Issue 2019 no4 contents:

The study focuses on the risks of making a social contract by its recipients – poor citizens and representatives of regional authorities, and the problems of unsustainable funding of such contracts. The study is based on the assumption that identifying the causes for poverty both of the regions and their neighbors will reveal sustainability of implementing a social contract technology in the field of healthcare and education of the poor, or in terms of infrastructure of a particular locality and the availability of jobs. The analysis of regional experience in making a social contract between 2015 and 2018 revealed significant differences in the costs of a social contract in various Russian regions. In order to mitigate risks and search for new approaches to providing a social contract and redistributing the financial resources of the regions for these purposes, an assessment of the investment potential of the regions was made in the context of its implementation for fulfilling social obligations. In addition, the share of expenditure on a social contract in the total regional expenses on social policy for all 85 Russian regions was estimated. The evaluation displayed a mismatch between the amount of expenditure of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation on a social contract and the available potential of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. It also allowed the authors to rank the most and least balanced regions in terms of obligations to provide state social assistance. Based on this, a number of practical methods for allocating regional funds for the implementation of social obligations, including the development of a social contract mechanism, were suggested. Moreover, accounting treatment of social risks and their coverage according to the insurance principle was developed.

The article provides and examination of new phenomena, Government Digital Platforms, which possibly can become a disruptive innovation transforming relations among authorities, business and society. Transactions costs decrease, public control and transparency enforcement over government decision making and service provision processes are in the focus of digital transformation by means of government platforms. The authors analyze the emergence of the term “Government Digital Platform”, investigate the peculiarities of adopting platform-based approach by government information systems, compare government digital platforms with commercial platforms. In conclusion the authors forecast future trends for applying government digital platforms in Russian public administration system.

The article is devoted to developing an electronic demographic (e-demographic) system based on a single state registry for conducting a demographic research. In the digital age, new data sources for the study of demographic behavior are emerging. Currently, population registry data used for the study of population is still quite limited.Therefore, the creation of the e-demographic system based on a single state registry for effective demographic research, as well as for the analysis of not only the population registry, but also other state registries, is of great relevance. The article examines the international experience of using the demographic characteristics of the data accumulated in the population registry. The practice shows that although population registry data are currently used in population studies, there are no approaches to the use of data from other state registries and to the development of an e-demographic system. The article proposes the concept of forming an e-demographic system based on a single state registry which operates independently of the functions of the e-government. The article outlines the benefi ts of using Big Data, OLAP, ETL technologies to analyze the demographic data. The development of the system allows better understanding the demographic processes and enables in-depth research at different levels from social demography to population geography and from migration processes to medical demography.

The article focuses on the development of a new conceptual approach to public management of regional development through constructing and implementing an appropriate automated complex goal program (CGP). The purpose of the article is to justify a new approach to public management of regional development in the context of deepening European integration processes. The current study exploits the method  of goal assessment of alternatives for building a hierarchy of goals for the complex goal program of regional development public management.
The investigation is based on the analysis of legislative acts of Ukraine, European strategies “Digital Agenda of Europe”, “Europe 2020: a strategy of reasonable, sustainable and comprehensive growth”, development strategies of various regions of Ukraine, presented on their websites; expert data processed in the CGP; sociostatistical base of economic advantages development of various regions of Ukraine. Having carried out the analysis, the authors identified the advantages and disadvantages of various theories of regional development management; justified the concept of regional development by designing an automated complex goal program; defined the set of optimal projects that contribute to the improvement of regional development with the help of proposed CGP. Developed CGP allows allocating limited financial resources rationally to optimum projects. Automation of the CGP was done with modern IT technologies such as the decision support system “Solon-2”. The research results can be applied in the regions that need to optimize the system of public management of regional development. The results of the study might enhance the distribution of limited financial resources between identified priority projects and their sub-goals which can significantly improve the process of public administration of the region.

The reform of control and supervision activities, as part of the Administrative Reform in the Russian Federation, is designed to provide a reasonable balance between state interest as a guarantor of compliance with established standards and requirements; the interests of business in reducing the number of control and supervision measures; and the constitutional right of citizens to protect their life, health, property and other legal rights and interests. Currently, there is a need to reduce the number of requirements of regulatory legal acts for the implementation of business and business activities by legal entities and individual entrepreneurs (“regulatory guillotine”). The solution of this problem in future may lead to creation of a market for services in the field of control. It might also encourage a transfer of some of the functions and powers of control from state control and oversight bodies to nongovernmental organizations. This determines the need to summarize the experience of public-private partnership in control, the existing types of non-state control, and developed approaches to the organization of the protection of life, health, property of citizens while reducing the role of the state in control and supervision activities. It seems appropriate to develop measures to stimulate the use of publicprivate partnerships in priority (risky) segments of control. The article summarizes the experience of implementing public-private partnerships in monitoring compliance with regulatory requirements in the Eurasian Economic Union countries and in the Russian Federation. An algorithm of public-private partnership in the field of control is proposed. The author carried out an expert analysis of the creation and development of sanitary and epidemiological safety monitoring services provided by non-governmental organizations. The analysis reveals the reasons for the formation of the market for control services, the forms and types of control with regard to the risk-based approach. The author proposes a model of interaction between the state body for control (supervision) and non-governmental organizations providing services in the field of control over sanitary and epidemiological safety of the population. The article offers recommendations on building a model of public-private partnership in the field of monitoring sanitary and epidemiological safety, taking into account the positions of citizens and the requirements of art. 14 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation «on the right of citizens to protect their health».

This article explored the effects of rule formalization in Russian regional government. Based on a survey of 1098 regional and municipal civil servants the authors analyze the effect of Red tape and Green tape on job satisfaction and turnover intention. The study shows that “good” rule formalization (green tape) is associated with higher job satisfaction, whereas red tape is associated with lower job satisfaction and higher turnover intention. Additionally, a survey experiment is employed to evaluate the perception of meritocratic hiring criteria in the civil service: the results demostrate that respondents perceive meritocratic criteria as a more important selection factor than personal ties. Respondents who saw personal ties as an important hiring criterion show lower job satisfaction, this highlights the importance of meritocracy in personnel management in the civil service.

Inter-municipal cooperation and the merger of municipalities are the basis of administrative-territorial reforms in Armenia, which began in 2015. The purpose of this study is to fi nd out how the reforms infl uenced the cooperation of municipalities, in particular, whether they helped to solve problems in the field of cooperation and more effectively organize this process. To answer these questions, we conducted a comparative analysis of inter-municipal cooperation in Armenia before and after the reforms. For these reasons, legislation regulating the cooperation of municipalities and data on inter-municipal authorities was explored. To assess the level of development of inter-municipal cooperation in Armenia compared with other post-Soviet countries, we studied the experience of inter-municipal cooperation of Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine.
The analysis is based on the data obtained from the official website of the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Development of the Republic of Armenia, the books Local Government in Armenia, which are annually published by the Union of Municipal Financiers and the results of surveys and surveys conducted by Counterpart International in 2011 and 2014. Since inter-municipal cooperation is not well developed in the post-Soviet countries, we have collected the information about cooperation of municipalities in Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine from scientific literature and from the official websites of the European Neighborhood Policy and the United Nations Development Program in Moldova.
Having studied the examples of inter-municipal cooperation in Armenia and main obstacles to their functioning, lack of funds and the imperfection of the legislative base, we can conclude that if changes in the legislative field regulate the activities of these structures, then with regard to financial issues, a systematic solution is required to increase the income of municipalities and to allocate these funds for their own powers.

The article presents an analytical review of forming institutional organizational environment in China, which accelerates scientific technological development. The aim of the study was to identify the potential of institutions, which are included in the public innovation management system in China, and possibilities for their adaptation in Russia. The authors mark the prerequisites for the development of innovative Chinese economies related to government policies aimed at attracting foreign direct investment. It is shown that public administration institutions of China’s scientific and technological development are structured into a three-tier vertical system, effectively enforcing state bodies themselves and agents of economic activity to implement innovations: 1) bodies of state power; 2) deliberative, coordinating, funding bodies; 3) executive organizations. This system of enforcement takes certain place in classification of factors determining the dynamics of China’s innovative development. The analysis made it possible to identify eff ective institutional mechanisms of public administration in China that could be used in future studies to discover opportunities of their use in Russia.