Deconcentration of Public Administration: Law and Administrative Reform

Abstract

The development of state institutions occurs under the pressure of many factors, including globalization of the economy, internationalization of law, informatization of public and private life are taking an increasing place. This forces the state to look for new models of public administration. Libertarianism, represented by F. Hayek, M. Friedman and many others, suggests that we go beyond the classical understanding of the role of the state and focus on the active implementation of certain forms of power deconcentration: deregulation, co-regulation, self-regulation, quasi-regulation. Administrative reform, claimed in Russia, uses almost all of the named forms. The article shows the experience of their application in law-making and law-enforcement practice. It was proved that many of the conclusions formulated in the foreign legal science regarding co-regulation and self-regulation could be used in Russian legislation. The article singles out the criteria that the process of deconcentration of state power must meet: the presentation of special requirements to the institutional basis of forms of deconcentration; subsidiarity at all stages of the management process, including the freedom and responsibility of both parties; transparency of the system, ensuring public control; indication of all participants in the managerial process, when everyone should clearly represent expectations of some form of deconcentration of power; ideological support, which assumes both a rationale for initiating the process of deconcentration, and propaganda of best practices. The conclusion is that there is no systematic approach to administrative reform in Russia. Its basis to the present time is the Presidential Decree of 2003, which did not find its consistent development in the basic acts of the state bodies. They made attempts to create a quasi-ministerial in the form of the state corporation Rosatom, while consistently criticizing the form itself, but creating public-law entities and public firms. It is experimenting with preferential administrative regimes, using an individual approach when passing laws on individual participants in the management process (Skolkovo Center, medical cluster, Vladivostok harbor, etc.). Each experiment is not based on well-elaborated concept of public administration reform, adapted to the rapidly changing economic situation.