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The Efficiency of Managing Social Life under Multi-Actor Decision-Making

The efficiency of public administration, or in other words managing social life, greatly depends on the way of elaborating, adopting, and implementing administrative decisions. Among the factors that determine the characteristics of the system of administrative decision-making there are the number and the status of actors that take part in this process, their professional competence, their connections with social groups they represent, and other aspects.

The efficiency of public administration, or in other words managing social life, greatly depends on the way of elaborating, adopting, and implementing administrative decisions. Among the factors that determine the characteristics of the system of administrative decision-making there are the number and the status of actors that take part in this process, their professional competence, their connections with social groups they represent, and other aspects.

The number of actors that take part in decision-making and their status deserve special attention. The theory of political decision-making examines at least four cases: single-handed, consensual, collegial and collective decision-making. Each of these cases has its own place on the scale of criteria, i.e. depending on the number of actors one may expect the most prompt, the most resultant, the most effective or the most optimal decision. In the simplest cases of administrative tasks these four criteria may be combined, but this is rarely possible in political practice: the promptest decision that is usually made under time handicap is mostly not based on detailed study of an object and prediction of its further changes, the most resultant and effective decision requires much time for preparation and adoption, while the most optimal decision demands elaboration of optimality criteria, i.e. combining high performance with low cost.

In the past, some authors noted that under political and/or economic instability the promptest decisions should prevail over the search for the best and most effective results because of the need to quickly react to situation changes. As a rule, such decisions are made single-handed and implemented with the help of administrative vertical subordinate to the main actor. In this case, one of imperative demands to the main actor is his/her professionalism and decency. In addition, to ensure the longevity and continuity of actions and plans of the main actor they should meet the interests, expectations, and most importantly morals of the society, otherwise the leader’s activity will finally lead to further complications from the part of the population.

Over four years of his presidency, Viktor Yanukovych has quickly created and strengthened such system of elaborating and adopting political decisions that may be described as Marxist or monopolist model. The strict administrative vertical, all levels of which have been filled with staff from the president’s team selected predominantly on the basis of their loyalty to the leader, has been supplemented with positive and absolute subordination of decision-making bodies to one person – Viktor Yanukovych. In fact, it is possible to speak about concentration of all three branches of power in one hand. Yet, the moral principles of authorities’ actions have had little in common with expectations of the society – corruption and bribery in Ukraine have reached the unseen scale. The lack of professionalism of bureaucrats and officials, their activities directed at satisfying their private or clan interests have caused the serious economic and sociopolitical crisis that is expected to result in radical changes of the whole system of administrative decision-making.

In this work we are analyzing the prospects and threats that may arise upon ruining the monopolist system and transiting to one of the models based on full or limited pluralism.

Today the alternative to the effective government is constituted by three political forces – Vitaliy Klychko’s “UDAR”, “Batkivshchyna” lead by Arseniy Yatseniuk and prospectively Yuliya Tymoshenko, and “Svoboda” headed by Oleg Tiahnybok. Possible accession to power of this triumvirate may condition the creation of non-corporative or pluralist system of making political decisions of the highest level: at the table of decision-making there will be at least five mighty actors (the three above-mentioned will be inevitably joined by currently ruling Party of Regions and Communists) that according to Arrow’s paradox will not allow making rational decisions on the basis of consensus. Even if the triumvirate currently in opposition makes the majority, the evident differences in values, interests and moral principles of all three participants prejudice their ability to reach consensus.

In this case, the influence of the political force that will head the executive branch will be decisive, since bureaucratic resources and distribution privileges over social welfare will be concentrated at the Cabinet of Ministers, as it happened in 1991-2004 and later in 2006-2009. Even in case of strict supervision of representative branch over executive, the method of collecting, processing and submitting information needed for making political decisions will significantly determine the domination of bureaucratic bodies over politically and ideologically diverse legislative body. This situation is typical for most centralized administrative systems even in democratic countries. In the country that is transiting to democracy under serious economic and sociopolitical crisis requiring prompt reaction to new challenges of social life, the risk of its appearance is much higher.

This prospect means that decisions on all issues of social life organization will bear a mark of mostly bureaucracy’s interests that may lead to new social discontent or even sociopolitical crises in the society “heated” by mass protests and resistance actions. Therefore, there inevitably arises the problem of how to organize the processes and procedures of making political decisions so as to avoid new crises stipulated by traditional methods of governance.

Among the immediate tasks in organizing the system of making political and administrative decisions in the transitional society there is clear definition of the main sociopolitical and economic goals and priorities to be secured in the new version of the Constitution. The parliamentary-presidential or purely parliamentary character of the political system will not allow quickly overcoming the crisis due to dispersion of the main actors of decision-making, therefore it would be reasonable, at least for transition period that will last for few years, to retain the presidential-parliamentary republic that would enable the president taking responsibility for making urgent decisions to react to possible challenges and problems of social character.

The political history of independent Ukraine certifies that such a system carries the threat of concentrating the power in one hand – monopolization of decision-making. Therefore, another principle that may have a preventive role against usurpation of power is decentralization – transferring a great part of authorities of administrative and even political character to regional and local bodies. In this case, the attempts to impose the decisions prepared and adopted by the main actor or central bodies will be limited to a certain range of questions not affecting other issues principally important for the regions of the country.

This way the drawbacks of the system of multi-actor political decision-making may be leveled due to strengthening of the domination of constitutional principle over institutional needs and decentralization of the political system.

About the Author

Oleksandr Petrovich Demyanchuk

Former Regional Exchange Grant;
Director of International Cooperation Department, University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy
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