Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sarah Sokhey 

How and why do local governments in Ukraine provide vital public services, including infrastructure, healthcare, education, and other important social services? Since 2014, Ukraine has undergone significant decentralization and administrative reforms while also facing war and a pandemic. The key to the country's national resilience amidst these multiple crises lies in understanding how and why local governments have stayed resilient and adapted to continue providing public goods to their citizens. Local efforts are vital for the resilience and rebuilding of Ukraine, a country still at war, and offer valuable lessons for other conflict areas. I will use my HWK Fellowship to develop my research on how politicians, bureaucrats, and civil society organizations play a role in the provision of public goods at the local level in Ukraine today. This research is part of a larger project that includes a book manuscript and two articles. I use multiple methods to incorporate important qualitative and quantitative data, including original survey data, interviews, and a new local dataset compiled by a research team at the Kyiv School of Economics. The findings have important implications for Ukrainian resilience and offer important lessons for other countries and places facing conflict.