General characteristics of the region. Volyn Oblast as a separate region of Ukraine was formed in the fifties of the last century. The regional self-awareness and political culture of Volyn residents were influenced, first, by the combination in one administrative space of two different agrarian-climatic and cultural zones, second, by harsh ideological work aimed at eradicating the consciousness of the owner, establishing cosmopolitan positions in the region, third, by large-scale repressions against participants of the national resistance, former landowners, intellectuals, and priests. In the economic sphere, the oblast is an industrial-agrarian region with a slight dominance of industry over agriculture. Industrial facilities are located in the oblast center of Lutsk, as well as in the cities of oblast subordination Kovel and Novovolynsk. Most industrial facilities, which were created to attract local labor resources, are not connected with the local raw material base. The lion's share of these enterprises had an all-union defense character, which with the collapse of the USSR led to a protracted economic crisis. The consequences of economic decline are felt to this day. Having the highest unemployment rate in Ukraine and perhaps the lowest salary level, the oblast is among the subsidized ones. As a result of a number of reasons, the industry of the region survives mainly through external exports of goods and raw materials. The worst situation is in the agricultural sector, in which effective forms of management have never emerged. Local authorities Until the end of the 80s of the 20th century, Volyn remained a zone of strict control by the union center. As a result, a specific type of political and administrative culture formed in the oblast, the basis of which is loyalty to the capital at the expense of alienating power from the community. Despite the fact that in the early 90s of the last century Volyn was among the politically most active regions of Ukraine, the situation has not changed at present. Mainly because in the first years of independence, institutions of public self-government were not created, and power in Ukraine remained centralized. Because of this, Volyn found itself in a state of material decline, without having its own economic, administrative, political, ideological levers to change the situation. To no small degree, the crisis was also caused by the lack of experience in independently solving local problems. From 1991 to 2005, in the oblast, unlike other regions of Ukraine, there were only four governors. Of these, only one was dismissed after eight years in office as a "quality replacement." Two heads of the Volyn Oblast State Administration lost their positions due to the election of a new President of Ukraine. It is characteristic that a similar situation occurred in 90% of district state administrations. Such personnel stability may indicate a high level of loyalty of local authorities to the central government, the main consequence of which is their almost complete ignoring of local problems. Due to the weak economic potential, a local economic "clan" capable of influencing the local administration did not form in Volyn, so the only master of local leaders remained the President of Ukraine. Actually, this is precisely what the latest positive changes in the oblast are connected with. Currently, the Volyn Oblast State Administration is headed by V. N. Bondar, a member of the NSNS, previously a People's Deputy of Ukraine elected from Lutsk electoral district No. 22, a member of the parliamentary faction "Our Ukraine." During the 2004 presidential campaign, he headed the oblast election headquarters of Viktor Yushchenko, but before his appointment as governor he did not hold responsible government posts. The first deputy head of the oblast state administration is a member of the VO "Batkivshchyna" B. P. Shyba, who headed the Turiisk District State Administration for more than five years and was a deputy of the Volyn Oblast Council of the second and third convocations. The deputy head for social and humanitarian affairs is the head of the VOO "NSNS" V. H. Karpuk, who before his appointment was a rheumatologist at the Volyn Oblast Clinical Hospital. He is also a deputy of the Volyn Oblast Council of the fourth convocation, elected on the list of "Our Ukraine." The deputy head of the oblast state administration for economic affairs, Candidate of Economic Sciences V. F. Baitsym, is a member of the VO "Batkivshchyna." Before his appointment to this position, he worked in commercial structures. The deputy head of the oblast state administration for the agro-industrial complex V. M. Zaremba is currently non-partisan, and previously headed the Volyn Oblast Organization of the APU. In 1994-2002, he was the first deputy head of the Volyn Oblast State Administration. In terms of openness, the current oblast administration ranks first among oblast government bodies. Speeches by the leadership are broadcast each time on local television and radio channels. Interactive television programs are held monthly, during which viewers have the opportunity to share their thoughts, express comments to the oblast leadership on one or another matter, and address questions and requests. The schedule of personal receptions conducted by the leadership of the oblast state administration is being fulfilled. Their meetings with the public are not infrequent, not only in the oblast center but also in remote districts of the region. In fact, every issue of local newspapers publishes materials about the work of the oblast state administration, which regularly mention the names of the leaders of the oblast executive power. Thus, compared with the previous composition of the oblast state administration, its new composition is noticeably more democratic and progressive. The activity of district executive power bodies is less open, mainly due to the insufficient development of the information system at the district level. The main means of information in the districts are local newspapers, whose material and professional level has remained stuck at the mark of the early nineties of the last century. Local self-government bodies (Volyn Oblast Council, district, city, and settlement councils) are noticeably inferior to state administrations in terms of openness. According to the results of a study conducted within the framework of the project "Determining the Priorities of Territorial Community Development through Accountability and Openness of Representative Power," which was carried out by the Institute for State and Regional Policy Analysis with the assistance of "Freedom House" in September-December 2005, the level of openness (closedness) and transparency of the work of the Volyn Oblast Council of the fourth convocation was established (The sociological survey in the form of an interview was conducted in the cities of Lutsk and Kovel, as well as in Rozhyshche, Lokachi, and Kivertsi districts of the oblast. A total of 310 respondents were surveyed (50 respondents in the districts and the city of Kovel and 110 in Lutsk), half of whom were women and half men. The survey materials were calculated by four age categories (18–25 years, 26–35, 36–45, 46 and older), level of education (with higher education, students of higher educational institutions, with secondary education), and place of residence with which the respondent identifies (city, village). The purpose of the study entitled "Deputy of the Oblast Council (from a certain territorial district) through the eyes of the voter" was to determine the attitude of Volyn residents to the activity of the current Volyn Oblast Council and its deputies from specific territorial districts. This issue was part of the overall task of the project - determining the level of openness and transparency of the oblast council's activity in order to stimulate and encourage the public to cooperate with it.), which consists of 80 deputies. Its head is a member of the NPU V. P. Dmytruk, who heads the oblast council for the second time, and previously was elected head of a village council executive committee, head of a collective farm, in 1987-1991 headed the Lutsk district executive committee, and in 1991-1998 held the position of first deputy head of the Lutsk district state administration. His deputy V. M. Struk was previously a school director and head of the district education department. From 1982, he worked in the positions of deputy head of the Ratne district executive committee of Volyn Oblast and deputy head of the district state administration. In 1998-2002, he was also elected deputy head of the Volyn Oblast Council. An analysis of the materials showed that the activity of the council, its structural subdivisions, and the deputies themselves was actually not covered in local mass media. Unlike the oblast and district state administrations, the oblast council does not even have its own internet page. The oblast newspaper "Volyn," whose co-founder is the oblast council, has a circulation of over 66,000 copies and is published three times a week, provides information about the work of the council no more than 17-18 times a year, and the average volume of such publications is 1.5-2 thousand characters. From the published materials it is impossible to learn about the permanent and temporary deputy commissions. Even their names, personal composition, and surnames of the heads are unknown, not to mention their participation in the development and discussion of regional programs. The publications contain no data either about the work of party factions of the oblast council, or about the results of the implementation of adopted programs, or about unscheduled issues that for some reason were raised at sessions of the oblast council. Other printed organs of the oblast, due to their significantly weaker material base and adherence to the Soviet principle of loyalty in covering the work of local self-government bodies, provide even less information about the work of the oblast and other councils. The same can be said about local radio and television. In other words, the councils as institutions of power, as bodies of representative power, are not represented in local media, and therefore remain outside the attention of the community. The results of the sociological study conducted within the framework of the above-mentioned project showed that the vast majority of Volyn residents know nothing about the Volyn Oblast Council and have no idea about its work and tasks. This leads to the fact that the vast majority of respondents are ready to suspect deputies of unlawful activity and believe that they require constant supervision by the prosecutor's office or the President of Ukraine. Moreover, it turned out that deputies of the oblast council do not show the proper (stipulated by current legislation) desire to report on their work to voters. A third of the elected representatives did not show up at organized public hearings at which reports of deputies of the Volyn Oblast Council from the given territorial communities were planned to be heard. The results of focus group studies demonstrated that the practice of considering oneself "independent" from the voter is widespread from the village council to the oblast council. Since from the mass media one cannot learn anything about the Volyn Oblast Council except perhaps the surname of the head of the oblast council, in the consciousness of citizens the oblast council is identified with its leader. Thus, in mass consciousness, distorted ideas about the work of the council have actually been formed, whereas in reality it is a collegial representative institution of power whose head is not the superior of the deputies. However, these same false ideas are shared by the deputies themselves. As the survey showed, deputies tend to believe that the head of the council is their direct superior. That is precisely why, for them, accountability to voters and a sense of dependence on voters are secondary matters compared with a sense of corporate dependence. No less indicative is the fact that deputies have a poor knowledge of the current legislation regulating deputy activity. Over three years of work of the current oblast council, only 21 deputy inquiries were registered (for all 80 deputies). From conversations with deputies of the oblast council, it became clear that they do not distinguish a deputy inquiry from a deputy appeal, the functions of executive power from the functions of representative power, and therefore very often agree to take on matters that are not within the competence of a deputy of a local council. Similar ignorance is demonstrated by some representatives of local executive power. Deputies of the oblast council complained at public hearings that representatives of executive power bodies ignore their appeals, refuse them personal reception, give worthless formal replies to their statements, violating all established response deadlines. Political parties As of September 1, 2005, 107 oblast party organizations were registered in Volyn Oblast. In this list, besides the parties best known in the state and in Volyn - the People's Union "Our Ukraine," VO "Batkivshchyna," NRU, NRU, URP - one can also find oblast party cells of the party "Russian Bloc," the Communist Party of Ukraine (renewed), the Union of Anarchists of Ukraine, the Party of Muslims of Ukraine, the Democratic Party of Hungarians of Ukraine, and the KMKS "Party of Hungarians of Ukraine." Representation in cities and districts of the oblast at 90-100% (in ranking order) is held by: the All-Ukrainian Union "Batkivshchyna," the People's Democratic Party, the Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs of Ukraine, the Ukrainian People's Party, the People's Union "Our Ukraine," the party "Democratic Union," the Political Party of Small and Medium Business of Ukraine, the People's Party, the Party of the All-Ukrainian Union of Leftists "Justice," the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine, and the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (united). It should be noted that for Volyn Oblast, whose population barely exceeds one million, over 75% of whom are ethnic Ukrainians, where Orthodox Christians predominate and where almost half the population lives in villages with their non-party sub-collective-farm way of life, such a number of party organizations and ideologies is clearly inflated. This is rather a consequence of the provisions of the Law of Ukraine "On Political Parties in Ukraine" and electoral legislation than an indicator of the self-sufficiency of the political movement. The vast majority of party cells have residential premises as their legal address. Some political organizations rent separate premises, sometimes of several rooms, and have a staff of employees who work on a voluntary basis or at party expense. The latter applies to the political parties best known in Ukraine, whose financial situation is determined by successful entrepreneurs. Public reception offices are maintained by the oblast organizations of NSNS and VO "Batkivshchyna." Only the oblast organization of the CPU and the VOO UNP have their own party newspapers, but after the end of the 2004 election campaign, the latter publication appears rather irregularly. After a long break, at the beginning of 2005, the publication of the printed organ of the VOO "URP 'Sobor,'" which was founded back in the first half of the 90s, was resumed. None of the other oblast party organizations has its own publication or journal. It must be stated that the activity of party organizations is closed to the general public. This is facilitated by a number of factors: the organizational centralism of the parties, which levels local initiative, the authoritarianism of party leadership, the significant presence in local organizations of persons who are driven rather by personal business or career considerations than by national interests, and the absence of traditions of political regional self-expression. Not a single oblast party organization has declared its program for the economic, humanitarian, or social development of the oblast. This applies equally to both pro-government and opposition political parties. There are no grounds to claim that Volyn residents are completely unaware of the existence of political parties; the other matter is that they do not know about the activity of regional party organizations. Within the framework of the above-mentioned survey, it was established that only 7.1% of respondents believe that parties are capable of reliably controlling the activity of deputies of the oblast council. In Lutsk, 8.2% of respondents proposed political parties for the role of controller; in such an industrially developed city as Kovel, 0.0%. In view of this, it can be stated that oblast party organizations are not inclined to conduct an independent policy tied to the problems of the region. The presence of party factions in local councils does not improve the situation either. True, their formation remains an unstable phenomenon to this day. Today there are factions of NSNS, VO "Batkivshchyna," and UNP. However, the activity of these formations, again, amounts to all-party rather than regional party representation and, as a rule, does not go beyond claims against local government leaders. Party factions, like local party organizations, do not have their own analytical and information services and often content themselves with subjective, unsystematized, incompetent conclusions, so all their actions do not go beyond general statements and temporary pickets, because they do not rely on an action plan developed as a result of scrupulous analysis. This is precisely why nothing actually comes of them. In particular, this could be observed at the beginning of 2005, when the oblast organization of the KUN held an action demanding the dismissal of the head of the oblast state television. In the end, he remained in his position without suffering any losses. The action demanding the resignation of the prosecutor of Volyn Oblast, conducted by "Pora," began with an ultimatum demanding the removal not only of him but also of three other prosecutors of the oblast for abuse of office. As a result, the head of the oblast prosecutor's office was transferred to the position of prosecutor of a neighboring oblast, and his colleagues were left alone. A joint action organized at the beginning of 2005 by several factions of the Lutsk City Council regarding the construction of an underground passage in the city center ended with the construction of this passage, necessary for the city, being frozen for an indefinite time. De facto, no political organization is dominant in the oblast either in personnel terms or in the aspiration to shape regional policy, especially by involving Volyn residents in the implementation of their party programs. Public organizations As of October 1, 2005, 290 oblast, city, and district public organizations were registered in the oblast. Approximately half of them can be defined as socio-political, which, however, in no way affects the activity and influence of the so-called third force in the oblast. Approximately 60% of public organizations exist, so to speak, on paper. 30% are club-type organizations that have not shown themselves to the general public over the past five or six years. 9% are organizations of a purely social orientation that unite people who need outside help. An example of such an organization is the Volyn Oblast Council (branch) of the Ukrainian Fund "Rehabilitation of the Disabled." Actually, thanks to the presence of some kind of connection with the relevant government and local executive structures, these organizations constantly remind of themselves. But everything they do in the public sphere is aimed at fulfilling fragmentary current rather than strategic tasks. And only 1% consists of organizations such as the Committee of Voters of Ukraine and the Association for the Protection of Youth Rights of Volyn, which, thanks to their connections with international foundations and other foreign organizations, to a certain extent meet the definition of a public organization. In addition, it can be noted that public organizations are in no way connected with each other, unlike, say, the practice of the Volyn Oblast Organization of the KNDS, which operated at the very beginning of the 90s: it gathered around itself almost all pro-democratic socio-political and cultural organizations of the oblast. After the collapse of the KNDS, public organizations, finding themselves alone in confrontation with the official authorities, chose a different path to solve their problems - the path of petitioners. This is largely connected with a weak awareness of their role in society and an unwillingness to occupy leading positions in it. During the above-mentioned sociological survey, Volyn residents were asked to answer the question "Whom would You propose for the role of controller over the activity of deputies of the Volyn Oblast Council?" It is indicative that only 6.8% of respondents gave this role to public organizations. In Lutsk and Kovel, over 10% of respondents saw them in such a role, but in the districts - on average 1.5%. It is also noteworthy that the ranks of public organizations are joined mainly by those who openly shun political activity, avoid any confrontation with the official authorities, but profess certain principles of collectivism. As a result, this reprofiles the organizations into clubs of interest. According to the already all-Ukrainian tradition, a number of youth pro-party organizations were created in Volyn, but the general social effect of their activity is zero. The evaluative approach to the public movement in Volyn consists mainly in the fact that these organizations are, in essence, neither islands of democratic traditions nor structures through which a person can realize their civic ambitions. These organizations have not become structural subdivisions in which and through which civil society is formed, since almost no public organization of Volyn Oblast has yet declared itself in its field in such a way that the official authorities would be ready and forced to reckon with it, much less seek in it their ally and adviser. Business associations As of the beginning of September 2005, thirty public organizations of entrepreneurs were registered in the oblast. Five of them are actually operating: the Association for the Protection of the Rights of Small and Medium Business "Business-Lutsk," the Association of Entrepreneurs in the Field of Medicine and Pharmacy of Volyn; the Volyn Oblast Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, the Volyn Oblast Agency for Youth Entrepreneurship, and the public association "Volyn Perspectives." The main reason for such mass inactivity of business associations, as the entrepreneurs themselves note, is that the authorities are interested in the presence of obedient, or at least inactive, entrepreneurial structures, and therefore personally participate in their creation. However, the absence of such organizations, as well as the low activity of existing ones, do not constitute a problem given the extremely weak regional market space, the arbitrariness of controlling state and administrative bodies that prevailed until recently, imperfect tax legislation, the corrupt judicial and law enforcement system that remains so to this day, the lapidary level of small and medium business development programs, imperfect regulatory policy in this public sphere, the weakly developed production sector, and the noticeable dominance of trade business in the oblast. In addition, one cannot leave out of attention the fact that a significant part of entrepreneurs, especially those working in trade, consider their business temporary, and therefore are more concerned with one-time operations capable of enriching instantly than with planning the expansion of their enterprise. This type of entrepreneur is not inclined toward self-organization. They do not understand their social weight, and therefore their personal (that is, non-social) egocentrism prevails over communicative aspirations. Under such conditions, local authorities can easily use their social helplessness and even establish obstacles to the formation of their social self-awareness. For example, for two years in a row the Lutsk city executive authority has not celebrated Entrepreneur's Day. According to information received from the entrepreneurs themselves, the oblast has neither a well-established open, transparent system of state procurement from local producers, nor channels of information about planned auctions and announced tenders, including those for the sale of state-owned property. True, the entrepreneurs themselves do not demand this either. If it does happen that one of the entrepreneurs expresses dissatisfaction, then due to the dispersion of entrepreneurs it is not difficult for the authorities to neutralize it in time or direct it to their advantage. According to the tradition established in Soviet times, closed or semi-closed forms of relations between the authorities and political parties with entrepreneurs are preserved in the oblast. Ordinary businessmen mostly avoid direct contacts with political parties - primarily because they do not consider this beneficial for themselves. And if they do agree to provide them with financing, they prefer to conceal it, which is considered beneficial for both sides. Local authorities also seek to maintain closed or informal relations with entrepreneurs. This was especially widely practiced during previous election campaigns, when it came to financing pro-government candidates. Similar is the practice of voluntary-compulsory involvement of businessmen in financing various kinds of projects. Having received a notification-request to help a cause, entrepreneurs consider it better to respond positively to it than to later expose themselves to various kinds of unpleasantness. Analyzing the general situation that determines the political life of Volyn Oblast in the course of its democratic progress, the following conclusions can be drawn: · the region does not have stable traditions of open political processes due to well-known historical preconditions; · the positive changes taking place in the oblast are conditioned not by its internal self-development but by the actions of the central state power; · centralism, which stands in the way of the formation of public policy by government bodies, applies no less to political organizations; · public organizations and business structures of the oblast are ineffective, since their leaders consider them primarily instruments for satisfying personal interests rather than self-sufficient structures capable of positively influencing the country's political system.