The study analyzes the administrative-territorial reform started in 2019. There are a large number of administrative units in Latvia – 119 municipalities. Compared to other European countries, Latvia has a low population density of 1 km2. The population remains below each year and therefore financial resources to cover administrative expenditure are increasing every year. Many municipalities no longer comply with the statutory requirements and are unable to provide the functions specified for them. In 2019, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development has launched an administratively territorial reform to reduce the number of administrative units. The article aim to explore the forthcoming administratively territorial reform and its impact on residents in Latgale. The author of the article studied the reform, its purpose and substance, profiles of municipalities established by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development, carried out a survey of Latgale residents in order to find out the opinion of the population on the reform, as well as analysing the migration of Latgale municipalities' labour force.
The article is devoted to social and cultural problems, essential in the light of formulating the tasks of the future administrative and territorial reform and constructing corresponding regional policy. The author describes the concept of territorial-economic structure, defining it according to social and economic attributes as the group of spatial social and economic systems integrated with surrounding space. Classification of territorial-economic structures as forms of rural and urban types of civilization is offered. Intercivilizational sociocultural "breaks" between different types of territorial-economic structures in Russia are shown. Opportunities of implementation of the given approach in forming national regional policy are considered.
The main consequences of administrative-territorial reform in Ukraine are the formation of united territorial communities and the growth of local budgets, which will further contribute to the financing of programs and projects for the socio-economic development of the regions and improve the quality of life of the population in the regions. In addition, administrative-territorial reform in Ukraine has contributed to the development of institutions that have a positive impact on social and economic development. Administrative-territorial reform in the future will contribute to the development of institutional tools for updating joint production by combining state assets with investment, management and other resources of the private sector, thus ensuring structural changes in the regional economy and capital renewal.
There have been made many significant steps toward implementing reforms which lead Albanian Government to a consolidated integration process. Many challenges and obstacles have hindered this path, particularly those of a political nature, to which my country is still very sensitive. A kind of "hot spot" in all this discussion appeared to be the newest reform called "administrative territorial reform" or "decentralization process" which has already been implemented in 2015. Amongst the range of studies, consultations and amalgamate process in multi level governance,the concept of integration has been isolated from the perspective of European integration. The Albanian Government has undertaken this reform with the ad-hoc Parliamentary Committee in close coordination and cooperation with the local government units, funded by the STAR Project (Support to Territorial and Administrative Reform) and implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Despite this, there is not much evidence of a deeper cooperation to determine an integrated package of principles whereby local government authorities reflect realistic concerns about EU's influence along their mission and activities. This paper intends to explore whether the implementation of this administrative-territorial reform has taken into consideration the formal set up of EU integration, or has at least established the necessary legal, financial, cultural environment with the overall aim to enable European frameworks and processes even in local authorities and communities. DOI:10.5901/ajis.2017.v6n2s1p137
As the boarders of territories change, administrative territorial reform can cause problems in data comparison over longer time period. The goal of this paper is to offer methodology how to compare data about territories before and after administrative territorial reform. This paper includes both reviews of previous attempts of data comparisons as well as it proposes a couple of principles that could make such a comparison more reliable and easy to use.The proposed methodology tests on the data of Latvia (for the period from 2001 to 2011) because in 2009 Latvia experienced administrative territorial reform and the structure of municipalities changed significantly. Before there were more than 500 municipalities (called pagasts), later – 119 county municipalities (novads).To test the accuracy of this method of comparison, it is applied to enable budget expenditure comparison by using panel data fixed effects models. These models evaluate which factors (such as budget revenue, municipality and parliament elections etc.) influence municipality budget expenditures in different years. Calculations are made for full period as well as those periods before and after the reform in such a way analyzing variable influence changes and evaluating their strength and stability. Results prove that two main principles that describes previous data summarizing and proxy variable combinations are applicable and allow extending the period of data analysis.The main novelty of this research is elaborated simple, easy to use system for territory comparison specific in Latvia before and after administrative territorial reform, but it could be applied also to other countries with similar data problems.
The relevance of this article is conditioned by the decentralization of the reform of political power in Ukraine, which presents the State with the permanent challenge of finding new ways to solve the problems of governance and governability at the district and regional level. The objective of the article was to carry out a scientific investigation on the mechanism of introduction of institutes of prefects in Ukraine, based on the experience of the main western European countries. The main research methods are general and specific, including the methods of logic, analysis and comparison of the sources consulted. The results of this study are to identify ways to introduce an institute of prefects in Ukraine. By way of conclusion, it highlights the importance of the results obtained, which is reflected in the fact that this study can serve as a basis to delineate future changes to the current legislation of Ukraine on issues of state administration, at the district and regional level, by introducing the institute of prefects.
The essence of administrative and territorial reform and decentralization reform in Ukraine is to move away from a centralized model of government in the state, ensure the ability of local self-government and build an effective system of territorial power organization in Ukraine based on the principles of subsidiarity, omnipresence and financial self-sufficiency of local self-government. The purpose of the article is to identify areas for improving the effectiveness of the administrative-territorial reform in Ukraine based on assessing the results of its financial decentralization component. Peculiarities of changing the territorial basis of local self-government in Ukraine investigate the necessity of moving from a voluntary amalgamation of territorial communities to the stage of their formation according to clearly defined criteria and providing opportunities for the development of such communities in the future. It focuses on the need to consolidate areas and change the system of interaction of the subregional level with the amalgamated territorial communities at a basic level.
The paper treats important problems of regional and local government policy, such as the possibility of and need for the administrative-territorial reform, including merging of municipalities and definition of mutual relationships between the state and local governments and their functions. The need for sustainable and strong municipalities has been emphasised also on the level of the European Union already several years ago. Possible mergers of Estonian county centres with their surrounding rural municipalities, also the possibility for having several centres of attraction in a county are discussed. Statistics on demographic changes in the Estonian population, concentration of the population above all to larger cities, and decrease in rural population are presented. Also statistics, for instance, on changes in the number of pupils in counties are presented. A few suggestions are made for the further development of the regional and local government policy, including based on the considerably more radical activities in Finland in this field.
The stable development of Ukraine as the agricultural state actualizes a complex of economic, organizational and legal issues, which are concerned with an implementation of the land relationship. The maximum usage of rental tools is the most effective among the existing budget filling mechanisms. The aim of the article is to conduct a research of land relationship by mechanisms of improving the agricultural lands rent management. The object of a study is the interaction of state institutions at different levels of land lease management. The basis of the study is a cognitive method in the patterns of development of the land relationship. Therefore, in the article, the alternative version of the organizational and economic mechanism for the implementation of land relations was proposed with the aim to improve the existing practice that will facilitate the additional financing of local self-government authorities. At the state regulation level, it is proposed to create an informational electronic database, which should display cadastral numbers and location of land plots, as well as information about land plot owners. Measures of control should be fulfilled by such state authorities as State Geo Cadastre and Ministry of Justice of Ukraine. In order to follow a principle of openness, it has been proved that this database should be public. As a result, methodological and organizational tools are based on the algorithm of lease relationship management as the main source of budget filling for local self-government authorities and main tasks for implementation of administrative-territorial reform that were declared by the government.
This article presents an attempt to systematize the results of studies on the experience of European countries on the implementation of administrative-territorial reform in the context of decentralization of power. There are different discussions in relation to the question of the expediency of the process of decentralization and administrative-territorial reform in Ukraine. Ways of finding an optimal model of local government organization that can ensure the effective development of regions and the state as a whole are relevant. Therefore, it is interesting the experience of European countries that have already solved or partially solved outlined the problems. The process of decentralization in European countries also envisaged the implementation of administrativeterritorial reform, in particular, by consolidating administrative-territorial units. this process has just begun and requires considerable efforts in formulating the most effective reform option in Ukraine. This problem is relevant for modern Ukraine. From the beginning of 2015 in our country there is a practical implementation of the concept of decentralization, which is based on the change of administrative-territorial system. The goal of this study is to highlight the experience of implementing administrativeterritorial reform in European countries in the context of decentralization for the possibility of using this experience in Ukrainian realities. A number of research methods have been applied in the process of fulfilling the tasks in the article. In particular, among the general scientific methods of research are analysis, synthesis; induction and deduction. Among the special methods of research were used systemic, comparative, functional, historical methods. ; У цій роботі представлена спроба систематизації результатів досліджень щодо досвіду європейських країн з проведення адміністративно-територіальної реформи в контексті децентралізації влади. Щодо питання доцільності процесу децентралізації та адміністративно-територіальної реформи в Україні проводяться різноманітні дискусії. Але актуальними залишаються шляхи пошуку оптимальної моделі організації місцевої влади, що може забезпечити ефективний розвиток регіонів і держави загалом. Тому досить цікавим є досвід європейських країн, які вже вирішили або частково вирішили окреслені проблеми. Процес децентралізації влади в європейських країнах також передбачав проведення адміністративно-територіальної реформи, зокрема, шляхом укрупнення адміністративно-територіальних одиниць. В Україні цей процес тільки розпочався і вимагає значних зусиль у формуванні найбільш ефективного варіанту проведення реформи. Ця проблема є особливо актуальною для сучасної України. Оскільки, починаючи з 2015 року, в нашій державі відбувається практичне втілення концепції децентралізації, в основі якої лежить зміна адміністративно-територіального устрою. Метою цього дослідження є висвітлення досвіду впровадження адміністративно-територіальної реформи у європейських країнах в контексті децентралізації для можливості використання цього досвіду в українських реаліях. У процесі виконання поставлених завдань у статті застосовано ряд методів дослідження. Зокрема, серед загальнонаукових методів дослідження: аналіз, синтез; індукції та дедукції. Серед спеціальних методів дослідження було використано: системний, порівняльний, функціональний, історичний методи дослідження.
