Communities and Hromadas: how effective self-governance reform has helped Ukraine to resist the invasion

As we approach a year since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it has been evident that the Ukrainian armed forces have proved to be much more effective than anyone, including both aggressors and allies, had expected. While paying tribute to the determination of the military and political leadership, experts note that their efforts would likely not have been enough had ordinary Ukrainian citizens and local elites failed to remain loyal to the country and self-organise in the face of military aggression.

Researchers of Ukrainian politics believe that prior to the Maidan protests — the revolutionary events of 2014 — two key trends had been present in relations between the Ukrainian centre and the regions. On the one hand, there was a highly centralised system of management, whereby the regions did not have any real budgetary or administrative autonomy. Local governments also depended almost entirely on the financial and administrative decisions made in Kyiv. On the other hand, there was a noticeable uptick in territorial fragmentation and polarisation. This fragmentation occurred as a result of both Ukraine’s traditional geopolitical division (the West and South-East), and of the significant differences in living conditions and quality of public services between cities and towns, between industrial and agricultural areas, and so on.

Prior to 2014, Ukraine’s system of local self-governance, although characterised by robust political competition during both mayoral and council elections, did not have a sufficient degree of decision-making subjectivity. Public opinion polling at this time demonstrated that trust in local authorities was low. There were a number of factors behind this: underfunding, the poor quality of municipal services and the inability of local authorities to respond to requests from below, as well as the low motivation of citizens to participate in self-governance. At the same time, people demonstrated higher levels of trust in their local authorities than they did in the national government.

After 2014, the new authorities initiated several local government reforms under the guidance of the European Union. Their main goal was to create effective territorial municipal units (hromadas), with the active involvement of residents, significant financial autonomy in the allocation and spending of funds, and clear accountability to local communities. By 2020, the reforms were considered complete and had received positive preliminary assessments. As researchers noted, the quality of public services in areas such as medicine had risen, as did citizens' satisfaction with these services. There was also a significant improvement in the quality of fiscal administration at both regional and local levels.

However, with the beginning of the Russian invasion, other less trivial consequences of these reforms became visible. Oleksandra Keudel and Oksana Huss, who have conducted a number of sociological surveys in the hromadas, as well as interviews and focus groups with local activists and officials, have noted that after the Russian invasion, hromadas in Ukraine became the de facto backbone of national consolidation. They also played an important, politically unifying role at the grassroots level and were the only type of authority able to effectively communicate with citizens in the first months of the war. Of the 241 hromadas surveyed, two-thirds continued their activities despite the military aggression, 28% did not stop working at all, and 43% returned to work within two weeks of the invasion or after de-occupation. Of the 17 de-occupied hromadas in the sample, two continued to function under occupation, providing humanitarian assistance and evacuating residents.