(PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo) History is often said to repeat itself or at least to rhyme. Decentralization in Ukraine has been on and off the agenda of successive governments since the country’s independence in 1991. Originally, the main rationale was to reform the old Soviet system in order to adapt to the realities of a liberal democratic system and a market-driven economy. Several proposals envisaged far-reaching decentralization, but the Ukrainian constitution adopted in 1996 cemented a unitary state structure and subsequent attempts to decentralize power all eventually stalled as they became embroiled in continuous struggles between different groups of elites vying for political power at the center and locally. The withdrawal of the most recent draft decentralization law by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on January 16, 2020, thus, stands in a long tradition of failed decentralization projects over nearly three decades. By shelving this latest draft, on the one hand, some of the broader national reform momentum has been lost. On the other hand, the pause allows for deficiencies in the legislation to be addressed. These include probable exacerbation of center-periphery and rural-urban inequalities, as well as geopolitical risks by way of Moscow-induced, regional destabilization.
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