Civic Participation in a Hybrid Regime: Limited Pluralism in Policymaking and Delivery in Contemporary Russia

Abstract

This article asks why the Russian government has developed new avenues for public participation in policymaking and delivery and assesses the extent to which these avenues introduce pluralism into these processes. Drawing on 50 interviews with individuals and citizens’ groups involved in either public consultative bodies or socially oriented NGOs, the article demonstrates the government’s desire to harness the knowledge and abilities of citizens and civic groups in place of state departments perceived to be bureaucratic and inefficient, while controlling and curtailing their participation. Arguing that these countervailing tendencies can be conceptualized as limited pluralism, a category elaborated by Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan, we show that citizens and civic groups are able to influence policy outcomes to varying extents using these mechanisms.

Academic Community and Policymaking in Russia

“…Experts working within governmental structures (vnutri vlastnykh struktur), tend to prioritize the bureaucratic rule of subordination over the delivery of critical analysis (Sungurov 2017, 12-13). 28 With respect to civic groups such as socially oriented NGOs, their expertise is harnessed by the government but their participation is controlled (Owen and Bindman 2017).…”

“…3 For a discussion of this problematique in Soviet times, see Polsky (1987). 4 See also the results of a recent field research analysis concerning the role and influence of civic actors on specific policy processes in Russia (Owen and Bindman 2017). 5 In conformity with the ethical requirements of this research, all my interviews were carried out on the principle of anonymity.…”

“…5 I acknowledge that the method of semi-structured interviews has its material limitations and its results reflect most closely on the interlocutors and localities available to me at the time of carrying out this research. The method, however, has proved useful in research concerning knowledge production (Müller and de Rijcke 2017;Stevens, Miller-Idriss, and Shami 2018, 3) and policy processes (Owen and Bindman 2017). I conducted the semi-structured, face-to-face interviews in either Russian or English.…”

What Is Beyond the Façade? Research Program of E-Participation in Non-Democracies

“…Однако э-участие не является простой реинкарнацией прежних институтов. Во-первых, речь идет о глобальной волне распространения инновации, где на прежние представления о формах участия наслаивается дискурс демократизации и неолиберальной идеологии государственного управления [65]. В некоторых странах, как в России, происходит гибридизация прошлого опыта с новыми тенденциями [64], где-то подобные институты создаются «с нуля».…”

Overhauling Russia’s Child Welfare system: Institutional and Ideational Factors behind the Paradigm Shift

“…This trend provided opportunities for national children's rights NGOs to be heavily involved in designing the child welfare reforms through consultative platforms and committees established under different governmental structures, including the presidential administration, federal government, State Duma, and different ministries (cf. Owen, Bindman 2017). This was mostly possible because the NGO viewpoints fitted with the presidential administration's family-oriented and children's rights ideology and the organisations adopted a consensual rather than oppositional stance to working with government structures.…”