DEMOCRATIZATION OF THE POLITICAL SYSTEM AT THE REGIONAL AND LOCAL LEVELS IN THE CONTEXT OF DECENTRALIZATION: THE CASE OF FOUR UKRAINIAN REGIONS

This article examines the democratization of the Ukrainian political system at the regional and local levels in the context of decentralization reform. The level of democratization is measured using the Tatu Vanhanen measurement method (Tatu Vanhanen Index), which is a mathematical formula for multiplying the percentage of votes not received by the ruling party (coalition of parties) in regional and local elections to representative bodies by the percentage of voter turnout. For the study, four regions of Ukraine were selected: Lviv region, Kharkiv region, Kherson region and Chernihiv region, as well as their administrative centres, meeting both the criteria of geographical location (north, south, west, east), population size (large regions, with a population of several million people, as well as small regions, with a population of less than 1 million people), as well as traditional political preferences of a significant part of citizens (relatively “pro-European” and relatively “pro-Russian”). The study showed that in most of the regions we studied, the democracy index decreased after the start of the reform, but then increased again after the next electoral cycle. Most of the regions we studied have similar dynamics of changes in the democracy index over three electoral cycles. Secondly, the study found that in most of the studied regions, the democracy index at the regional level as a whole is slightly higher than the democracy index at the level of their administrative centres. The exception, in both cases, is the Kharkiv region and Kharkiv, which have a trend directly opposite to other regions. The study concludes with a recommendation to reevaluate the level of democracy at the regional and local levels after the next local elections, to gain a more objective dynamic picture.