The center implemented the research project “Reassembling Res Publica: Reform of Infrastructure in Post-Soviet Russia” in 2004-2007 together with the University of Helsinki.
The project participants are Oleg Kharkhordin, Olga Bychkova, Olga Kalacheva (EUSP), Risto Alapuro, Rosa Vihavainen (Helsinki University).
The goal of the project is to study the development of self-governing organizations in the context of the Russian reform of municipal self-government. Effective changes in the financing of local government, which provide fixed funds from federal taxes, were undertaken only in 2003. When looking at the issue of local governments, researchers face the origins and prospects of the republican tradition in north-west Russia, but from a new perspective. They first look at human relations, on which various forms of self-governing organizations are built — the object of traditional research — but they also explore how and what material objects are involved in coordinating human action. In this case, the project focuses on studying today's old infrastructure in post-Soviet urban and rural settlements, whose condition will be considered as an active factor that contributes to the coordination of human activities as a republic.
The first part of the project is devoted to the interaction of networks and self-government organizations, to the role of changes in heating and electricity schemes in the reform of municipal self-government in Russia, and to a long study of the case of the formation of self-governing structures in Russia, focusing on the case of the European University at St. Petersburg as an example. The case of medieval Novgorod, which faced similar problems, could then be cited as a basis for comparative analysis.
The collective monograph “Political Theory and Community Building in Post-Soviet Russia” (London and New York: Routledge) was published in 2011 based on the results of the project.