Political Agenda of the Government, or Why the State Needs the Society

Political Agenda of the Government, or Why the State Needs the Society


Solovyov A.I.,

Prof., Head of Political Analysis Department, Faculty of Public Administration, Lomonosov Moscow State University, solovyev@spa.msu.ru


elibrary_id: 75920 |


DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2019.04.02

For citation:

Solovyov A.I. Political Agenda of the Government, or Why the State Needs the Society. – Polis. Political Studies. 2019. No. 4. P. 8-25. (In Russ.). https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2019.04.02


The study was carried out with financial support of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and the Autonomous Non-Profit Organization “Expert Institute of Social Research” as a part of the research project No. 19-011-31408.


Abstract

As shown in the article, as government decisions are developed, institutions of public administration are subject to constant informal pressure from resource-equipped stakeholders, thereby integrating themselves into the actual chain of goal-setting. The systematic influence of these contractors, which successfully overcomes administrative barriers, eventually forms a stable cluster of relations between authorities and a network of political and administrative coalitions, giving rise to the phenomenon of “intertwined institutions”, meaning the merging of official structures with associations of owners and the controllers of large public resources. Within the framework of this complex of business communications, instead of public institutions, “decision nodes” arise in which, on the one hand, the political agenda of the government is formed, and on the other, the composition of the ruling elite is gradually changing, part of which is increasingly losing its dependence on society and its interests. In these circumstances, the public agenda loses the actual ability to influence the content of state policy and promote the interests of citizens. At the same time, trying to defend their interests, citizens appeal to official norms and institutions that are often irrelevant to the actual decisions initiated by network coalitions that use formal institutions as an official cover for their actions. In modern Russian society, the affilation of networks with public institutions of public administration is aggravated by the costs of the super-presidential Republic and significant deformations of the norms of the democratic organization of power. This further reduces the ability of society to influence the goals and the plans of the government. 

Keywords
power, public administration, public institutions, political and administrative networks, government agenda, public agenda.


References

Bachrach P., Baratz M.S. 1962. Two Faces of Power. – American Political Science Review. Vol. 56. No. 4. P. 947-952.

Baumgartner F.R., De Boef S.L. and Boydsun A.E. 2008. The Decline of the Death Penalty and the Discovery of Innocence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 308 p.

Baumgartner F.B., Breunig C., Green-Pedersen C., Jones B.D., Mortensen P.B., Nuytemans M., Walgrave S. 2009a. Punctuated Equilibrium in Comparative Perspective. – American Journal of Political Science. Vol. 53. No. 3. P. 603-620. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2009.00389.x

Baumgartner F.R., Berry J.M., Hojnacki M., Kimball D.C., Leech B.L. 2009b. Lobbying and Policy Change: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. 360 p.

Baumgartner F.R. 2013. Ideas and Policy Change. Governance. Vol. 26. No. 2. P. 239-258. https://doi.org/10.1111/gove.12007

Bonafont L.C. 2016. Interest Groups and Agenda Setting. – Handbook of Public Policy Agenda Setting. Ed. by N. Zahariadis. Department of International Studies, Rhodes College, USA; Cheltenham, UK; Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing. P. 200-216.

Brikland Т.A. 1998. Focusing Events, Mobilization, and Agenda Setting. – Journal of Public Policy. Vol. 18. No. 1. P. 53-74. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0143814X98000038

Cairney P., Zahariadis N. 2016. Multiple Streams Approach: a Flexible Metaphor Presents an Opportunity to Operationalize Agenda Setting Processes. – Handbook of Public Policy Agenda Setting. Ed. by N. Zahariadis. Department of International Studies, Rhodes College, USA; Cheltenham, UK; Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing. P. 87-105.

Culpepper P.D. 2011. Quiet Politics and Business Power: Corporate Control in Europe and Japan. New York, NY; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 221 p.

Dearing J.W., Rogers E.M. 1996. Agenda Setting. London: SAGE Publications, Inc. 139 p. http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781452243283

Does Truth Matters? Democracy and Public Space. 2009. Ed. by. Geenens R., Tinnevelt R. 194 p. Berlin: Springer. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8849-0

Dowding K., Hindmoor A., Iles R., John P. 2010. Policy Agendas in Australian Politics: The Governor- General’s Speeches, 1945–2008. – Australian Journal of Political Science. Vol. 45. No. 4. P. 533-557. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10361146.2010.517174

Fligstein N., McAdam D. 2012. A Theory of Fields. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 238 p.

Gairney P. 2012. Understanding Public Policy. Theories and Issues. London: Palgrave MacMillan. 348 p.

Gaman-Golutvina O.V. 2007. Political Elites in the Commonwealth of Independent States: Recruitment and Rotation Tendencies. – Comparative Sociology. Vol. 6. No. 1-2. P. 136-157.

Gaman-Golutvina O.V. 2008. The Changing Role of the State and State Bureaucracy in the Context of Public Administration Reforms: Russian and Foreign Experience. – Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics. Vol. 24. No. 1. P. 37-53. https://doi.org/10.1080/13523270701840449

Howlett M., Cashore B. 2007. Re-Visiting the New Orthodoxy of Policy Dynamics: The Dependent Variable and Re-Aggregation Problems in the Study of Policy Change. – Canadian Political Science Review. Vol. 1. No. 2. P. 50-62.

Jones B.D., Baumgartner F.R. 2012. From Here to There: Punctuated Equilibrium to the General Punctuation Thesis to a Theory of Government Information Processing. – Policy Studies Journal. Vol. 40. No. 1. P. 1-20. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1541-0072.2011.00431.x

Kay A., Ackrill R. 2010. Problems of Composition, Temporality and Change in Tracing the Common Agricultural Policy through Time. – Journal of European Integration History. Vol. 16. No. 2. P. 123-141. URL: http://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/16169 (accessed 30.05.2019)

Keck M.E., Sikkink K. 1998. Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 240 p.

Loseke D.R. 1999. Thinking About Social Problems: An Introduction to Constructionist Perspectives. New York, Aldine de Gruyter. 227 p.

Osborne D., Gaebler T. 1993. Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the Public Sector. New York, NY: Plume Book. 432 p.

Policy Dynamics. 2002. Ed. by Baumgartner F.R., Jones B.D. Chicago, IL: The University of ChicagoPress. 371 p.

Richardson J.J., Jordan A.G. 1979. Governing Under Pressure: The Policy Process in a Post-Parliamentary Democracy. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell; Martin Robertson. 224 p.

Saurugger S. 2016. Constructivism and Agenda Setting. – Handbook of Public Policy Agenda Setting. Ed. by N. Zahariadis. Department of International Studies, Rhodes College, USA; Cheltenham, UK; Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing. P. 132-156.

Schattschneider E.E. 1960. The Semi-sovereign People: A Realist’s View of Democracy in America. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. 147 p.

Smith M.J. 1993. Pressure, Power and Policy: State Autonomy and Policy Networks in Britain and the United States. New York, NY: Harvester Wheatsheaf; Prentice-Hall. 262 p.

Weaver R.K. 1986. The Politics of Blame Avoidance. – Journal of Public Policy. Vol. 6. No. 4. P. 371-398. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0143814X00004219

Worsham J. 2006. Up in Smoke: Mapping Subsystem Dynamics in Tobacco Policy. – Policy Studies Journal. Vol. 4. No. 3. P. 437-452. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1541-0072.2006.00181.x

Zahariadis N. 2003. Ambiguity and Choice in Public Policy: Political Decision Making in Modern Democracies. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. 208 p.

 

Aivazova S. 2015. Massovaya politika: effekt “empaurmenta” [Mass Policy: the Effect of “Empowerment”]. – Rossiiskaya politicheskaya nauka. Idei, kontseptsii, metody [Russian Political Science. Ideas, Concepts, Methods]. Ed. by L.V. Smorgunov). Moscow: AspectPress. P. 254-271. (In Russ.)

Duka A.V. 2003. Problema institualizatsii rossiiskoi politiko-administrativnoi elity: ekonomicheskii i global’nye aspekty [The Problem of the Institutionalization of the Russian Political and Administrative Elite: the Economic and Global Aspects]. – Vlast’ i elity v sovremennoi Rossii [Power and Elites in Modern Russia]. Ed. by A.V. Duka). St. Petersburg: Intersotsis; M.M. Kovalevsky Sociological Society. P. 162-186. (In Russ.)

Kapelyushnikov R. 1998. New Institutional Theory. – Institut svobody “Moskovskii libertarium”. (In Russ.) URL: http://www.libertarium.ru/10625 (accessed 30.05.2019).

Kryshtanovskaya O.V. 2004. Modern Concepts of the Political Elite and Russian Practice. – Mir Rossii. Vol. 13. No. 4. P. 3-39. (In Russ.)

Miroshnichenko I.V. 2016. Setevaya publichnaya politika i upravlenie [Network Public Policy and Management]. Moscow: Argamak-Media. 296 p. (In Russ.)

Morozova E.V., Miroshnichenko I.V. 2009. “Investors of Political Capital”: Social Nets in the Political Space of a Region. – Polis. Political Studies. No. 2. P. 60-76. (In Russ.)

Panov P.V. 2006. Institutsionalizm ratsional’nogo vybora: potentsial i predely vozmozhnostei [Institutionalism of Rational Choice: Potential and Limits of Possibilities]. – Institutsional’naya politologiya: Sovremennyi institutsionalizm i politicheskaya transformatsiya Rossii [Institutional Theory in Political Science: Modern institutionalism and political transformation of Russia]. Ed. by S.V. Patrushev. Moscow: Institute of Comparative Politics RAS. P. 43-92. (In Russ.)

Patrushev S.V., Filippova L.E. 2015. Kontseptual’nye osnovy izucheniya massovoi politiki [Conceptual Foundations of Studying Mass Politics]. – Rossiiskaya politicheskaya nauka. Idei, kontseptsii, metody [Russian Political Science. Ideas, Concepts, Methods]. Ed. by L.V. Smorgunov. Moscow: AspectPress. P. 36-62. (In Russ.)

Robin C. 2007. Strakh. Istoriya politicheskoi idei [Fear: The History of a Political Idea]. Moscow: Progress- Traditsiya; Territoriya budushchego. 368 p. (In Russ.)

Rossiya: reformirovanie vlastno-upravlencheskoi vertikali v kontekste problem sotsiokul’turnoi modernizatsii regionov [Russia: the Reform of the Power Vertical Management in the Context of the Problems of Socio- Cultural Modernization of Regions]. 2017. Ed. by A.V. Tikhonov. Moscow: FNISTS RAS. 432 p.

Solovyov A.I. 2017. Political Leader in the Public Administration Environment, or Who Is the Man of the House? – Polis. Political Studies. No. 2. P. 60-81. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2017.02.05

Solovyov A.I. 2018. The Ruling Minority of Modern Russia: Quo Vadis? – Power and Elites. Ed. by A. Duka. Vol. 5. St. Petersburg: Intersotsis. 624 р. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.31119/pe.2018.5.4

Hayoz N. 2011. Upravlenije, korruptsija i lokal’nyje struktury politicheskogo vlijanija v Shveitsarii [Governance, Corruption and Local Structures of Political Influence in Switzerland]. – Elity i obshchestvo v sravnitel’nom izmerenii [Elites and Society in Comparative Perspective]. Ed. by O.V. Gaman-Golutvina). Moscow: ROSSPEN. P. 200-208. (In Russ.) 

Content No. 4, 2019

See also:


Kupryashin G.L.,
Governing through institutional changes. – Polis. Political Studies. 2012. No6

Nisnevich Yu.A.,
Public power and corruption: socio-anthropological approach. – Polis. Political Studies. 2014. No6

Information,
Political and State Governance: in Search of Disciplinary Attributes. – Polis. Political Studies. 2005. No1

Shestopal Ye.B.,
Political agenda of russian power and its perception by citizens. – Polis. Political Studies. 2011. No2

Timofeyeva L.N., Ryabchenko N.A., Malysheva O.P., Gnedash A.A.,
The digital socio-political agenda and its conceptualization within the new media ecology framework. – Polis. Political Studies. 2022. No2


Screen version