Abstract
Russia’s 2018 presidential election campaign was accompanied by a new round of strategies of socio-economic development. This article analyses these documents from the perspective of the ‘politics of expertise’ defining the relations between the political regime and policy experts. The analysis draws on authoritarian politics and public policy literatures. The article argues that a ‘hollow paradigm’ approach to the politics of expertise has emerged in response to the dilemmas of authoritarian governance. While the substantive, ideational element of this paradigm is vague, its procedural, expert community-binding element is strong. The analysis contributes to the understanding of the politics surrounding the writing of strategic plans, the role of policy ideas and state–society relations in contemporary Russia.
Highlights
How is cohesion maintained in an authoritarian political system? Authoritarian leaders distribute rents to the elites and provide public goods for citizens
This article started with a puzzle how cohesion is maintained by the Russian regime with regard to the diverse group of experts and policy specialists
Unlike other studies devoted to strategic plans, this paper concentrated on the interaction between the politics and expertise that enthuse the preparation of policy strategies
Summary
How is cohesion maintained in an authoritarian political system? Authoritarian leaders distribute rents to the elites and provide public goods for citizens. Since the mid-2000s, increasing public protest activity and the growth of civil society organisation (Robertson 2011, White 2015) have led to growing cooperation and consultation between the authorities and non-profit organisations, social groups and even individual citizens (e.g. Khmelnitskaya 2017, Owen and Bindman 2017, Skokova et al 2018) This involves real time and on-line discussions of plans, projects, and delivery of local services. The top leadership, by using its political authority sparingly, avoids taking sides and by doing so, allows different state agencies, regional administrations and associated societal interests to compete for preferential treatment and budget funds This bureaucratic politics, can be seen as a channel for the authoritarian governance dilemmas in policy terms resulting in rent-seeking opportunities for the elites – including the administrative elite – and redistribution and limited access to policy formulation for the public. Areas of policy where such contribution has been examined include diverse policy domains: child welfare (Kulmala et al 2017), electric power generation (Wengle 2015), housing (Khmelnitskaya 2015), prevention of human trafficking (Dean 2017), and fiscal relations between the Russian federal centre and the regions (Starodubtsev 2018)
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