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ABSTRACT
This article examines the process of Russian social budget formation during 2015–2016, a period marked by a significant reduction in state revenues due to changes in Russia’s economic and international environment. Participants in the budget process included the president, prime minister, the financial–economic and social blocs of government, and experts outside the government. An important concern associated with the social sphere was maintaining political popularity. Budget formation in this area occurred via bureaucratic bargaining, with the president intervening only on the most salient issues. Examples of policy elaboration including indexation of major benefits and the freezing of pension contributions are considered.
Acknowledgements
The author is grateful to Stephen Fortescue, Markku Kivinen, Vesa Korhonen, Ben Noble and an anonymous reviewer for their assistance and helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article.
Notes
4. The latest official Rosstat figures show that in 2015–2016 the GDP dropped by 3.1%. http://www.gks.ru/wps/wcm/connect/rosstat_main/rosstat/ru/statistics/accounts/#.
5. Rosstat http://www.gks.ru/wps/wcm/connect/rosstat_main/rosstat/ru/statistics/population/level/# and BOFIT.
6. Also see the article by Cooper in this issue.
7. Such views are close to the findings of recent research on the ‘developmental state’ which has emphasised the importance of a social policy component for successful industrial development (Evans, Citation2014).
8. Kudrin, speaking at the Sochi Forum, 30 September 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYB7oDOesg0.
9. As well as those working at unprofitable enterprises in Russia’s heartland, as long as they have employment and stability (Crowley, Citation2016).
10. While popular in contemporary public policy thinking and practice, policy integration is a challenging task even in conditions of democracy and a well-functioning civil service. In Russia this approach to policy-making is further complicated by the weakness of formal institutions, lack of accountability and corruption (Huskey, Citation2009; Monaghan, Citation2013).
11. For instance the state programme for housing, in its latest version from April 2014, available at http://www.minstroyrf.ru/trades/realizaciya-gosudarstvennyh-programm/29/.
12. Spending on national priority projects and federal targeted programmes can be accessed at http://datamarts.roskazna.ru/razdely/rashody/.
13. The decrees (Numbers 596–606) were signed by Vladimir Putin on 7 May 2012, the day of his inauguration to a third presidential term. As an example, Decree No. 606 on demographic policy is available at http://www.kremlin.ru/acts/news/15257.
14. The real commitment to the implementation of May decrees has not been and could not be complete. Some of the targets set by the decrees – such as a 50% labour productivity increase – had an element of wishful thinking about them and could not be supported by economic reality.
15. Author’s own calculations on the basis of figures cited in Netreba (Citation2016a).
16. Members included from the economic–financial bloc: Kudrin, Siluanov, Uliukaev, but also the pro-growth presidential advisor Andrei Belousov and the president of Delovaya Rossiaya Aleksei Repik, and the head of the social bloc Ol’ga Golodets. See http://www.kremlin.ru/events/councils/by-council/1029/52297.
17. For biography see http://government.ru/gov/persons/3/bio/
18. See the strategy of development of the joint institution of development in the housing sphere, from 26 February 2016, http://www.minstroyrf.ru/odata/council-of-state/11641/, p. 5.
19. See Igor’ Shuvalov and other important actors in the housing sphere – Minister of Construction Mikhail Men’, the head of the State Duma housing committee Galina Khovanskaya, and others – at an event at the Institute for Urban Economics, 4 June 2015, http://old.urbaneconomics.ru/news/index213b.html?mat_id=1815#.
21. See, for instance, the session of the presidential coordination council for the national strategy for children 2012–2017, http://xn--c1ackabuhcbecyrh.xn--p1ai/news/193.
23. Vasilieva joined the government from the Presidential Administration, where she worked in the department for civic projects.
24. At Government zasedanie, 13 October 2016, http://government.ru/meetings/24877/stenograms/.
25. See http://www.rline.tv/news/2016-08-04-vy-zhe-uchitelya-zachem-vam-dengi-sotsseti-kommentiruyut-medvedeva/, 4 August 2016 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFKiMgrVnYQ.
26. See Mintrud nameren prorabotat’ kriterii dlia platel’shchkov ‘naloga na tuneyadstvo’, 30 September 2016 17:03, available at https://rns.online/economy/Mintrud-nameren-prorabotat-kriterii-dlya-platelschikov-naloga-na-tuneyadstvo-2016-09-30/.
27. They backed the transfer of the administration of pension and other social taxes from the Pension Fund and other extra-budgetary funds to the Federal Tax Service to make the enforcement of tax collection more straightforward, improving the take up and thus budget revenues.
28. See http://stolypinsky.club/2016/08/02/pozitsiya-stolypinskogo-kluba-mne-blizka-golodets-podderzhala-opponentov-minfina/ and http://stolypinsky.club/2016/10/19/titov-programma-stolypinskogo-kluba-strategiya-rosta-v-yanvare-budet-predstavlena-prezidentu/; also see Orekhin (Citation2016b).
29. Sergei Glaz’ev and Andrei Klepach are members of the Stolypin Club presidium (http://stolypinsky.club/prezidium/). In addition, since December 2016 Glaz’ev and Klepach have been on the research council of the newly formed P.A. Stolypin Institute for the Economics of Growth (http://stolypinsky.club/2016/12/21/predstavlena-struktura-strategii-rosta/).
30. Rossia 24 reporting from Sochi Investment Forum, 30 September 15:54.
31. Pro et contra: Kak uluchshit’ kachestvo meditsiny v Rossii?, 6 December 2016, Kommersant FM, 20:42.
32. For the Duma’s budget committee proposal, Peskov’s statement and Golodets’ hopes, see http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3163811, 7 December 2016.
33. According to forecast Pension Fund spending for 2016 (Fedunenko, Zhuravlev, & Shelkovnikov, Citation2016).
36. For the recent – up to early-2015 – history of the issue and the policy process involved see Remington (Citation2015). For the earlier period also see Cook (Citation2007) and Sutela (Citation2012).