Mustafaieva E. Reforming the territorial foundations of public power in a multiethnic environment.

It is revealed that one of the problems of the policy of decentralization and territorial reform in Ukraine is incomplete consideration of the specific interests of ethnic groups in places of their concentrated residence. According to the Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, ratified by the Law of Ukraine, it is necessary to refrain from taking measures that change the proportion of the population in areas where persons belonging to national minorities live. The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages emphasizes that the development of the relevant regional or minority language should not be hampered in the process of changing local units. The purpose of the dissertation research is to determine the theoretical principles and develop practical recommendations for taking into account the ethnic factor in the implementation of the processes of territorial transformation in Ukraine. According to the specified purpose the following scientific tasks are set and solved in the dissertation: - to analyze theoretical and methodological approaches to ethnic development in terms of public administration science; - to study the domestic experience in creating local units using the ethnic factor; - to generalize the features of European approaches to reforming the territorial management system in polyethnic regions; - to analyze the conceptual principles of reforming the administrative-territorial system and decentralization policy in Ukraine; - to study the system of multilevel management of the implementation of ethnopolitics of Ukraine; - to analyze the processes of territorial transformation in the polyethnic regions of Ukraine; - to explore the legal possibilities of taking into account the ethnic factor in the implementation of territorial transformations; - to develop a methodology for information and analytical support of territorial reform in a polyethnic environment and also to develop appropriate practical recommendations for taking into account the ethnic factor in the implementation of territorial transformations. As a result of the conducted research new scientific and practical results are received: for the first time it is proved that the ethnic factor will have a significant impact on the mechanism and technology of reforming the territorial foundations of public authority in Ukraine, which allowed to critically analyze the basic provisions of conceptual and regulatory documents on territorial transformation, make specific proposals to improve regulations and administrative measures; through the application of a multifactorial interdisciplinary approach the main prerequisites were identified, mechanisms and problems for reforming the territorial system in the main polyethnic regions of Ukraine, which ensured the development of optimal models of voluntary association of territorial communities and reform of the district division are provided. It is improved: meaningful characteristics of the approaches of public administration science and management of ethnic development on the basis of which the in-depth meaning of the concept of "ethnic factor in public administration" is deepened, which is interpreted as the potential of ethnic community that directly or indirectly affects the development of public processes, the direction of its development or its individual aspects; general characteristics of European standards and approaches to reforming the territorial basis of public authority and the content of the relevant reforms in the polyethnic regions of Europe. Acquired further development: methods of ethno-regional analysis in the aspect of processes of voluntary amalgamation of local communities, due to which the possibilities of research of spatial organization of the main ethnic minorities of Ukraine and prospects of its transformation in the context of tasks of administrative-territorial reform are expanded; study of the parameters of the optimal local community in Ukraine in a polyethnic environment, which allowed to determine the relationship between ethnicity and self-sufficiency of the local community.