Working with an academic paper: Part 3

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Sociological analysis of the factors shaping citizen attitudes to local governments in Ukraine

Part 3

At this point, we have analysed some key figures related to the performance of local governments in Ukraine. We will finish our analysis by considering another essential indicator pertaining to the local authorities’ work, which can be characterised as the ability to communicate effectively with ordinary citizens and be responsive to their demands.

The importance of being heard (and listened to) cannot be denied. People need to feel that their opinions are taken into account, that they can apply to a relevant authority and receive help. This gives citizens a sense of dialogue with the authorities.

As the data of “Ukrainian society” show, such a dialogue has not yet been established: only 14.2% of respondents felt “somewhat satisfied” with how local governments respond to citizens’ concerns, but 28.2% and 20.9% of them were “somewhat” and “very dissatisfied” [Vorona & Shulha, 2020: p. 510].

Still, there are some examples of productive communication between local authorities and citizens. The previously mentioned city of Bucha is a case in point. As the Mayor Anatolii Fedoruk remarked, the city administration regularly carries out surveys among Bucha residents in order to get feedback on many important issues concerning the city’s community. Survey results are taken into consideration by the authorities and often serve as a basis for their decisions. Such a practice aims to remove most “sharp edges” that may arise [Oliinyk, 2009].

Resident surveys (like those in Bucha) offer an opportunity for ordinary citizens to directly participate in the life of their locality, thereby helping to enhance the quality of life of the people themselves. Surveys of this kind can be conducted within a particular district of a big city as well, and they pursue the same goal.

Citizens can also take part in the life of a city or community by exercising control over local authorities. For example, the above-discussed decentralisation reform has brought into being a new position called “starosta” (which can be translated as “warden”) of united local community. A starosta is supposed to represent the interests of community residents. He/she attends city (or village) council meetings [Vrublevskyi, 2018] and deals with major community issues. Thus, the starosta serves as a means of communication between the local government and the residents.

Electing a community warden and endowing him/her with certain responsibilities is an important step towards citizensʼ participation in local governance, but such a large-scale initiative will take time to achieve measurable results.

The key takeaways from our piece of research are as follows:

1. By and large, Ukrainians do not positively evaluate the work of local governments (especially oblast-level administrations and city/town or raion councillors). Mayors and ULC heads got a little better grades; nevertheless, positive evaluations could not outweigh negative ones. However, as noted earlier, it does not appear possible to discriminate between a respondent’s attitude towards the mayor (or the head of united local community) and the raion state administration — owing to a double-ended question used in the survey.

2. The majority of respondents reported feeling totally or partially dissatisfied with utilities, road construction and maintenance; the same goes for the condition of their apartment block or surroundings. Since these areas are what local authorities are supposed to be in charge of, we may assume that there is a link between a person’s satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the quality of public services and his/her positive or negative evaluation of the authority’s performance on the whole. These figures should be taken into consideration when analysing a respondent’s other answers concerning local governments (e. g. preference for a particular candidate or trust in governmental institutions), primarily if he/she hesitates to express their opinion openly.

3. Healthcare and the police turned out to be the weakest link: just a little over one (!) per cent of those interviewed expressed complete satisfaction with the local police department’s work and a bit more (1.7%) — with the quality of healthcare services. Instead, many respondents (49.6% and 60.6% respectively) were dissatisfied with these two spheres. Needless to say, both the nation’s healthcare system and the police require immediate improvement because they are closely related to human life, safety and security.

4. Preschools and schools earned higher (albeit not significantly) scores: approximately a quarter of those surveyed felt unhappy with their services while about a third were satisfied. On the other hand, around 40% of respondents chose the option “neither satisfied nor dissatisfied” (in both questions), which makes it difficult to draw a precise conclusion about how these institutions are performing. Additional analysis is needed to separate the answers of respondents having children under 18 years old from the rest of the sample.

5. At least one half of those surveyed wanted local governments to be more responsive to the demands of ordinary citizens. Therefore, it is crucial that the authorities organise a coherent and constructive dialogue with the public and provide regular feedback to them.

6. What else attracts attention is a substantial portion of respondents without having a strong opinion on the matter. For instance, 39.5% and 35.2% of those interviewed found it difficult to evaluate the work of oblast state administration and local police department; 24.2%, 19.6% and 24.5% of them felt “neither satisfied nor dissatisfied” with the quality of healthcare services, road maintenance and sanitary condition of their apartment block (although this is not so hard to notice). At this juncture, we can only speculate why respondents avoided giving a direct answer — whether they felt tired while being interviewed or were not very interested in their neighbourhood’s life at all¹, or they had not seen any tangible results in terms of the local government’s work. In order to clarify these points and thus to complement the available findings, a series of in-depth interviews or focus group discussions ought to be organised.

7. Finally, it should be underlined that all the data presented reflect the views of Ukraine’s population as a whole. To obtain a more detailed picture, which takes account of a respondent’s age, gender, region of residence and settlement type, further research is required.

Explanatory note

1 A low level of civic engagement among Ukrainians got a mention in a recent study by Liubyva (2020).

References

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Answer the following questions.

1. Why is the ability to communicate effectively with ordinary citizens and be responsive to their demands regarded as an essential indicator of the local authorities’ work?

2. What gives citizens a sense of dialogue with the authorities? Has such a dialogue been established in Ukrainian society yet?

3. How many respondents felt “very dissatisfied” with how local governments respond to citizens’ concerns?

4. What is the aim of resident surveys? Have you ever taken part in one of them?

5. How can ordinary Ukrainian citizens exercise control over local authorities?