Journal articles on the topic 'Bureaucracy – Russia (Federation)'

It is generally believed that, based on the principle of separation of powers, the branches of government are endowed with independence from each other and equality among themselves, which means that they can control and balance each other’s activities. This principle can also be considered true for politicians, representatives of each of the branches of government. Bureaucrats holding positions in the executive branch are politically equal to electocrats in the legislative branch. At the same time, bureaucrats and electocrats are politicians of different kinds, they have a large number of differences in their powers, functions, rights, and competencies. But does this principle remain immutable for the Russian political system de facto? Are bureaucrats and electocrats so different from each other in Russia? The present study, analyses the biographies of 800 politicians of the Russian Federation who hold public positions in the executive and legislative authorities of all three levels: federal, regional, and municipal. The analysis allowed us to reveal the specifics of recruitment and circulation of personnel in the Russian political system, which makes it possible to speak with a high degree of probability about the trends in the development of the Russian establishment as a whole.

We study the influence of the program-targeted planning mechanisms on the civil service efficiency in the subjects of the Russian Federation. Our hypothesis is that the criteria for assessing effectiveness of civil service development programs are to increase the efficiency of its functioning and focus on solving problems of socio-economic development. The research methodology is based on the generalization of statistical data on the regions of the Central Federal District (CFD) of Russia in 2003-2016, and on the construction of some indices for civil service and socio-economic development. We have analyzed 67 programs of civil service development. Due to lack of financing Russian regions are forced to abandon many measures of the civil service reform. The average values of efficiency coefficients do not reach 30%, which indicates the existence of significant reserves for increasing the civil service development programs effectiveness. We have revealed that a crisis condition of socio-economic development resists the effective civil service development in the regions. At the same time, the region’s advanced positions in the economy do not automatically lead to a comparable high level of civil service development. This conclusion is important for extrapolating to regions of other federal districts and to the federal level in Russia.

The purpose of the article is to assess the nature of the evolution of the institution of political parties in post – Soviet Russia. The article substantiates that political parties continue to be one of the leading political institutions in the modern Russian Federation. The premature to recognize the functional incapacity of party institutions in the post-industrial/information society is noted. It is argued that political parties continue to be a link between society and state power, and retain the potential for targeted and regular influence on strategic directions of social development. The research methodology is based on the principles of consistency, which allowed us to analyze various sources of information and empirical data on trends and prospects for the evolution of the party system in the Russian Federation. As a result, the authors come to the conclusion that in Russian conditions the convergence of party elites with state bureaucracy is increasing, and there is a distance between political parties and civil society.

This article describes the various approaches to the analysis of the current situation and the justification of the further development prospects of the Russian industry represented at the round table on June 21,2018 inthe State Duma of Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation on a subject: «Legislative providing industrial policy of the Russian Federation: technologies, innovations, investments». Attention had also been drawn to issues requiring the globalization, the industrial development inequality of the countries of the world and the Russian regions, the dependences of economic growth on the state of the knowledge economy, the industrial and monetary and credit policy interrelations, the changes in the system of the state regulation of the Russian industry, the business moods, the technological updating results of the industrial enterprises, the features of the investment projects financing in Russia and in industrialized countries, the prospects of the introduction in Russia of the digital technologies of the industrial production management. Among offers of the situation significant improvement there are: the providing for the economic relations participants of the equal competitive opportunities; the completion of the Federal law «About Industrial Policy in the Russian Federation», the involvement in the economy of free money, the updating on the basis of the problems settlement with the financing of the enterprises of the fixed assets, the selective development of the import substitution, the distribution of the positive experience of the successful industrial companies. The author points to a need of the involvement in the discussion and the other important questions concerning the comprehensive analysis of the reasons of the serious lag of the Russian enterprises from the enterprises of the industrialized countries generating the negative consequences; the labor productivity at the industrial enterprises of the different countries of the world and factors of its growth; the influences of the developed bureaucracy, the administrative barriers, the corruption on a situation in the various industries, the applications of the concept of the economical production, the energy productivity and a resource conservation, etc.

This article describes the various approaches to the analysis of the current situation and the justification of the further development prospects of the Russian industry represented at the round table on June 21,2018 inthe State Duma of Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation on a subject: «Legislative providing industrial policy of the Russian Federation: technologies, innovations, investments». Attention had also been drawn to issues requiring the globalization, the industrial development inequality of the countries of the world and the Russian regions, the dependences of economic growth on the state of the knowledge economy, the industrial and monetary and credit policy interrelations, the changes in the system of the state regulation of the Russian industry, the business moods, the technological updating results of the industrial enterprises, the features of the investment projects financing in Russia and in industrialized countries, the prospects of the introduction in Russia of the digital technologies of the industrial production management. Among offers of the situation significant improvement there are: the providing for the economic relations participants of the equal competitive opportunities; the completion of the Federal law «About Industrial Policy in the Russian Federation», the involvement in the economy of free money, the updating on the basis of the problems settlement with the financing of the enterprises of the fixed assets, the selective development of the import substitution, the distribution of the positive experience of the successful industrial companies. The author points to a need of the involvement in the discussion and the other important questions concerning the comprehensive analysis of the reasons of the serious lag of the Russian enterprises from the enterprises of the industrialized countries generating the negative consequences; the labor productivity at the industrial enterprises of the different countries of the world and factors of its growth; the influences of the developed bureaucracy, the administrative barriers, the corruption on a situation in the various industries, the applications of the concept of the economical production, the energy productivity and a resource conservation, etc.

Given the present level of institutional quality and the significant role of the government sector in the economy, the Russian Federation has depleted the potential of the current model of growth which is based on commodity exports. The dramatic deceleration of the GDP growth rate down to less than 2% in the end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013 bears the evidence to this proposition. At the moment, the government considers the choice between expansionist and conservative scenarios, which both lie on the assumption of long-term conservation of existing imperfect institutions. However, according to our estimates, it is impossible to create a new model of growth ignoring the role of private initiative, healthy institutions of market economy and investment in human capital. We distinguish two groups that are increasing their influence nowadays and can potentially become the driving force of a new model of Russian economic growth: “new business”, dynamic companies that are oriented at the development in the market conditions but lack incentive to invest within existing institutional framework; “new bureaucracy”, consisting of progressive regional elites, who are interested in the development of their area, and efficient professionals of the federal level.

Background. The export of medical services is one of the most dynamically developing areas both in the structure of the world economy and in the structure of world health care. By decree of V.V. Putin of May 7, 2018 On national goals and strategic objectives of the development of the Russian Federation the need to increase the volume of exports of medical services was outlined. The real experience of receiving medical care by foreign citizens living in the territory of the Russian Federation has a serious impact on the broadcasted image of Russian medicine. Sociological research aimed at studying the opinion of foreign citizens about domestic medicine is a promising tool for ensuring a targeted approach in the export of medical services. Aims to study the opinion on the Russian medicine among foreign citizens of the CIS countries living in the territory of the Russian Federation in order to form an effective strategy for promoting medical services provided for foreigners in the territory of the Russian Federation. Methods. The focus group interviews with citizens of the CIS countries who received medical services and residing in Russia were held. For the analysis, the text data encoding procedure was carried out. At the same time, the study was not aimed at revealing the prevalence of opinions, statistical criteria were not used. An adapted COM-B model was used as a theoretical basis for the analysis, and the BCW (Behavior change wheel) method was used to develop recommendations. Results. The study examined some important details of the image of Russian medicine in the opinion of group participants (good equipment, reliable ambulance, feeling of conveyor belt, bureaucracy, etc.). The results are structured using the adapted COM-B model. The study identified the main strategies used by foreign citizens when seeking medical care. Insufficient awareness of foreign citizens about their rights in the field of medical provision in the territory of the Russian Federation was revealed. The main channels of communication used by citizens of the CIS to select a medical organization / specialist for seeking help have been studied, it is primarily word of mouth. It has been established that in order to be attractive, for Russian medicine its not enough to have advantages, they should be perceived as sufficient to overcome the convenience of conservative respondents to refer to native, familiar, as well as the fear of the stranger. Based on the results obtained using the BCW model, the recommendations have been developed and interventions have been proposed to promote medical services provided in the Russian Federation among foreigners.

Introduction. Throughout the existence of the Russian Federation, its economy is constantly being shaken by crises, and the year 2020 was no exception, when the Covid crisis broke out in the country, as a result of which service enterprises were badly affected. In this regard, we believe that assessing the impact of the current crisis on small and medium-sized businesses, as well as analyzing state support measures, is an urgent and timely task being solved by economic science. Theoretical analysis. Around the world, small and medium-sized businesses are the backbone of the economy, since in developed countries their share occupies more than 80%. The increased attention and demand of this sphere is due to their high adaptability to crisis situations, as well as the involvement of a significant number of employees in the business. As for Russian realities, in the early 1990s, the demand for this type of enterprise was insignificant, due to the legacy of the Soviet Union in the form of large monopolies, but in the process of transformation and the transition to the digital economy, the country’s government is forming infrastructure aimed at supporting this sector. Empirical analysis. The response in developed countries of the world (USA, Germany, Italy, UK) to the Covid-19 crisis was the support of entrepreneurs in the form of interest-free lending, deferral of loan and leasing payments, and employee benefits. In Russia, on the one hand, the rescue package was close to the world one, but in fact many entrepreneurs were unable to take advantage of them, due to high bureaucracy and a weak regulatory and legislative framework. Results. The Covid crisis has largely struck the Russian service sector, as a result, more than 3 million entrepreneurs are on the verge of closing their businesses, and some have already become bankrupt. The negative factors that aggravated the situation were also: a decrease in real incomes of the population, a decrease in oil prices and economic sanctions against Russia. As a result of a circumstances combination, the economy plunged into crisis and the Government of the Russian Federation was forced to develop measures aimed at maintaining small and medium-sized businesses, but these measures are not enough and enterprises continue to close. The only positive point is the transition of most enterprises to an online format, which brings the country closer to the digital economy.

The reform of the municipal system carried out since 2010 has revealed changes in the models of power organization and the growing interest of the federal authorities in the formation of reliable managerial personnel at the local level. The analysis of biographies of heads of municipalities in 80 subjects of the Federation, conducted by the authors of the article, showed that the state authorities actively use the municipal level as a personnel reserve. The study systematizes data on the choice of municipalities of one of the three main management models - the model of an elected head, a single-headed model of a city manager and a two-headed model. The article shows that the process of recruiting the municipal elite in Russia since 2010 has been intertwined with the formation of the state bureaucracy and the deputy corps, and the regional and municipal elite have become inseparable from each other, which corresponds to the peculiarities of the functioning of regional political regimes in Russia, where there are no two independent levels of power. The paper uses statistical methods to confirm the expediency of switching to non-electoral models for determining municipal heads from the point of view of stabilizing the political regime. The authors conclude that the reform of local self-government contributed to the formation of a unified system of public power in Russia before the constitutional reform of 2020, and the merging of the regional and municipal elite has a stabilizing political effect, playing an important role in strengthening the existing political regime.

In 1993 Russia announced the westernization of its political system. Its main institutions were enshrined in the Constitution of the Russian Federation (democracy, republic, separation of powers, rule of law). However, the researchers note that the reform failed. Russia only simulates the transition to Western standards of life. The author of the study sets himself the task of identifying the reasons for failure in the nature of the country's political culture. Applying a dialectical and materialistic approach to the problem, the author reveals the influence of the economic system of the country, the social structure of society, imitative changes in the political system, socialization, and traditions of society on the nature of the political culture of Russia. Based on his previous research, the author introduces a number of new explanatory theories. In his opinion, the movement towards the Western model is slowed down by the administrative class which does not want to lose its dominant position. It is not ready to move to a competitive political system, in which it loses its power and turns into a bureaucracy dependent on public politicians representing society. The service intelligentsia is engaged in spreading the public consciousness that is beneficial to the administrative class. Together, they support the type of consciousness of the population that is beneficial to them. Western political ideology is spread in society by the civil intelligentsia, but its significance is not great. The majority of the population agrees with the rule of the administrative class and votes in support of it. Therefore, there is no competitive political system in Russia. The mass consciousness of Russians remains irrational, which allows them to control it with the help of symbolic actions. It retains such archaic features as herd status and infantilism. An infantile person needs a master who decides for him in which direction society will develop, organizes this development, takes care of the population. People express dissatisfaction with this master, but accept his power and obey him. The degree of westernization of Russia's political culture is still very insignificant. The author defines it as 3 points out of 10. The political culture of Russia will be westernized as competitive capitalist relations develop in the country. Competition rules based on the law will gradually be introduced into the political life of the country.

Currently, digitalization and digital transformation are actively penetrating into various spheres of public life, new and new forms of their mass application are emerging, and citizens’ access to information technologies is expanding. For a legal and democratic state, the issue of openness of government is paramount, therefore, a special role in the process of digital transformation should be given to the creation of channels of information openness of the activities of state power. To study the problems of implementation and prospects for the introduction of information systems for monitoring and controlling the activities of authorities in modern Russia in 2021–2022, an empirical sociological study was conducted using questionnaire survey and expert interview methods. The method of data collection is a questionnaire survey of citizens of the Russian Federation aged 18–60 years (n = 2256 people) living in Russia. Heads of state and executive authorities, heads of commercial organizations, representatives of the academic community in the number of 25 people were invited as experts. As a result of the research on the way to the implementation of the concept of an open state, the main problems identified today are the following: unwillingness of authorities to be subject to control, closeness of information about the activities of authorities, high corruption, lack of interest among citizens, underdevelopment of civil society, bureaucracy of authorities, low level of education and upbringing of the population, lack of an understandable digital platform, imperfection of legislation, “digitalization for the sake of digitalization”, low security of personal data, low level of Internet ownership of technologies, lack of interest among citizens. In order to effectively solve the above-mentioned problems, we believe that it is necessary to further develop civil society institutions, increase government transparency, conduct systematic activities to improve the quality of work of civil servants responsible for citizens’ appeals, train digital transformation managers and, of course, apply digital solutions to increase transparency and efficiency of government activities with regular quality assessment and rating These decisions are analyzed by both the state and citizens to improve the level of information openness.

This article analyzes the consequences of the Russian Federation’s introduction of an electronic database that dynamically generates lists of individuals with reentry bans, with a focus on its effect on the Tajik migration management bureaucracy and Tajik migrant workers. Countering standard narratives about the passive citizenry of authoritarian states, it demonstrates how Tajik citizens change the emphasis in the bureaucracy through their everyday encounters with civil servants and bureaucrats. However, this is not a clear case of subversion or subaltern agency, but rather an engagement that remains structured by capitalist needs for expendable, disciplined, and most importantly deportable alien labor.

The concepts of rational bureaucracy, New Public Management and Good Governance were studied. It is indicated that wrongly assume that one of them is more progressive, because all concepts originally aimed at the rationalization of the public service and subordination its own interests according the interests of society. A set of conditions for the participation of citizens in governance exists today. There are a networked organization, a partnership, a production of public goods, and value of public interest. It is proved that in the Concept of the Russian Federation civil service reform (2001) laid the modernization potential for building an open and democratic public service. We postulate the classification of the barriers and challenges that hinder the civil service reform, and we formulate the growth points and the alternative transformation vectors. Then we consider the risks of each alternative in the short, medium and long term, and how to overcome them. It is indicated that the priority should be the harmonization of the legal framework for civil service and public sector. In the first step is need the convergence of the legal content of civil service with other activities in the public sector, and the renouncement the civil servants to serve to politicians, which is aimed at increasing their personal responsibility. It is necessary to implement the new basic legal principle of targeting efforts of the civil servants to achieve economic growth and improve the quality of citizens life. In the next step a new phenomenon – the public service – should be formed. The new public service will include the civil service, municipal service and the public sector organizations, as well as some other types of organizations. This requires some changes in the personnel policy: the formation of a single personnel reserve for the entire public service, improving the qualification requirements for all public positions based on professional specializations, and ensuring the effective public control. A systematic approach to the creation of the public service will increase the efficiency of public institutions and their resilience in the face of global instability. Our conclusions were tested in draft the Strategy of socio-economic development of Russia for the period till 2030.

Corruption is one of the key problems facing the Russian state as it seeks to evolve out of its socialist past. Naturally, regional patterns of corruption exist across a country as large and diverse as the Russian Federation. To explain these variations, the authors analyze 2002 data from Transparency International and the Information for Democracy Foundation that provide the first effort to measure differences in the incidence of corruption across forty Russian regions. They find that corruption in Russia is fueled by the size of government and by the level of development. Within each region, the amount of corruption increases as the number of bureaucrats grows and gross regional product per capita decreases. Russian policymakers can therefore work to reduce corruption by effectively reforming or scaling back bureaucracies and by encouraging economic development outside of the key centers of Moscow and St. Petersburg.

The article reveals the organizational and economic factors hindering formation of the new format of material basis in the Russian Federation, based on global distribution of cutting-edge information and computer technologies. The decisive role of bureaucracy in limiting public virtual space and fullest involvement of all social groups in it is proved. The paper considers negative consequences of the nomenclative dictation in digital economy, stipulating its development gap in our country against leading world powers and intensification of the polarization of poverty and wealth in society.

Medina Publishing is one of the oldest and largest Islamic publishers in Russia in terms of volume. This article examines its evolution from a project publishing work on local history and the Nizhny Novgorod Tatars to a publisher of modern theological literature written by representatives of the Renovationist movement. Medina characteristically distributes most of its books, newspapers, and magazines free. Its core aims are educational, image-building, and ideological in nature. This article looks at Medina’s role as a tool for the formation and accumulation of symbolic capital by one of Russia’s Islamic religious organisations (muftiates), the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the Russian Federation (DUM RF). The author notes Medina’s unique position in the Russian publishing market as a publisher focused on literature for the educated reader with special knowledge in the fields of religious studies, philology, etc. Medina’s publications encourage readers to believe that the centre of Islamic theological thought in Russia is at DUM RF, legitimating the claims of the muftiate and its leader to spiritual leadership of the Russian ummah. Both DUM RF and Medina focus their efforts on building the profile of intellectuals as people government officials, as those whose decisions govern the fate of religious associations in Russia, can work with rather than as representatives of an alien, incomprehensible, and hostile force (which is how bureaucrats in Russia have viewed Islam for centuries).

This study of the impact of digitalization on socio-economic federalism covers only certain aspects of this topic. In the article it is noted that digital assistants contribute to significant time savings and ease of use of services related to the sphere of state and municipal government. The possibilities of using digital technologies are leading to the fact that the hierarchical management, typical of classical bureaucracy, is collapsing, but this does not yet mean the failure of paper bureaucracy. At the same time, it is indicated that digital technologies are the tool that allows one to open the axiological gap between the real state of affairs in different regions of the Russian Federation in terms of creating conditions for the realization of socio-economic rights of the individual. The possibilities of differentiation and disproportion in the regulation of various legal relations in the subject of the Russian Federation should be focused on creating equal conditions for achieving one’s own well-being. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the substantiation of the possibility of using digital technologies, which make it possible to more quickly navigate the needs of the inhabitants of a particular region of the country and, using the electronic rule-making tool, contribute to a better law-making process in the subject of the Russian Federation in terms of the regulation of socio-economic rights. The scientific result of the study was a proposal for the gradual, soft introduction of digital technologies on existing portals to improve the well-being of citizens, taking into account their needs.

The purpose of the research is to consider departization of the top executive officials in the Russian Federation after 1993 as a systemic legal and political problem, which in the new his-torical conditions has acquired a slightly different connotation than in the late Soviet years. The subject of the research is contradictions related to the necessity of compliance of the top leaders of the executive bodies of the Russian Federation with the outdated legislative norms and require-ments to departization in the conditions when the objective situation dictated to the government officials and loyal governors the need to consolidate under the auspices of the new “party of power”. Scientific novelty and relevance of the research lies in the almost complete absence of works devoted to the study of the process of departization of the Russian executive power in 1993–1999, based on the consistent application of the principles of historicism, as well as formal and legal, systemic and problem-chronological approaches. The study of this issue allows us to better understand the roots of the contradictions of the modern political system of the Russian Federation. In the course of the study it was concluded that the time from the end of 1993 to 1999 can be considered as a certain transitional period when the society was gradually getting rid of the rudiments of the former one-party dictatorship, and the weakened post-Soviet bureaucracy had no incentives and resources to build a new “vertical of power”. Therefore, the legislation regulating the party and political status of the federal and regional chiefs was not distinguished by its integrity. This circumstance left the question about the prospects of official departization of heads of executive bodies of power.

The article examines the correspondence of A. L., a member of the All-Union Society of Book Lovers, a pensioner from the city of Syktyvkar with the leadership of the organization. This is the longest exchange of letters, traces of which have been preserved in the State Archive of the Russian Federation. The analysis of the language, the content priorities of the addressee in the context of public policy, the reaction of the bureaucracy of the organization allows us to conclude that the public structure was not ready for activism aimed not at obtaining preferences in the space of a deficient reading culture, but at fulfilling the statutory provisions on the part of the officials of the All-Union Society of Book Lovers and other authorities in the field of reading.

The subject. The article examines the refraction of the doctrine of legal procedure in relation to the activities of parliament.The purpose of the article is to confirm or disprove hypothesis that parliamentary procedure is the kind of legal procedureThe methodology. The author uses formal legal interpretation of Russian legislative acts and decisions of Russian Constitutional Court and European Court of Human Rights as well as such general scientific methods as analysis, synthesis, systemic approachThe main results, scope of application. The author draws attention to the fact that at the present stage of the development of the theory of law, it can be stated that procedural social relations have developed in the parliamentary bureaucracy, which are not only regulated, but must also be regulated by procedural norms, which confirms the conclusions of the authors of a "broad" approach to the theory of legal process. However, there will be a window of opportunity for the supporters of the "narrow" approach in the parliamentary process. In accordance with the conclusions of the ECHR and the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, which have prerequisites even in the works of Montesquieu, the parliament, as a body with jurisdictional powers, must comply with the appropriate procedure in their implementation. Hence, the author deduces the tasks of further improving both the doctrine of parliamentary procedure and the need for clear and competent regulation of legal procedures in parliament, the ultimate goal of which is to observe and implement the rights, freedoms and constitutional guarantees of participants in the parliamentary process.Conclusions. The procedures governing the work of the Parliament and its organs are legal procedures in the broad sense of the term. This does not negate the understanding that the legal procedures of the parliament, corresponding to its quasi-judicial powers, has the nature of the jurisdictional process. This conclusion is consistently confirmed in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights and the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation.

The hotel business is one of the main components of the tourism industry of Ukraine. In the long run, the hotel industry should become a leading factor in intensifying tourism, integrating the state into the world structures of international cooperation, and increasing the importance of national culture. The impact of force majeure on the hospitality industry has become one of the main problems over the last few years. Thus, initially the devastating impact on the hotel business was caused by the effects of the global pandemic, and since February 24, 2022 - the military aggression of the Russian Federation has dealt a terrible blow to the lives of Ukrainians in general and business structures in particular. Closed state borders, danger, rocket fire, cancellation of flights, restrictions on movement within Ukraine between regions and isolation of the country from foreign tourists have caused great damage to the domestic tourism industry, including the hotel business. This led to the choice of the direction of this study and confirms its relevance. The factors influencing the efficiency of the tourism business, which intensified during the war, are systematized. Selected factors are divided into several spheres of influence – financial, legal, customs, logistical, resources, information. Using the methods of correlation and regression analysis, these factors are ranked in order of importance. Given the significant reduction in tourist services during the war, it is advisable to implement a set of measures to increase efficiency by reducing the bureaucracy of permitting procedures and the introduction of anti-crisis measures in the hotel business. An improved management system of the hotel enterprise in the post-war period is proposed. The scientific novelty of this study is to develop and justify ways to mitigate the crisis caused by the military aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine. Thus as a direction of the further researches it is expedient to specify necessity of development of directions of adaptation of the world experience of struggle against the crisis phenomena in the hotel industry to the national environment.

The article discusses the impact of government measures in regulating production of fish resources on daily life of fishing communities of the Ob North and on related public moods. The main conclusions are based on the data obtained during expeditionary works in Beloyarsky, Oktyabrsky and Berezovsky districts of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug–Ugra) and introduce indigenous peoples' opinions in scientific discourse. Associated normative documents, scientific literature and publications in the media were also used in the article. The study identified positive and negative factors affecting the socio-economic condition of rural communities of the Ob North. It is noted that a wide system of state support has been formed in Yugra, which allows to promote the development of indigenous traditional economic activities including fishing. At the same time, in reality people faced many bureaucratic obstacles that impede realization of their legal rights and make them « involuntary poachers». Among such obstacles are: the declarative principle of granting rights to fish production; quotas for personal consumption; restrictions on fishing gear, species of fish and the timing of its catch; complicated procedure for accounting catch amount and reporting on it; selling problems; imperfection of legislative and regulatory framework on the basis of which traditional fishing is carried out. Special attention is paid to identification of collisions related to the lack of documentary evidence of the Russian Federation citizens belonging to indigenous peoples. It makes difficult the implementation of their rights provided by the legislation and confuses environmental authorities, which are monitoring the legality of the extraction (catch) of water resources. Existing situation creates potential conflicts and requires corresponding changes in the current legislation

The article is devoted to the analysis of the opportunities for civic participation to influence the results of policy processes in hybrid regimes on the example of the modern Russian waste management reform. The goal of the article is to identify to what extent and under what conditions civic participation was a significant factor in the outputs of the reform in the regions. Based on the provisions of the concepts of authoritarian responsiveness and regional political regimes, assumptions were made about the significance of the factor of civic participation under conditions of combination with certain features of the regions: the level of consolidation of the political system, the openness of the regional bureaucracy, and the degree of dependence on the federal center. Data for 69 constituent entities of the Russian Federation for 2018–2019 were analyzed by statistical methods (models of ordinal and logistic regressions). The results of the analysis show that civic participation was a significant factor in reform outcomes in regions with less transparent bureaucracies and in regions less dependent on the center. At the same time, apart from these conditions, the level of civic participation was not a significant factor in itself. Thus, we can conclude that in hybrid regimes, civic participation can be a significant factor in the policy process if a) the elites are more susceptible to the risks of protest activity (in regions less dependent on the center, the support of the population is more important to the authorities), or b ) if there are informal channels of interaction between the state and society (regions with more closed administrations), which is consistent with the provisions of the concept of authoritarian responsiveness. In turn, the results of the study testify in favor of the “limited pluralism” approach, according to which civic participation in nondemocracies, although performing the main function of ensuring regime stability, can nevertheless have a significant impact on the outcomes of policy processes under certain conditions.

The presented church history research provides a specific denominational study of a post-war transition from a regional perspective. Its purpose is to reveal the process during which (in the Transcarpathian region that became part of the Soviet Union in 1944) the new state power forced the Reformed communities to accept a radical structural transformation of their church organization. In addition, it presents the violent stages of the structural transformations, during which the Soviet bureaucracy gradually suppressed the former Reformed self-administration system which had been built according to the Synod-Presbyterian principle and was based on community autonomy. The research methodology is based on the analysis of little-known and unknown archival sources of the Archives and Museum of the Transcarpathian Reformed Church, the State Archive of the Transcarpathian Region, the State Archive of the Security Service of Ukraine in Transcarpathia Region, the Central State Archives of Supreme Bodies of Power and Government of Ukraine, the Synod Archives of the Reformed Church in Hungary, and the State Archive of the Russian Federation. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that the problem of the history of the Transcarpathian Reformed people after 1944 was carried out only as a partial mosaic-like study in the Ukrainian church history research along with other Protestant denominations, sometimes neglecting the chronological order and cause-and-effect relationship. Despite the fact that the history of the Protestants appears as a collective theme, or as the Protestant denomination with the largest organization, the history of the Baptists receives wide attention in the national church history writing. Our study is primarily not a factual narrative of historical chronology but rather focuses on thematic orientation. Following this point of view, it reflects on the issue (structural transformation) in the context of causality that is, when, why and how the organization of the Reformed church communities which had been based on traditional community autonomy was transferred to the hierarchical structural system. In conclusion, it can be said that the structural transformation through which the Reformed church organization underwent between February 1946 and December 1949, was a specific field for the manifestation of Sovietization. In the present study, the picture of the profound social changes that the Soviet occupation of Transcarpathia in 1944, initiated in the region clearly emerges. Based on its ideology, the openly atheistic imperial state believed that immediately after the annexation of the territory and sufficient transformations of the various denominations, it would be able to use them as ideological support in its interests. However, the Reformed church which had been built according to the council-presbyterian principle and based on the autonomy of parishes did not fit into the clearly hierarchical thinking system of the one-man dictatorship. That is why its church structure had to be transformed and adjusted to the form. Thus, the well-known and completely transparent Russian Orthodox Church served as a model for structural transformations in the Soviet imperial bureaucracy. As a result, the process of transformation of the Transcarpathian Reformed church organization into the Soviet model which ended up in the disappearance of the dioceses, deacons, the bishop, and the church districts is outlined.

All happy families are alike, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.Leo Tolstoy, “Anna Karenina”Despite the recent rearrangement of the federal districts, the notion “Baikal Region” still exists. The three subjects of the Russian Federation, Zabaikalsky Krai, the Buryat Republic and the Irkutsk Region are united around the lake, which is often called “Great Sea”. This region is our journal’s homeland. The journal’s regional section contains the materials that show typical problems of provincial cities and their solutions.The disunity of citizens and the lack of social communication constitute a key problem that gives rise to a lot of other problems. The project for public spaces in Shilka became the winner of the Federal Competition for Formation of a Comfortable Urban Environment. It is the third annual issue of the Competition organized by the Ministry of Construction, and the level of the projects is trending upward.Another winner of this year is a project for Tulun. The problem related to the flood of 2019 and the wave of social pessimism and depression caused by it is to be solved by the project.Deprived areas with a high level of crime draw urbanists’ attention all around the world. Studying the case of Novo-Lenino in Irkutsk, F. Kudryavtsev and E. Tokareva raise a question about the ways of rehabilitation for the neighborhood.The threats to the cultural and historical heritage compose a complex problem, where developers’ immediate interests, unfair expert reviews, the bureaucracy’s short-term vision, citizens’ indifference etc. are tightly interwoven. However, the story about fighting for the protection of one of Irkutsk's historic buildings inspires hope and optimism.

The article assesses one of the sources on the history of administrative political exile in the Tver gubernia – petitions stored in the fonds of the State Archive of the Russian Federation and the State Archive of the Tver Region. The author analyzes the subject-matter of these petitions, procedure of their consideration, textual patterns, and verdicts on them. Most petitions asked for benefits, revocation of exile, reduction of time under supervision, transfer to capitals in order to resume education or find employment or transfer to a place near relatives’ residence, all of which sprang from legal conditions of persons under supervision. Petitions are a most valuable source of analytical information that allows to identify major problems faced by persons in administrative exile in the Tver gubernia; to reconstruct various aspects of their everyday life; to describe their legal and financial situation; to define decision time and procedures for petitions consideration. Many describe some facts from the life of persons in administrative exile that are reflected in no other record. Petitions reflect hard financial situation of the persons under surveillance. Complexity of procedure for petition consideration, bureaucracy and lengthy communication time delayed decision making and made the situation of persons under surveillance even more difficult. In their decision making the authorities acted within the law. Nevertheless, on the local level (and one closest to the population), the dependence of people from the local administration was strongest. The administration played a crucial role in the settlement of many questions. Most exiled persons in the Tver gubernia could choose their place of living according to the guidance note from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of December 30, 1898, but did not have a right to benefits. In accordance to the note, petitions for benefits were rejected by the authorities. Petitions requesting reduction of time under supervision or transfer to capitals also met denial. Short-term absence was only allowed if the person under supervision had good record and serious reasons for the absence.

Abstract: “The strong Baltic nationalistic centre” and Soviet foreign propaganda: from war to peace and toward the Cold War This special issue focuses on censorship, but it is difficult to treat censorship without also considering propaganda. This article discusses both censorship and foreign propaganda as complementary tools in the Soviet Union’s arsenal for manipulating public opinion in foreign countries. The purpose of such action was to shape the behaviour of those states to further Soviet interests. The article focuses on the use of propaganda and censorship in Soviet efforts to settle the “Baltic question”– the question of the future of the Baltic countries – in the 1940s. This was the time when the wartime alliance was crumbling and giving way to a cold-war confrontation. The article is based on Russian archival sources. The Molotov collection (F. 82), materials of the department of propaganda and agitation of the Central Committee (CC) of the CPSU (F. 17, opis 125), and of the CC department of international information (F. 17, opis 128) are stored in the Russian State Archive of Socio-political History (RGASPI). The collection of the Soviet Information Bureau (F. R8581) is located at the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF). The article also draws on previous research on Soviet propaganda, such as Vladimir Pechatnov’s and Wolfram Eggeling’s studies on the work of the Soviet Information Bureau (SIB) and on discussions in the Soviet propaganda apparatus in the early postwar years. However, this article digs somewhat deeper and alongside general developments, also looks at a particular case – the Baltic problem in the Soviet contest with the West for winning hearts and minds. It analyses Soviet policies without attempting to uncover and reconstruct all the twists and turns of the decision-making processes in Moscow. The archival material is insufficient for the latter task. Nevertheless, a look into the making of Soviet propaganda, the techniques and practices utilised to bring Soviet influence to bear on an important foreign-policy issue (the Baltic problem), is interesting for scholars working not only on propaganda and censorship but also on the history of the Soviet Union and Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The Baltic question was related, among other things, to the problem of repatriating people from the territories of the Soviet Union who had been displaced during the Second World War and were located in Western Europe at the war’s end. Moscow claimed that all these displaced persons (DPs) were Soviet citizens. This article helps correct the view, expressed for example by the Finnish scholar Simo Mikkonen, that the Soviet propaganda campaign to attract the remaining 247,000 recalcitrants back home started after a UN decision of 1951 that condemned repatriation by force. This article clearly shows that propaganda policies aimed at the DPs were in place almost immediately after the war, resting on the war-time experience of conducting propaganda aimed at national minorities in foreign countries. However, Mikkonen is right to point out that, in general, repatriation after the Second World War was a success, as approximately five million people in total returned to the USSR. The Baltic refugees were a notable exception in this regard. Research shows that despite displays of obligatory optimism, Soviet propagandists could critically evaluate the situation and the effectiveness of Soviet agitation. They understood that war-time successes were the result of the coincidence of a number of favourable factors: victories of the Red Army, Allied censorship and propaganda, the penetration by Soviet agents of the British propaganda apparatus, etc. They knew that the British media was extensively controlled and served as a virtual extension of Soviet censorship and propaganda. Nevertheless, the Soviets were wrong to assume that in the West, the free press was nothing but an empty slogan. Moscow was also wrong to expect that the Western media, which had worked in the Soviet interest during the war, could as easily be turned against the Soviet Union as it had been directed to support the USSR by political will. In actual fact, the Soviet Union started receiving negative press primarily because earlier checks on journalistic freedom were lifted. The Soviet Union may have been a formidable propaganda state internally, but in foreign propaganda it was an apprentice. Soviet propagandists felt inferior compared to their Western counterparts, and rightly so. In October of 1945, an official of the SIB noted jealously that the Foreign Department of the British Information Ministry had two thousand clerks and there were four hundred British propagandists in the United States alone. Another Soviet official in the London embassy noted in February of 1947 that they had so few staff that he was working under constant nervous strain. Soviet propagandists were aware of the problems but could not effect fundamental changes because of the nature of the Stalinist regime. The issue of foreign journalists working in Moscow was a case in point. The correspondents were handicapped in their work by extremely strict censorship. They could report mostly only those things that also appeared in Soviet newspapers, which was hardly interesting for their readers in the West. There had been suggestions that some restrictions should be lifted so that they could do more useful work and tell more interesting and attractive stories about the Soviet Union. Eventually, during Stalin’s first postwar vacation in the autumn of 1945, Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov took the initiative and tried to ease the life of the press corps, but this only served to provoke the ire of Stalin who proceeded to penalise Molotov in due course. This showed that the system could not be changed as long as the extremely suspicious vozhd remained at the helm. Not only did correspondents continue to send unexciting content to newspapers abroad (which often failed to publish them), the form and style of Soviet articles, photos and films were increasingly unattractive for foreign audiences. Such propaganda could appeal only to those who were already “believers”. It could hardly convert. Moscow considered the activities of Baltic refugees in the West and the publicity regarding the Baltic problem a serious threat to the stability of the Soviet position in the newly occupied Baltic countries. Already during the war, but even more vigorously after the war, the Soviet propaganda apparatus realised the importance of tuning and adapting its propaganda messages for audiences among the Baltic diaspora. The Soviet bureaucracy expanded its cadres to enable it to tackle the Baltic “threat”. Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian officials were dispatched to the central organs in Moscow and to Soviet embassies abroad to provide the necessary language skills and qualifications for dealing with Baltic propaganda and working with the diaspora. The policy was to repatriate as many Balts as possible, but it was soon clear that repatriation along with the complementary propaganda effort was a failure. The next step was to start discrediting leaders of the Baltic diaspora and to isolate them from the “refugee masses”. This effort also failed. The “anti-Soviet hotbed” of “intrigues and espionage” – the words of the Estonian party boss Nikolai Karotamm – continued to operate in Sweden, the United States and elsewhere until the end of the Cold War. All this time, the diaspora engaged in anti-Communist propaganda and collaborated with Western propaganda and media organisations, such as the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and even Vatican Radio. In the 1980s and 1990s, the diaspora was instrumental in assisting Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to regain their independence from the collapsing Soviet Union. They also helped their native countries to “return to Europe” – that is to join Western structures such as the European Union and NATO. Therefore, the inability to deal with the Baltic problem effectively in the 1940s caused major concerns for the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War and contributed to its eventual demise.

The economy of the Russian Federation and its growth rate currently depend greatly on thecountry's fuel and energy industry and actual development of the business. To maintain theenergy production at least at the present level, capacity must be increased by several gigawattsannually. This sets up an extensive need for investments. One effective solution to theproblem is the realization of energy saving investments, which have very high potential inRussia.The EU project FRESCO (I 0/2003-12/2005), administered by Lappeenranta University ofTechnology, studies the possibilities to promote Finnish energy business in Northwest Russia.The project examines the ESCO concept that is proposed and anticipated to be a potentialfinance tool in energy saving projects in the target area. The international ESCO businessaims at finding solutions to the following problems: the lack of investments, undevelopedtechnology in use, ineffective energy systems, bureaucracy and risks.Potential and feasible ESCO project targets in energy production include a new pre-furnacefor utilization of bio fuels, a new economizer and a boiler automation upgrade. In the nearfuture - when markets exist - the ESCO concept could also be a finance tool in utilizing wastein energy production. For example bio waste from sawmills has significant potential as fuelfor local boilers.Through energy efficiency projects, greenhouse gas em1ss10ns can also be reduced. Theinternational climate policy brings in its own possibilities to finance energy investments andclimate projects. Russia ratified the Kyoto Protocol in February 2005 and can therefore takepart in international emissions trading in 2008 if the country observes the provisions of theProtocol concerning emission reduction units. Alternatives for carbon finance options couldbe, in addition to international emissions trading, Joint Implementation projects and GISprojects, in which so called "hot air" is utilized.

The article is devoted to the possibility of voting via the Internet at all levels of elections in the Russian Federation in 2020, a SWOT analysis of expert opinions is carried out. The author of the article concludes that the role of remote electronic voting has not yet been fully defined. Scientists consider the advantages of remote electronic voting to be the transparency of electoral procedures, absence of unnecessary bureaucracy and documentation, development of electronic electoral policy, attraction of voters to elections, appearing of new forms of campaigning. Scientists high-light the following disadvantages: absence of election observers; in the case of using remote electronic voting, there is a possibility of using an administrative tool for manipulation. The main risks of introducing electronic voting in the Russian Federation are considered the following: ensuring the security of the electoral process, distrust of voters, and lack of voting infrastructure for some voters. Many experts highlight the opportunities that open up when remote e-voting is used: the ability to test technological solutions and possibility to attract new voters to participate in elections. Thus, according to experts, remote electronic voting in the Russian Federation has the prospect of becoming an equivalent method for expressing the will of voters, along with traditional voting at polling stations.

This article publishes a note by Prince P. D. Svyatopolk-Mirsky, governorgeneral of Vilna, Kovno, and Grodno between 1902 and 1904. The note focuses on a key issue of the management of the northwestern outskirts of the Russian Empire, the ban on book publication in Lithuanian printed in the Latin alphabet, which had been in use in the region since 1865. The ban was part of the policy of de-Polonisation and Russification of the northwestern region: implemented after the suppression of the Polish uprising of 1863–1864, it was aimed at protecting the local Lithuanian population from Polish influence. However, by the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it became obvious that the measure had not justified itself, provoking mass discontent of the Lithuanian population, which had previously been completely loyal to the imperial authorities. In Russian political circles, a controversy was unfolding about the future of the Latin alphabet for publications in Lithuanian, some of which is reflected in the document published in the article. Svyatopolk-Mirsky, who had the reputation of a liberal bureaucrat, was an ardent supporter of lifting the ban, seeking to justify his position to Emperor Nicholas II and the top leaders of the empire, i. e. members of the Committee of Ministers and the State Council, on whom the decision was ultimately dependent. Published for the first time, the note is currently stored in the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF), fund 1729 (Svyatopolk-Mirsky). The content of the note is much wider than its original task, since it concerns not only the lifting of the ban, but also the need to revise the policies of the imperial authorities in the western periphery as a whole and abolish the a priori repressive and violent methods of its implementation. Also, the note examines the need for cooperation with the local community loyal to the authorities. The study of the source is of considerable interest in the context of analysis of the transformation of the imperial authorities’ policy on the periphery of the empire as they faced the need to establish a dialogue with the local public and find new methods to implement their Russification policy, which was considered impossible to reject at the time. Another significant information layer in the source is the political views and features of modern management practices advocated by Svyatopolk-Mirsky, which he realised in the northwestern region and subsequently tried to transfer to the all-Russian level when serving as minister of internal affairs.