Issue 2020 no2 contents:

The creation of a multitude of public consultative bodies was one of the aftermaths of the administrative reform in Russia. Yet, the real impact of such advisory bodies on policymaking is weak. In this paper, we look at those organizations in Saint-Petersburg, Russia, to investigate the possible causes of such a situation. In order to achieve the ai, of the study, the legal base of more than 40 public consultative and advisory bodies under the city governor, city government and its committees has been analyzed. Based on the results of the analysis, we present the descriptive statistics of their composition and their estimated openness score. For deeper investigation, we have conducted interviews with the representatives of 7 advisory bodies and respective bodies of the city administration. As a result, a number of key problems with those advisory organizations’ activity were identifi ed, including the lack of influence of members of councils on the current agenda, lack of feedback from authorities, lack of openness of these pub lic bodies. We suggest that possible causes of those problems could be communication issues and unbalanced composition of these organizations, including predominance of status persons among members. 

Improving performance of public regulatory enforcement activity entailing stronger orientation at minimizing risks of harm to public values is proclaimed a key area for business climate transformation in Russia. The article reviews intermediate outcomes of the regulatory enforcement reform from the viewpoint of private businesses. A sociological survey of 1,000 private businesses in 28 Russian regions which were subject to state inspections in 2018–2019 conducted in March 2020 provided empirical data for the paper. The 2020 survey results were compared to the outcomes of the baseline survey conducted in 2017 at the outset of the regulatory enforcement reform with similar methodology applied. Overall, the survey results suggest that the perceptions of businesses regarding the impact of the state regulatory enforcement activities on reducing risks to public values have declined. Only some 27.4 percent of respondents noted that in general state regulatory enforcement have positive impact on their businesses (in 2017, 34.6 percent of respondents shared this opinion). Business perceptions of impact of specific inspections on the level of risk in their operations and product and process safety have also deteriorated. While the survey demonstrates some reduction in business inspections intensity, there is also a growth trend in other types of regulatory enforcement activities which are not accounted for in statistics, such as administrative investigations, raids, distant monitoring. Changes in administrative costs levels also demonstrate varying trends. While the survey suggests significant reduction in administrative costs related to access to information on legal requirements (by 57.3 percent in constant prices), unit costs related to regulatory enforcement inspections have significantly grown (by 47.4 percent). Survey respondents confirm the need for implementing risk-oriented principles in state regulatory enforcement activities entailing the concentration of resources on actual risks of harm. Optimization of regulatory requirements in the framework of ‘regulatory guillotine’ is also highly relevant. 

The aim of this paper is to develop a model for planning the number of public servants, taking into account the dynamics of socio-economic development of public legal entities. We use both qualitative methods (comparative legal analysis, document analysis, classification) and quantitative econometric methods (correlation analysis, construction of multiple regression and estimation of statistical significance of coefficients using Student’s t-statistics, Fisher’s F-statistics, the Durbin-Watson test for homoscedasticity of the model, and scattering diagrams). The strategy of socio-economic development of each subject of the Russian Federation (Strategy) serves as the basis for the public programs and other strategic planning documents. Given that the entire system of public authorities is involved in the implementation of the Strategy, it is important to make a reasonable choice of priority areas and realistic targets for the Strategy. Currently, these conditions are not always met (less than half of the target indicators of the analyzed region Strategy are fully or partially correspond to the Federal program of statistical observations, and the relationship between the forecast and actual dynamics of indicators is rather negative). Planning the number of public servants is carried out under the influence of endogenous factors rather than the status of managed fields. As a result, agencies operating in areas with upward and downward dynamics of development may have similar staff . Staff  adjustments do not take into account the level of the Strategy’s goals achievement, which leads to uneven efficiency of departments. The associated periodic reductions in the number of public servants occur without taking into account the processes in the managed fields. The current paper proposes a method of forecasting the staff  of executive authorities, taking into account the dynamics of socio-economic development under conservative, innovative and forced labor productivity growth scenarios. While building the model we ensured the functional nature of the relationship between the number of employees in priority areas and the rate of development of these areas. Also a number recommendations to ensure the quality of the Strategy are provided, e.g. implementing objective statistics, engaging the expert community, variable planning of targets. As all the subjects of the Russian Federation solve similar problems of socio-economic development, it seems that the conclusions and recommendations of this paper can be applied in a broad regional context, both at present and in the future. 

Managing the process of electricity generation appears to be the important dimension of the evaluation of comparative advantages for promising sources of energy. Solar and wind energy have significant characteristics, which provide an opportunity to explore particular forms of organization and management to operate efficiently and increase benefits of renewables use. In the article the focus has been placed on the forms of organization, enabling the spread of renewable energy at the global scale, i.e. diver sification and decentralization, networks including the participation of philanthropists and NGOs in the innovation sphere and international partnerships in the field of ecology and climate change. New practices are evaluated in the context of Siberia, which seems to be a demonstrative socio-economic megaregion, where fossil fuels are extracted in a great amount and projects on renewable resources are carried out. It is shown that economic potential of new approaches to renewables has been rather underestimated, and the prerequisites for the changes have been depicted, i.e. diversification, philanthropic activity, elimination of technological lock-in of perspective technologies of renewables and invigorating the performance of NGOs in global initiatives. 

The paper focuses on international experience of an energy policy tool application: cross-subsidy in electric power industry between the industry and households, as well as approaches to its reduction. Cross subsidization is introduced as a social support measure, while it bears a number of negative consequences, including the allocation of the largest share of subsidy to the wealthy households, as well as in creased costs for business that are reflected in the prime cost of goods and services. The study includes a research literature review, analysis of ultimate power tariffs and energy policy measures in different countries, as well as content analysis of related media publications. The research indicates that tariffs for industrial consumers in the majority of countries are two to three times lower than for households. The review of energy policy tools has proved that developed countries seem to be more inclined to apply market mechanisms, while for the developing economies with a more significant level of state intervention it is typical to artifi cially restrain the household tariff  growth. The research findings confirm the hypothesis: tariff  policy measures are not enough for effi cient resolution of cross-subsidy issues in electric power industry. A wider range of integrated social and economic policy tools from related areas of public administration have to be applied. 

This article summarizes the results of the Russian Agricultural Public Expenditure Review (PER). PER studies are conducted by the World Bank on a regular basis. This study evaluates the level and structure of budget support to agriculture in Russia and its contribution to the long-term economic growth of the sector. We analyze, to what extent can the economic growth demonstrated by the Russian agriculture in recent years be attributed to the budget support policy and suggest how the redistribution of funds to different means of support may increase this impact. The effect of the budget support to agriculture on economic growth in agricultural sector is evaluated using the model developed by Lopez and Galinato (2007) (fixed-effects model). The federal budget support evaluation is supplemented by an analysis of inter-budget relations in agriculture. The data confirm that budget support has a positive impact on agricultural growth; however, other factors have more prominent effect. In order to increase the efficiency of the budget support system in agriculture it is recommended to increase the transparency of budget support, redirect support by subsidies for producers towards general services, increase support for research and innovations, ensure the stability of support policies and limit the ability of the regions to obstruct competition through agricultural policies. 

Emerging management challenges often make regional education authorities start transforming their organizational structures. But, as a rule, such reconstruction takes place without analysis and evaluation of the existing structure, identification of its defects and their impact on the management quality. Underestimating these procedures happens because of the lack of scientific and methodological framework for the regional organizational structural research. Ultimately, even new structures are linear-functional, that is why management efficiency cannot be sufficiently increased under dynamic conditions. This article reveals a situational approach to the diagnosing of the organizational structure of the regional education authority in the constituent entity of the Russian Federation. Situational diagnostics includes a set of criteria and procedures that were used to assess the structure of the education authority in the Murmansk region. Diagnostics of the structure of this authority showed poor performance of signifi cant managerial functions, imperfection of the way they are combined, and inconsistency of the organizational structure with the requirements of the external and internal environment. As a result, the situational approach to the diagnosing of organizational education management structures made it possible for managers to assess the authority performance completely in real-time mode, to change their ideas about the priorities of this performace, and to recognize previously unnoticed details. 

The article analyzes the process and preliminary results of the consolidation of universities in Finland, which was undertaken as part of a reform of the country’s higher education sector, vis-a-vis the Russian experience in establishing the so-called «federal universities.» Factors that led to either positive or negative impacts on the outcomes of the Finnish reform are identified, revealing the approaches that are important for Russia to consider for its future university mergers. The research exploits empirical data and information related to the processes of the university-consolidation reforms in both countries. For the analysis of the Finnish case, interviews were conducted with the academic researchers who participated in discussions and negotiations that resulted in the establishment of new universities – Aalto, Turku, and Tampere. The study has revealed that one factor of positive influence is an approach where university mergers are just a part of a broader series of inter-related measures. Another critical factor is the establishment of feedback between the government agency that initiates the reform and the universities to be consolidated. Detailed negotiations of measures prior to the integration are found insufficient to guarantee a smooth transformation process. Comparison of the standings of the consolidated Finnish and Russian universities in international rankings reveals that the the results of mergers are not immediately obvious. 

The aim of this article is to introduce the Russian speaking readers to the field of public service motivation studies and to briefly outline the history and modern developments of this field. Publications on PSM are numerous. Meanwhile the Russian speaking public administration scholars are relatively unfamiliar with this field. This is indicated by the fact that since very recently there has not been a full Russian translation of the PSM questionnaire. Globally, PSM scholarship has blended into mainstream public administration research, it has developed its own canon and classics. In this paper we introduce the Russian speaking readers to this literature and its main developments. We also include in our brief review the few Russian publications that did utilize the PSM scale. Finally, we include one of the most recent Russian translations of the PSM scale.