s independence from the Soviet Union,the Ukrainian authorities have repeatedly tried to carry out local decentralization reforms and adjust the original highly centralized political system,but these reform attempts have either become tools for power struggle,or aborted due to lack of mature system design and clear promotion schedule.At the end of 2013,Ukrainian President Yanukovych wanted to strengthen relations with Russia and announced the suspension of signing political and free trade agreements with the EU.The decision immediately sparked pro-EU demonstrations across the country and eventually led to the Crimea crisis and continued unrest in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.It is in such a situation that separatist forces are emerging one after another and the opposition is surging,the Ukrainian authorities decided to make great efforts to promote the reform of decentralization.The decentralization reform in Ukraine officially kicked off in 2014 and has gone through two stages.The first stage lasted from 2014 to 2019.The main form of reform in this stage is to merge small-scale communities into larger-scale communities on a voluntary basis,giving the merged communities certain autonomy.The second stage has continued from 2019 to the present.The urgent need for this stage of reform is to solve problems at the system design level,such as improving the legal basis for community governance,clarifying the rights and responsibility boundaries between the community government and the upper-level governments.Up to now,the reform of decentralization in Ukraine has been advancing for more than seven years,and it has played an important role in promoting local development,promoting inter-regional cooperation,increasing people’s political participation,and strengthening people’s political identity.However,there are also problems such as loopholes in the construction of the system,low level of public participation,and hidden dangers for possible inter-ethnic conflicts.Looking forward to the future,Uzbekistan also needs to further improve the system construction of local government autonomy and promote the construction of a sunshine government.