CIAO DATE: 04/05

Ukraine's Security Sector Reform: Is Progress Conditioned by the Interest of Society

Abstract

The Ukrainian people are making a conscious and sincere bid for democracy, but at the same time, Ukraine has a still weak democratic system of governance. In practice it means that transparency, accountability and other essential elements in the maintenance of a democratic society in general, and in the functioning of security structures, in particular, are officially declared in Ukraine, but not consistently enforced.

Depending on correlation of the power of interests between the people and the authorities, progress in reforming of Ukraine's security sector and establishing of democratic civilian control appears to be significantly dependent on the achieved level of transparency and is very much uneven between individual security structures.

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