Interest Representation and Social Policy Making: Russian Veterans’ Organisations as Brokers between the State and Society

We are deeply indebted to Professor Vladimir Gel’man for his insights, comments and suggestions on the manuscript, as well as to two anonymous reviewers of the essay. The research was funded by the Finnish Center of Excellence ‘Choices of Russian Modernisation’, administered by the Aleksanteri Institute of University of Helsinki and the Center for Modernization Studies of the European University at St Petersburg.

Abstract

The essay investigates how Russian veterans’ organisations represent the concerns of their constituency vis-à-vis the Russian state. An interest group approach is applied to investigate the ‘brokering’ function exercised by veterans’ organisations to lobby on behalf of their constituency. The analysis is based on the study of selected veterans’ organisations in Karelia and St Petersburg. The research finds that veterans’ organisations operate in a restricted environment, though our analysis shows that their agency has mattered, largely due to their political connections. The investigation reveals those mechanisms through which Russian veterans’ organisations act as brokers.

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Notes

We are deeply indebted to Professor Vladimir Gel’man for his insights, comments and suggestions on the manuscript, as well as to two anonymous reviewers of the essay. The research was funded by the Finnish Center of Excellence ‘Choices of Russian Modernisation’, administered by the Aleksanteri Institute of University of Helsinki and the Center for Modernization Studies of the European University at St Petersburg.

¹ See also Phillips (2009, p. 277) and Richter (2009).

² The quotation was published in a local newspaper Ladoga (No. 20, 4 May 2007) on the twentieth anniversary of one Karelian district-level veterans’ organisation. See Kulmala (2013, pp. 197–206).

³ In the Russian context, not only former members of the armed services but also pensioners who have served the state or other public services are seen as veterans. See ‘Federal’nyi zakon “O veteranakh”’, adopted on 12 January 1995, available at: https://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_5490/, accessed 4 November 2015.

⁴ The aspect of ‘membership’ is crucial for the logic of action of such organisations in comparison to mission-driven organisations whose active participants (paid staff or volunteers) do not belong to a group on behalf of whom the organisation works and to whom its activities are addressed. Such organisations are not representative in their nature but rather they exhibit a solidaristic character (Kulmala 2013). Among Russian veterans’ organisations, one can find this type of action—organisations that work and speak for pensioners and veterans by active people who do not necessarily belong to this social group (Kulmala & Tarasenko 2013; Hanley 2013). In this essay, we exclusively analyse membership-based organisations.

⁵ By welfare stakeholders Cook (2007) and Cox (2012) refer to groups of people in areas such as social sector administration, professional associations and trade union leadership.

⁶ In Russian: ne strashno smert’—strashno staret’ (Kulmala 2013, p. 203).

⁷ For instance, in 2010 and 2011, the federal government enacted laws that enable the state to outsource some of its tasks to Russian NGOs, especially to those labelled as socially-oriented NGOs. In 2010, for instance, a new law on socially oriented non-commercial organisations was introduced (‘O vnesenii izmenenii v otdel’nye zakonodatel’nye akty Rossiiskoi Federatsii po voprosu podderzhki sotsial’no orientirovannykh nekommercheskikh organizatsii’, N 40-FZ, adopted 5 April 2010, available at: http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_99113/, accessed 4 November 2015), and in 2011, this was followed by a presidential decree that created state funding for certain socially oriented NGOs to implement government programmes (‘O predostavlenii podderzhki sotsial’no orientiravannym nekommercheskim organizatsiyam’, N 713, adopted 23 August 2011, available at: http://www.rg.ru/2011/09/02/podderjka-dok.html, accessed 4 November 2015). The government guarantees tax reductions and the sustaining of particular conditions to help these organisations (Kulmala 2013, pp. 128, 288; Kulmala & Tarasenko 2013). The government has also attempted to reduce taxes on charitable activities for businesses, thus attracting, if not expecting, them to participate in various social programmes. In particular, large companies such as Intel, IBM, City Bank and Coca-Cola are engaged in quite large social programmes. The Ministry of Economic Development has reduced taxes on the charitable activities of businesses and encourages regional authorities to do the same (Kulmala & Tarasenko 2013).

⁸ For instance, in 2013, the television Channel 1 accomplished an unprecedented telethon ‘With United Efforts’ (Vsem mirom) to support people who were injured in the extensive floods in the Far East of Russia (Kulmala & Tarasenko 2013).

⁹ Previously it was state and municipal institutions that provided the basic social services regulated by law, but in the new system, the state defines the national standards and finances the related services, which, however, can be provided by anyone from whom the state now decides (on a call-for-proposals principle) to purchase the services (Kulmala et al. 2014).

¹⁰ See also Rotkirch et al. (2007), Cook (2011), Chandler (2013) and Chernova (2013).

¹¹ ‘O vnesenii izmenenii v zakonodatel’nye akty Rossiiskoi Federatsii’, adopted 5 August 2004, available at: https://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_49025/, accessed 4 November 2015.

¹² By 2003, 236 different categories of the population were eligible for more than 156 social payments at the federal level alone. Overall, legislation delineated more than 1,000 varieties of benefit in Russia.

¹³ See also Hemment (2009, p. 40).

¹⁴ ‘O vnesenii izmenenii v zakonodatel’nye akty Rossiiskoi Federatsii’, adopted 5 August 2004, available at: https://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_49025/, accessed 4 November 2015.

¹⁵ ‘O vnesenii izmenenii v zakonodatel’nye akty Rossiiskoi Federatsii’, adopted 5 August 2004, available at: https://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_49025/, accessed 4 November 2015; ‘Federal’nyi zakon ‘O veteranakh’, adopted 12 January 1995, available at: https://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_5490/, accessed 4 November 2015.

¹⁶ See also Chandler (2013, p. 15).

¹⁷ ‘O vnesenii izmenenii v otdel’nye zakonodatel’nye akty Rossiiskoi Federatsii vchasti regulirovaniya deyatel’nosti nekommercheskikh organizatsii vypolnyayushchikh funktsii inostrannogo agenta’, FZ No. 121, available at: https://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_132900/, accessed 4 November 2015.

¹⁸ St Petersburg is according to the Russian legislation a federal subject, as are the rest of the 84 regions of Russia (including Moscow, another federal city).

¹⁹ Local is a direct translation from the Russian term, mestnyi. These wars include ones in Afghanistan and Chechnya.

²⁰ Interview with a member of the executive body of the St Petersburg Veterans’ Council, St Petersburg, 14 May 2014.

²¹ Interview with a member of the executive body of the St Petersburg Citizens of Besieged Leningrad, St Petersburg, 14 May 2015.

²² Interview with a leading figure of the Karelian Veterans’ Council, Petrozavodsk, 20 May 2014.

²³ Interview with a representative of St Petersburg Blokadniki, St Petersburg, 7 October 2014.

²⁴ Interview with an executive member of the St Petersburg Uzniki, St Petersburg, 14 May 2014.

²⁵ Interview with a leading member of Brothers in Arms, St Petersburg, 20 October 2013.

²⁶ Interview with a head of the Karelian Veterans’ Council, Petrozavodsk, 20 May 2014.

²⁷ See also Kulmala (2013, p. 197). According to Chebankova (2013, p. 197), for instance, Brothers in Arms unites altogether 90,000 local organisations.

²⁸ See for example, the official website of the Council of Veterans in St Petersburg, available at: http://veteranleningradspb.ru/galereya-pocheta.html, accessed 4 November 2015; the official website of veterans in the Republic of Karelia, available at: http://gov.karelia.ru/gov/Different/Veteran/131025.html, accessed 4 November 2015; and the official website of Boevoe Bratstvo in St Petersburg, available at: http://www.bbratstvo.spb.ru/, accessed 4 November 2015.

²⁹ Interview with a leading figure of the Uzniki, St Petersburg, 14 May 2015.

³⁰ ‘Federal’nyi zakon ‘O veteranakh’, adopted 12 January 1995, available at: https://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_5490/, accessed 4 November 2015.

³¹ Interview with a leading figure in the Council of Veterans of St Petersburg, St Petersburg, 14 May 2014.

³² Interview with a leading figure of Blokadniki, St Petersburg, 7 October 2014.

³³ Interview with a leading figure of Uzniki, St Petersburg, 14 May 2014.

³⁴ The official website of the Commission on Veteran’s Issues of St Petersburg Parliament, available at: http://www.assembly.spb.ru/welcome/show/633200089/53154, accessed 4 November 2015.

³⁵ The initiative introduced amendments into the draft of the federal law, ‘O veteranakh’, No. 493165-b. See the official decision (of 15 May 2014) of the Commission concerning the federal law, available at: http://www.assembly.spb.ru/welcome/show/633200089/41395, accessed 4 November 2015.

³⁶ Interview with a member of St Petersburg Uzniki, St Petersburg, 7 October 2014.

³⁷ Interview with a leading figure of Uzniki, St Petersburg, 14 May 2014.

³⁸ Interview with a leader figure of the Karelian Brothers in Arms, Petrozavodsk, 20 May 2014.

³⁹ Interview with a leading figure of Brothers in Arms, St Petersburg, 20 October 2013.

⁴⁰ Interview with a leading figure of Uzniki, St Petersburg, 14 May 2014.

⁴¹ Interview with a member of Brothers in Arms, St Petersburg, 20 October 2013.

⁴² ‘My ne smeem o nikh zabyvat!’, Blagotvoritel’naya gazeta ‘Russkii invalid’, 2, 2014, p. 22.

⁴³ Interview with a leading figure of Brothers in Arms, St Petersburg, 20 October 2013.

⁴⁴ Interview with a member of St Petersburg Brothers in Arms, St Petersburg, 20 October 2013.

⁴⁵ Interview with an executive member of St Petersburg Brothers in Arms, St Petersburg, 20 October 2013.

⁴⁶ Interview with a leading figure of the Veterans’ Council, Petrozavodsk, 20 May 2014.

⁴⁷ Interview with a leading figure of the Veterans’ Council, Petrozavodsk, 20 May 2014.

⁴⁸ The information on the state support for the NGOs in St Petersburg is available online at: http://www.crno.ru/assets/files/2011-12-06_St-Petersburg_NKO_collection_A4.pdf, accessed 4 November 2015.

⁴⁹ Interview with a leading member of Brothers in Arms, St Petersburg, 20 October 2013.

⁵⁰ Interview with a leading figure of Uzniki, St Petersburg, 14 May 2014.

⁵¹ See the official website of the St Petersburg government for the programme, available at: http://old.gov.spb.ru/gov/admin/kostkina/dolg, accessed 4 November 2015.

⁵² Interview with a leading figure of Blokadniki, St Petersburg, 7 October 2014.

⁵³ Interview with a leader of St Petersburg Uzniki, St Petersburg, 14 May 2015.

⁵⁴ Interview with a member of Blokadniki, St Petersburg, 7 October 2014.

⁵⁵ ‘Veterany golosuyut za “dosrochku”’, Nevskoe Vremya, 23 September 2014, available at: http://www.nvspb.ru/stories/veterany-golosuyut-za-dosrochku-55523/?version=print, accessed 4 November 2015.

⁵⁶ Interview with a leader of St Petersburg Blokadniki, St Petersburg, 7 October 2014.

⁵⁷ Interview with a leader of St Petersburg Blokadniki, St Petersburg, 7 October 2014.

⁵⁸ Interview with a leading figure of Uzniki, Petrozavodsk, 20 May 2014.

⁵⁹ Interview with a leading figure of Uzniki, Petrozavodsk, 20 May 2014.