CONCEPTUAL PRINCIPLES OF TRANSFORMATION OF THE TERRITORIAL ORGANIZATION OF POWER IN THE CONDITIONS OF DECENTRALIZATION

Abstract

The article highlights the process of reforming the territorial organization of power during the years of Independence. It is noted that the experience of re- peated attempts to carry out administrative and territorial reforms has shown a lack of system, consistency and scientific justification. The process of re- form took place in the wrong way – the modernization of the central level of state power while ignoring the foundation of the Ukrainian state – the forma- tion of an effective and capable municipal government. Only under Maidan pressure in 2014 was the government forced to embark on a real transfor- mation project to dismantle a centralized, de facto presidential republic that posed a permanent danger of usurping power with the establishment of an authoritarian kleptocratic regime. Thus began the process of building a new type of state – the service, which serves its citizens and protects their inter- ests, based on self-governing institutions and civil society. In a relatively short period of reform, it was possible to achieve what could not be realized (despite repeated attempts) during the previous decades of Independence: to form 1469 territorial communities – the basis of municipal government and basic providers of quality public services and instead 490 districts, formed during the Soviet period, to create 136 new districts that meet EU standards. This opened opportunities not only for the formation of an effective model of public administration, but also for significant progress in the direction of Ukraine’s European and Euro-Atlantic course. It is noted that the decentralization reform has not yet been finalized. Despite its suc- cess, it requires considerable effort and a steady course.