Projects

The project “The Current State of Municipal Government in Russia in the 2010s: Collection and Primary Analysis of Sociological Data” has been implemented since 2018. It involves the creation of a database of municipal socio-demographic and economic indicators of different levels, which will track the models of building up relationships between the public, business and local authorities. One of the further directions of the project development lies in the study of municipalities from the point of view of their implementation of elements of republican practices in their activities.

 The research program consisted of three independent tasks - archaeological research (with the support of geological exploration), comparative historical analysis and examination of the results in terms of their importance for political theory (formulation of assumptions for municipal reform).

  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.

In November-December 2018, the Res Publica center conducted a short-term training program on civic participation projects called "Civil Literacy Campaign: All About Participatory Processes in the Modern City in 7 Days" and led by Oleg Pachenkov. The program was focused on those who are interested in modern forms of civic participation and current trends in urban design.

At present, the implementation of fiscal policy at the regional and municipal levels is the prerogative of the executive and, in part, of the legislature. The influence of citizens on the budgeting process is limited to public hearings of the budget, which often do not provide opportunities for interaction between government and society. This is mainly due to the lack of information available and understandable to all citizens about the budgeting process and the conviction of citizens that it is impossible to influence the budget policy. The lack of citizens' interest and adequate feedback between the government and the population is the main characteristic of the current situation. Participatory budgeting (hereinafter - PB) is intended to expand the scope of citizen participation in the budgeting process by involving them in the work of special commissions (consisting of citizens and representatives of the municipality) involved in the distribution of funds allocated to them.