Institute at 24th NISPAcee Annual Conference 19 - 21 May, Zagreb
Carol Leonard and Evgenij Pliseckij took part at seminar of Working proup IV. Regional Development and Inter-regional and presented paper "Governance and Cross-regional Coordination in Russia’s Regional Transformation: Towards a More Cooperative Federalism"
Abstract: The Outward Dimension: Russia’s Regional Development Strategies
By Prof. Carol LEONARD, Prof. Irina ILINA, Dr Evgenij PLISECKIJ
The critical spatial dimension of economic growth is important in the emerging cooperative model for growth in federations, although it has not displaced the older more competitive model of fiscal federalism in many of the world’s federations. In the newer cooperative model, particularly, the EU and the Russian Federation seek to encourage regional integration into larger functional macro-spaces, including both cross-regional and cross-national pooling of human and other resources. There has been a considerable literature in Russian on regional integration and internationalization (Makaricheva, VP Kolesov, LB Vardomsky, and others) This paper contributes to that literature by mapping, at least in aspiration, strategies of regional authorities and program implementation in this integrationist dimension. We provide three case studies for a closer analysis.
In the 1990s, regional isolation in the Russian Federation was reflected in the highly decentralized 1992 Confederation Treaty. The 1993 Constitution, however, did not support the extremes of that document, and fiscal recentralization after 2000 restored uniformity of law, cross-regional programs and the national integrated market (SS Artobolevsky, AG Granberg, BM Grinchel, IP Danilov, and others). Competition was, to be sure, also fostered to encourage local initiatives and attract domestic and foreign investment. Federal Law №172-FZ (2014) on strategic planning by regions and municipalities regulated uniform planning to set goals, forecast outcomes, and develop new programs for social and economic development.
We take the framework document, the Federal Strategy (S), including subsequent monitoring regulations, to trace aspirations and outcomes of interregional integration in recent regional strategies. We map these trends for three Federal Districts from official web sites of the regions, tracing aspirations and maturation of interregional and international cooperation. We observe content for conformity with S, ie, formal repetition, off-shoots and local innovations, regional priorities, and examine this media for comparative study.
In the three Federal Districts of central European Russia, the Central, Northwestern and Volga macro-regions, we find the same challenges and concerns, in transport and logistics, tourism, culture development, education and industry. The aim is to develop small and medium businesses, and to foster cluster initiatives. A proliferation of agreements in tourism and cultural affairs suggests cost constraints.
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Resource: http://www.nispa.org/conf_paper_details2016.php?cid=24&p=3584&pid=6989