Local government budgeting reforms in Russia: implications and tensions

This project aims to contribute to improve the knowledge regarding the development of local government institutions in Russia by examining changes in local budgeting practices from the perspectives of Russian history as well as international comparative outlook and development trends. The project was carried out by a team of PhD students and international researchers from universities in USA, Finland, Denmark and Sweden as well as from Russian universities in the North-West region, Saint-Petersburg and Moscow. We have organized five international BUDRUS research seminar. Master and PhD students from partner universities in Norway and Russia were involved in the project. As a result, during 2014 ? 2017, 12 master theses, 23 working papers in different series, 6 research papers in international journals and books chapters were published and around 80 lectures and presentations were made on conferences around the world. There are 4 articles under the review in recognized international journals and several are ready for submission. Projects' results were presented at the final BUDRUS seminar on April 20th 2017 at NUPI in Oslo. The project demonstrates that budgeting reforms were inspired by the Western thinking that the state should improve long-term, strategic management and transparency of the budget and budget process. However, those intentions met strong Russian traditions and institutions so that the form and the content of reforms produced many complex hybrid solutions guided by hybrid logics. Because Russia is also not as centrally controlled as it is often perceived in the West, reforms resulted in many regional and local governance innovations and experimentations. The regions have ample scope to formulate and implement their own strategies and by implementing advanced planning systems, attract private investments and improve welfare of their citizens. There is a lot of experimentation at municipal level, for instance with so-called "participatory budgeting" where the idea is that residents should be able to allocate a share of the municipal budget themselves. In sum, however, the complex package of reforms guide by a hybrid logics was difficult to implement making final effects of reforms questionable. It might be therefore natural that Russian authorities in recent years tried to search for alternatives and re-evaluate (but not on re-deployment) the Soviet planning legacy in terms of introduction of the national strategic planning system.

The proposed project will focus on research in the field of budgeting especially local government budgeting reforms in Russia. We base this project on current competence at the High North Center and Bodø Graduate School of Business at University of Nordla nd, its partners in Russia and on international oriented research in the field of comparative cross-national public sector studies. The primary objective of the project is to strengthen research competence in producing high quality scientific knowledge in the field of public sector reforms in Russia, their implications on budgeting processes and transformation of local government institutions. The knowledge developed should be of relevance to the actors involved in the Norwegian-Russian cooperation, the i nternational scientific community, various authorities, professionals, as well as society at large. This relevance will be achieved through dissemination of research findings to relevant users through high quality scientific publications, publications in the professional media and international seminars and workshops. The project will strengthen existing research capacity through recruitment of young researchers to the field of social sciences as well as develop further international networks of research partners involved.