Abstract
This essay considers how the tensions inherent to authoritarian politics structure urban governance in the city of Moscow. The focus here is on urban development policy and the housing renovation programme introduced in 2017. The essay demonstrates a flexible governance arrangement that responds to the interests and ideas of the country’s leadership and involves city-level bureaucratic decision-making, the accommodation of economic interests and expert opinion, and consultations with the public. Such consultations have recently become more significant because of intensive protests paired with the city administration’s belief in participatory urban governance.
Highlights
This essay considers how the tensions inherent to authoritarian politics structure urban governance in the city of Moscow
This essay aims to examine the politics of urban governance by a non-democratic regime in contemporary Russia, using the case study of the housing renovation programme in the city of Moscow, initiated in February 2017
At least part of Sobyanin’s administration support the use of participatory mechanisms in urban development, and its expert advisers were crucial for this shift from superficial to meaningful consultations. We argue that such consultative policy is characteristic of modern urban governance in the city and is part of wider societal governance in contemporary Russia
Summary
The programme of housing renovation in the city of Moscow, initiated by Mayor Sergey Sobyanin and approved by President Vladimir Putin in February 2017, has attracted much commentary among the domestic Russian audience and from international observers (see for example, Seddon 2017). When examining the programme of urban renovation in Moscow, we consider the politics of balancing different interests and ideas taking place in time, in the context of policy legacies and public attitudes. We argue that such a flexible balancing arrangement is one mechanism of limited authoritarian governance in the city of Moscow and, more broadly, in contemporary Russia, with respect to managing urban politics and winning support among urban communities for the national and city political regime. We demonstrate how these basic attitudes affected the policy of Moscow territorial development and the formation of the renovation programme
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