The internal development of the Ukrainian parliament
| Author | TREVOR L. BROWN,CHARLES R. WISE |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1099-162X(199608)16:3<265::AID-PAD876>3.0.CO;2-B |
| Date | 01 August 1996 |
| Published date | 01 August 1996 |
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT, VOL. 16,265279 (1996)
The internal development
of
the Ukrainian parliament
CHARLES R.
WISE
School
of
Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University
and
TREVOR
L.
BROWN
School
of
Public and Environmental Affairs. Indiana University
SUMMARY
At the time
of
independence, parliaments in Central and Eastern Europe and the Newly
Independent States of the former Soviet Union were highly underdeveloped institutions. Since
that time, many parliaments have begun the process
of
building legislative capacity in order to
participate more fully in the process of governance. One aspect of building legislative capacity
is the internal structure
of
the parliament. This article examines the internal development
of
one of these parliaments-the Verkhovna Rada of Ukrainefocusing on the legislative
process, the budget process, the committee system and faction organization. The article
identifies where progress has been made in each of these areas, and points
to
key aspects that
require critical attention in order
to
ensure future progress. Finally, it discusses how one
development project-the Parliamentary Development Project-has used a ‘comparative
action research’ approach to aid key decision makers in the Verkhovna Rada in building
legislative capacity.
INTRODUCTION
Olson and Norton
(1994)
argue that at the time of independence the post-
Communist legislatures of Central and Eastern Europe faced a vexing dilemma.
Parliaments were at the centre of policy making and political participation, but at the
same time crippled by operational underdevelopment. As Olson and Norton state,
these legislatures had ‘high opportunity and low capacity’. A similar dilemma faced
the parliaments of the Newly Independent States (NIS)
of
the former Soviet Union,
which served as the ‘central site’ (Agh,
1995)
for political activity, but were
institutionally deficient. However, it is important to note that parliamentary
underdevelopment should be expected early in a regime transformation;
institutionalization takes time (Polsby,
1968).
Now, five years after the fall of the
U.S.S.R., sufficient time has elapsed to justify assessing how far parliaments in the
Dr Wise is Director, Parliamentary Development Project for Ukraine, School of Public
&
Environmental
Affairs, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405-2100, USA. Trevor Brown is Project Associate,
Parliamentary Development Project for Ukraine, and Graduate Student, Joint PhD Programme in
Political Science and Public Policy, Indiana University
CCC
0271-2075/96/030265-15
0
1996 by John Wiley
&
Sons, Ltd.
To continue reading
Request your trial