Russian local governmental reforms: autonomy for accounting development?

Abstract

This paper focuses on accounting in Russian local governments. When the perestroika period began in the middle of the 1980s, a process of restructuring and reforming the Russian society started. One intention of reforms was to change planned economy to a more market-oriented one. This process of transformation has affected local governments, especially when it concerns the relations between central and local governments. The process of restructuring the Russian society is described from a frame of reference consisting of the political ideas that are often connected to the Russian reforms, i.e. glasnost, democracy, autonomy and independence. These political ideas were formulated and argued for by politicians at the central level of the Federation. In this paper we discuss whether this ideology at the central level has influenced Russian local governmental accounting norms. Based on information from Leningrad oblast' (county) the paper also includes a description and discussion of changes in accounting in action. The paper ends with a discussion on changes in accounting in Russian local governments focusing on the question whether the central reform ideology has influenced local action and accounting. The discussion illustrates that given big changes in central ideology and local action, Russian local governmental accounting has not changed fast. Slow changes in the accounting norm system, a difficult local financial situation and difficulties in unlearning the old accounting procedures create barriers to utilize local autonomy in respect to accounting system development.