The dissertation, based on the analysis of modern philosophical and legal
doctrine, the provisions of national legislation and the practice of its application,
reveals the essence of the community in a transitional society through the prism of its
axiological and law enabling components.
The paper defines the community as an environment for realizing the essential
potential and meeting basic existential human needs, in particular through:
establishing and maintaining interpersonal relationships, caring for others and at the
same time a sense of stability and personal security, overcoming passive animal
nature through socialization, individual identity and collective devotion. The
community in this sense is an effective mechanism for combining the person
(individual) and society (collective).
Conceptual approaches to understanding the concept of "community" are
outlined: as a historically formed community of people, characterized by a common
tradition, culture; as a set of social interactions, interactions between individuals,
family relationships, living in the same area, belonging to a certain social group,
guarantees of social protection and support; as a common, collective consumer; as a
subject of local self-government; as a territorially united set of people, formed on the
basis of a combination of socio-territorial differences into a specific social formation;
as a basic administrative-territorial unit for the further creation of state integrity; as a
set of multiple manifestations of individual institutions; as a subject of public-private
relations, a subject of joint management.
The main regular characteristics of the community are substantiated:
attachment to the territory of residence of people; unity based on common interests;
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effective interpersonal interaction and high intensity of internal connections; selfgovernment as a formative basis of power relations; ability to structure and form
internal organizational management systems; social functioning on the basis of
collective forms of activity for life support of common interests; orderliness of
relations on the basis of legal and other social norms, which allows to recognize
community members as subjects of law; complex legal personality; cultural potential
(common norms and values); conditionality of life not only by individual but also by
integration factors.
It is proved that the main function of the community is integration: the
community acts as a set of individuals, and the legislative application of the
generalized concept of "residents" gives grounds to introduce into it not only citizens
but also foreign citizens and stateless persons who reside (live) in its territory on legal
grounds.
It is motivated that in the context of national reform of the system of local selfgovernment important functional features of the territorial community, in addition to
integration, are also: communicative - in territorial communities there is a system of
different interests, public relations and social relations, and their interaction leads to
formation of public-collective infrastructure, which provides for the establishment of
various institutions, which operation is aimed at meeting the interests and needs of
community members (for example, self-organization bodies, public associations,
organizations, enterprises, media, businesses, etc.); organizational - territorial
community as the primary subject of local self-government is a clearly organized
system, which includes subsystems of bodies and officials that provide direct
implementation of autonomous management; functional-target - the territorial
community has independent, autonomous competencies and functions for solving
problems of local significance; historical and cultural - territorial community is
influenced by factors of historical and cultural nature, under their influence are
formed socio-cultural heritage (customs, traditions, certain worldviews, respected and
practiced by members of the community, reflected in its symbols - flag, emblem,
etc.); ownership - an important element of the legal status of the territorial
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community is its characterization as a subject of communal property (it has the right
to own, use and dispose of its property in its own interests and at its own discretion
through local self-government bodies, as well as directly by itself).
It is noted that the domestic practice of constituting of territorial communities,
filling their status with an ontologically conditioned essence, delegating selfgoverning powers to them, endowing them with real autonomous functions, is quite
debatable.
