Women in Local Politics in Russia: Coping with Poverty and Strategies for Development

Abstract

In historical continuation from the Soviet Union, social policy is predominantly a female responsibility. e present article focuses on women in local politics, who have an important role in local change, and who; among others, cope with poverty and try to solve reasons and consequences of poverty. Based on interviews and observations, the article shows how women's entrepreneurial skills of handling various shortcomings in the Soviet system are re ected in their present strategies for social development in local contexts in Russia. While the state leadership decides about reforms, setting new formal rules, local politicians develop their own routines and strategies. Being responsible for organising social welfare, interviewed female politicians told about how they use di erent strategies. is means that adopted practices are likely to be more heterogeneous than before. It seems important to both rely on useful norms inherited from the Soviet time, while also developing strategies based on new possibilities, arising as a result of reforms. e empirical data is based on interviews from three minor communities in one Russian region, conducted in 2002 to 2012.

Women’s entrepreneurship in Russia: impacts from the Soviet system

“…Changes in legal rules have also given rise to a responsibility for self-financing at the local level [4]. As women are responsible for social issues, this is also thought to increase their workload (Sätre, 2012(Sätre, , 2014c.…”

“…Although social policy partly continues to be financed by the state, it is organized in a new way. It is indicated that women who are responsible for social welfare have to find sponsors by themselves, for their regular activities (Sätre, 2014b(Sätre, , 2014c. Being responsible for organizing social welfare, women working in the social sphere have created their own support networks for this.…”

“…Their agenda might be unclear, and it is clearly larger than the directives they might be subject to from above (Sätre, 2014b). They are also actively working to increase available resources by for example applying for projects, striving to participate in state programs and collecting charity (Sätre, 2014c). Interviews provide examples of how local politicians use their entrepreneurial skills to compensate for inadequate financial resources.…”

The politics of poverty in contemporary Russia

“…Interviews also support the assumption that local authorities are able to mobilise the resources of local entrepreneurs for combatting poverty in Russia. This is about local politicians making use of their own human capital, as well as improving the skills of the local population through projects and educational programmes (see Sätre 2014c).…”