Опубликовано в журнале Отечественные записки, номер 2, 2004
In this issue of OZ we address the daunting challenge of the administrative reform of the civil service and public administration. For Russia, the need to reform its system of public administration is at least two-sided. First, it originated as a response to the country’s internal crisis and transitional problems, and, secondly, Russia has been involved in the global process of governance transformation.
Reformers have already proclaimed a division of legislative, controlling, and managerial functions of state offices and introduced resultoriented budgeting. About a thousand laws and regulations, revising the functions of state government in economic, public, and political spheres have been adopted between 2000 and 2004. A number of the state administrative functions have been legally privatized.
Who are the objects of these reforms and what purposes are being served? What policies are being developed and by whom? How will the reformers seek to regulate behavior of civil servants and functioning of the Civil service? Is the governing role of the State going to end and be replaced with one of sub-national and supranational governments, networks, and the global market? Our authors debate on the philosophy and goals of the transformation. They speculate on and attempt to identify trends behind the changes from different, and, indeed, opposing ideological and political stands.
Andrei Medushevski argues that confining administrative reform to solving particular problems of the civil service and public administration not only fails to solve the problem at large but also obscures its understanding. Medushevski views the conflict behind the reform as a structural conflict of a transitional society. He articulates measures to alleviate the situation, from the liberal point of view.
The ideology of governance reform is identical to that of the Soviet-time khozraschet (selfsupporting) ideology. It will ultimately lead to the deterioration of the state authority and economic crises in the “budget” sector. Yuri Kuznetsov argues against newspeak “liberal” mistakes of reforming the civil service and for a non-commercial state.
Vitaly Kurennoi aims to identify the main trends of the transformation. Whereas other countries involved in governance reforms have redefined the relationship between the state and society, Russia has focused on relations between the state and business. Other social groups are not included in the bargaining process. Its designers claim that the reform is a liberal transformation within the framework of building new public management. Kurennoi is doubtful about whether the reformers will be able to live up to their own principles. He points to improvement of the civil service as a cornerstone of the transformation. No structural modifications will solve the problem of unscrupulous public servants. Is the notorious merit system a cure-all for the absence of diligent functionaries or is it merely wishful thinking? Kurennoi examines alternatives.
B. Guy Peters of University of Pittsburgh in his paper on globalization, institutions, and governance argues that state today remains a viable actor in the governance of society. Peters calls for a broader conception of the processes of managing societies and economies by various actors at a national, sub-national, and supranational levels.
It would not be entirely accurate to claim that there was no market in the Soviet Union: there was one of a specific sort. Neither would it be incontestable to say that Russian bureaucracy is corrupted: only that can be called corrupted whose actions are unequivocally defined by law. Judgments on Russian phenomena and developments depend a lot on a viewer’s attitude. Simon Kordonsky in his interview with Vitaly Kurennoi tells about the reform goals and risks.
The governance reform has become a way to total social transformation in Russia. Olga Anchishkina overviews reform stages from 1997 until present. Reform objectives have changed from solving unique Russian problems of transformation to problems common to many other countries, i. e. those targeted at government optimization. Traditionally, the form of change in Russia is ahead of its meaning. Bureaucracy remains the reform locomotive power. It is up to the government managers to decide, how far the government is going to restrict itself while preserving state sovereignty and efficiency.
Tatyana Arkhipova overviews the history of governmental changes in Russia. To present a critique of the current administrative reform, one would need to see not just good intentions but also its fruit, Arkhipova reminds.
In a “round table” discussion conducted by Simon Kordonsky, reform researchers and experts debate transformation issues.
Alexander Kovalev sums up the accomplishments of the government’s administrative reform commission headed by former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Aleshin and describes the status of the reform. Some of the initial reorganization goals have not yet been achieved by the new government, and others are being neglected, according to Kovalev.
World Bank’s Senior Public Sector Management Specialist Neil Parison’s paper is on developing a “world class” public administration in Russia. Parison assesses the state of public management in Russia in the beginning of the restructuring and progress made since then, based on international criteria.
Mikhail Krasnov and Georgii Satarov chronicle creation of the public service development project that they authored during the Yeltsin presidency. The project was never realized; however, it did have a tangible impact on intellectuals and the political elite who came to realize the need to alter the organization and functioning of the domestic civil service.
OZ publishes an excerpt from The Global Public Management Revolution by Donald F. Kettl of University of Wisconsin-Madison. Kettl analyzes reform characteristics shared by a number of countries and the forces that have prompted them.
Mikhail Afanasiev analyzes social and administrative transformations in Post-Soviet Russia and defines the major trends of national development. Afanasiev bitterly criticizes today’s state of Russian public management and appeals to the President for choosing between a radical administrative reform and stagnation.
The inconsistency in appointing officials in Post-Soviet Russia and the use of public services by some politicians for their personal benefit has caused certain social and official discomfort. It has also constituted valuable material for a societal analyst. Vladimir Shmelev writes about active linguistic processes that reflect social developments of the 1980s and their perceptions by various Russian elite groups.
Vladimir Kagansky states that Russian society and administrative reformers share poor knowledge of the country they live in. They realize neither the burden nor the potentialities of the Russian terrain. Federal management of the country has to carefully and considerately complement local self-organization with sound and competent policies based on an authentic knowledge of local reality.
Alexander Kramchikhin considers federal restructuring a most complicated element of administrative reform. What federal policy will prevent deterioration and strengthen Russian federalism? Khramchikhin warns against absolute bureaucratic power and creating potent constituent entities within the Federation.
Boris Rodoman presumes that Russia had been called a Federation by pure accident: it had been conferred a rank prepared for a constituted state of the Soviet Union it became established in 1922. Indeed, Russia’s parts and districts had not been equal. The word generated the meaning, and constituent entities of the Federation came to life. Rodoman speaks of the problems of the existing administrative division. He finds it effective not to oppose a federalist state to a unitarian one but to properly distribute powers among administrative institutions at various levels, including the international one.
One of the priorities of the administrative reorganization is developing and implementing effective anti-corruption policies.
Georgy Satarov and Konstantin Golovshinsky describe two strategies of transforming public service: enhancing bureaucracy and introducing new public management. Will Russia succeed in uniting them?
Andrei Chuklinov views the ‘administrative resource,’ a concealed and hence especially dangerous form of political corruption. Administrative reformers ought to pay special attention to officials who take advantage of their employment status and create effective anti-corruption policies.
Is today’s Russian system of public service headed towards democracy or towards creating a new nomenklatura? Sergei Zemlianoi maintains that, to understand the development, one would need to understand the history of Russian bureaucracy. In 1917, Lenin claimed that an average wage of a government official should not exceed that of a trained industrial worker. As early as in January 1918, this pursuit was abandoned, and Bolsheviks gradually started to augment a long list of privileges of Soviet nomenklatura. By adding stick to the carrot, Joseph Stalin created an effective bureaucratic machine reminiscent of a cloistral order.
Liubov Pisarkova describes everyday life and economic conditions of Russian civil servants from the end of 17th to the middle of 19th century.
Russian czar Peter the Great viewed police service as “a soul of citizenry.” Olga Kosheleva is skeptical of Peter’s perception. She gives a historical account of the police role and conduct during Peter’s reign.
Olga Edelman traces the history of administrative reform by focusing on the Ministry of Internal Affairs created in 1802.
Marina Arzakanian observes the history of France’s Fifth republic and its founder and President General Charles de Gaulle.
Although the state serves as a cover for actual power relations, it can be and must be, according to Roman Ganzha, a regulative idea of real political praxes. It should not be a fictitious and lifeless state but a mass and spontaneous State/Being, a collective performance, a staged utopia.
In the Besides section, OZ continues its earlier discussion of land-related issues.
Tatyana Nefedova speaks of migrant workers in the remote agricultural areas. Migrants can solve the labor problem of local rural entrepreneurs. Sadly, they are often not welcomed by a degraded environment.
Alexander Nikulin reports on the visit of the World Bank’s experts and consultants to three rural areas of Ivanovo region. The visit was a first step in implementing the organization’s project of supporting rural local self-government. The beginning of the work on the project coincided with the new law on the basic principles of local self-government enacted on October 6, 2003 by the President of the Russian Federation. Nikulin describes social types and the most pertinent problems of the region.
Vitaly Kurennoi analyzes Soviet films of the Stalin era about peasant and kolkhoz life. Besides being a cultural artifact, the cinematography also provides a valuable historical material that helps researchers to understand the peculiarities of the time.
Sociologist Elena Chikadze has been monitoring everyday life of some few Novgorod villages for the last fifteen years. Her essay combines the author’s personal experience with statistical data that reflects complex social processes going on in the Russian country.
V. Bobrobnikov and M. Roshchin’s analyze a private-archive protocol of a community meeting of one of Nagorny Dagestan villages in 1904. The authors comment on the legal document and conclude that, contrary to a popular simplistic misconception, the local common law (adat) and the Muslim law (Sharia) are far from being in an absolute conflict but rather successfully complement each other.
In the Capitals’ cultural geography section, Alexander Panchenko writes on the phenomenon of St. Petersburg becoming a hub of the Russian skoptsy sect in the 19th century, and Marina Chernykh about Catholic episodes in the city’s history.
In the Invitation to discussion section, Leonid Polyakov speaks on paradoxes of Russian conservatism and contrasts Russian conservatism to an “authentic” European one. Unlike the latter, the former has never had solid ground under its feet since the state authority itself has been constantly engaged in deep and radical reforming of all aspects of social life.