Citizen participation in Ukrainian regional centers: The role of local patronal networks and civil society

Speaker: Oleksandra Keudel, PhD candidate at Berlin Graduate School for Global and Transregional Studies (BGTS), Free University of Berlin
Discussant: Nicholas Aylott, Associate Professor of Political Science, Södertörn University
Chair: Julia Malitska, Post-doctoral researcher, CBEES

The 2014 decentralization reform in Ukraine revitalized the matter of open government at the municipal level, especially the issues of transparency and accountability of local authorities and citizen participation in local policymaking. Despite the national legal framework for open government is in place (Hughes & Huss, 2017), a considerable variation in openness of local authorities and in citizens’ participation opportunities has been recorded across Ukrainian cities (Fedynchuk et al., 2018; TI Ukraine, 2018).

While participatory procedures in some cities bear low participation costs and contain accountability measures, in others, citizen initiatives need disproportionately many signatures to be considered by local authorities and accountability tools are virtually ignored. To explain this puzzling variation, this paper adopts a local-level comparative perspective on structural factors and processes that lead to citizens’ opportunities to participate in local politics in Ukraine’s regional centers.

This contribution theorizes that a fundamental condition for citizen participation opportunities is the overarching meta-structure of patron-client networks of local businessmen and politicians (Fisun, 2012; Hale, 2015). Networks’ meta-structure may vary from a single pyramid dominating the political regime to a coordinated network arrangement, where several networks reconcile their interests, to a competing network arrangement, where multiple networks of similar capacity contest for dominance (Hale, 2015; Stefes, 2006). The paper demonstrates that more competition between networks is generally more conducive for more opportunities for citizen participation, because there are more touch points for bargaining among stakeholders (the logic of “competitive authoritarianism” in Levitsky & Way, 2002).

However, drawing on the governance literature, the link between the meta-structure of local patron-client networks and citizens’ participatory opportunities is mediated by the forms of public-private relations emerging between local government and civil society (CSOs) which promotes participatory tools (Börzel & Risse, 2005). This contribution thus demonstrates that among the cities with similar meta-structure of patronal networks, participation opportunities for citizens are higher there, where CSOs gained the opportunity to co-draft legislation rather than to be simply consulted (delegation and co-optation, respectively, in Börzel & Risse, 2005).

Empirically, this paper relies on a comparative case-study tracing the process of adoption of participatory instruments in four Ukrainian cities since 2014. The cases are selected to systematically vary the meta-structure of patron-client networks and outcomes for citizen participation: 1) Kharkiv – singlepyramid network and low participation opportunities; 2) Chernivtsi – competing networks meta-structure and high opportunities for participation; 3) Odesa and 4) Lviv – both with a coordinated networks’ metastructure, but fairly low and relatively high opportunities for participation, respectively.

The data for the structure of patron-client networks is sourced from the author’s interviews with local informants triangulated with studies of local networks by Honorata Mazepus et al. (forthcoming) and Oksana Huss et al. (forthcoming). The process of adoption of local participatory regulation is traced based on the interviews with 37 local CSO members, city council members and journalists, conducted in March-May 2019.

About the author

Since 2017, Oleksandra Keudel is a PhD Candidate at the Berlin Graduate School for Global and Transregional Studies at the Free University of Berlin (Germany). With a working title “The role of elites and civil society in enhancing or restraining political access in a Limited Access Order, the case of Ukraine” (estimated completion in August 2020), her thesis investigates the interplay between local patronal networks and efforts of civil society in producing varying opportunities for citizen participation in Ukraine.

Her research interest also includes open government, civil society and knowledge production in postSoviet political regimes. She has managed German-Ukrainian civil society projects in the sphere of good governance and served as a research consultant for international organizations and think tanks. Oleksandra holds an MSc in International Administration and Global Governance from the University of Gothenburg (Sweden) and an MA in International Relations from the Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University (Ukraine).