Translate this page:
Please select your language to translate the article


You can just close the window to don't translate
Library
Your profile

Back to contents

Politics and Society
Reference:

On the issue of excessive number and low efficiency of civil servants

Brazhnikov Pavel Petrovich

ORCID: 0000-0001-6321-6464

Senior analyst, Autonomous Non-Commercial Organization "Scientific Research Academy of Social and Psychological Systems"

125319, Russia, Moscow region, Moscow, Krasnoarmeyskaya str., 28, sq. 60

br@zhnikov.com
Other publications by this author
 

 

DOI:

10.7256/2454-0684.2022.2.38394

EDN:

RNWZAT

Received:

01-07-2022


Published:

08-07-2022


Abstract: Regarding the modern state management system of the Russian Federation, it is often possible to hear an assessment that there are more "officials", compared to the Soviet era, but their effectiveness is lower. At the same time, the post-Soviet officials themselves are given a subjective negative assessment, and at least most of the civil servants are included in their number. The increase in the number, decrease in efficiency and increase in corruption are recognized in this article as a fact. At the same time, the relationship of the number and effectiveness of "officials" with the current policy of the state apparatus aimed at a low share of state ownership in the market and high independence of regional government bodies, as well as with the current level of remuneration of civil servants, is considered. Arguments are given about the consideration of these phenomena as a natural consequence of such a policy, independent of the personal characteristics of civil servants. It is also argued that even in the current conditions, most of the lower staff of state authorities are quite highly motivated employees. The increased risks of corruption are considered from the point of view of the science of public resources, where the whole state and its institutions are accepted as such. It is argued that the motivation for corruption for a small proportion of officials who have opportunities for it is also related to the general orientation of public policy, although the choice of following this motivation remains for each specific official from the relatively small group that has opportunities for corruption. The consideration of the causes of these phenomena, carried out in the article, allows for a more objective analysis of both the phenomena themselves and ways to reduce their influence.


Keywords:

number of officials, efficiency of civil servants, corruption of civil servants, public resource, reduction of the number of officials, number of civil servants, objectives of public administration, ideology, centralized management, private property

This article is automatically translated.

Introduction

The assessment of the modern state management system of the Russian Federation, expressed in the statement that there are more "officials" relative to the RSFSR, and their effectiveness is lower, is quite common, which has objective reasons. There is also a fairly widespread negative attitude towards the "officials" themselves. These two thoughts will be discussed in a little more detail later.

For consideration, we will clarify what we mean by the term "official". This concept can be interpreted quite broadly, including various meanings as a common name [1], however, in this article we will mean the most official definition as civil servants. At the same time, some people who admit such a statement may imply other definitions, but we will consider them formally inaccurate in this article, since the term "class rank" is applicable in our time, which makes the word "official" quite official.

We further admit that the statement about the increase in the number of "officials" is correct, their number has indeed increased more than twice since the beginning of the 1990s [2]. We also recognize the relatively low efficiency of public administration [3] and, as a result, the low estimated perception of the work of "officials" by the population [4].

At the same time, the low efficiency of the state apparatus is often associated with high corruption [5-6], which in this article will also be considered as a true statement. Let us now consider some significant causes of these phenomena.

 

Quantity

To begin with, it should be clarified that the relative number of employees of state organizations in Russia is generally at the level of "developed countries" [7], thus, before the collapse of the USSR, the relative number of civil servants was generally lower than many countries with developed economies. And the fact that earlier state structures managed with a smaller composition than in our time has quite objective reasons.

As a result of the collapse of the Soviet system of public administration and the subsequent privatization, the share of state ownership in production decreased several times [8], which, of course, reduced the planning needs of civil servants, since the number of organizations controlled by them decreased.

However, the functions of the state remained to control the legality of the activities of organizations, as well as market regulation in order to maintain a balance of interests of citizens and organizations. At the same time, as a consequence of the decline in the share of the state, the number of individual enterprises in the market has significantly increased. In such new conditions, monitoring the activities of legal entities, as well as obtaining from them any important information required to assess the overall picture of the market, requires significantly more labor to interact with them: optimization of legislation regulating activities in a wider range of areas and provision of information by companies, preparation of requests for non-periodic information, collection and processing incoming information, handling appeals from market participants and citizens interacting with them, etc. At the same time, a significant part of this work is not much subject to optimization due to digital technologies, since changing the format from paper to digital has a limited effect on such activities as, for example, writing, coordinating and tracking documentation, as well as a summary of information from incoming correspondence, which is not always in electronic format. At the same time, with an increase in the share of production and other spheres independent of the state, the responsibility of the state increases, since its activities are evaluated by an increased number of market participants. In this regard, it is impossible to reduce the number of various formal documentation regulating and reflecting all actions of civil servants.

In addition, with the development of digitalization, the amount of data requiring analysis within the framework of public administration is also growing, which also reduces the effect of digital technologies on the possibilities of personnel optimization.

The second important factor affecting the number of "officials" is the growth of the autonomy of regional authorities [9-11], as a result of which almost autonomous local authorities with full functionality are being created instead of a single center. Accordingly, both the number of structural units of state institutions and the volume of work accompanying interdepartmental interaction are growing, similar to the case of growth of market participants discussed above.

In addition to these two direct factors of growth in the number of civil servants, it is important to mention another one that is secondary to these factors – the growth in the number of employees of regulatory state organizations leads to the need to increase staff in structures that control the activities of civil servants.

Thus, there are at least three of these factors that have led to the need for a significant increase in the number of "officials", which is not a consequence of corruption reasons or a decrease in the efficiency of employees. At the same time, the significance of the three reasons given by us is assumed to be significantly higher than the others.

 

Effectiveness

It should be noted that due to the factors described in the previous section, the direct influence of the state on the processes in the country has significantly decreased, which, in turn, reduces the impact of the actions of state authorities. However, it is necessary to consider not only the global conditions in which "officials" work, but also their immediate working conditions.

Despite the widespread dissemination of information about the ultra-high salaries of many top managers of state structures and companies with large state participation, ordinary civil servants, for example, holding positions up to the deputy director of the department in federal ministries, receive salaries below the average level of remuneration for similar positions in the commercial sector [12].  As a possible consequence, we can point to the ratio of the number of managers and subordinates in the civil service. So, there are 1.5 performers per manager with a normal ratio of 2.5 performers. There may be various reasons for such an increase in numbers: both high corruption, which leads to the hiring of affiliated persons for significant positions, and an attempt to increase the salary of employees through formal promotion. In the first case, additional employees will be required for persons who only formally occupy the positions of managers to perform the tasks of the organization, in the second case, the probability that the lowest vacancies will be competitive in the labor market decreases. Statistics also indicate a significant understaffing of most public institutions [13]. There are relatively low qualifications and high "turnover" of employees of the state apparatus [14-15]. At the same time, those employees who stay in lower and middle positions have efficiency and motivation to work above average, since financial remuneration is not the main incentive for them [16]. The conducted surveys also show the low importance for civil servants of such values as "Creative approach to work" (35%) and "Participation in management" (17%). The latter indicator is higher for employees holding managerial positions, while in groups of positions of the "specialists" category this indicator is noticeably lower – only 10% [17], which also indicates a low possible motivation to work in government bodies relative to the market there. There is also a low compliance with the preferences expected for corrupt officials, especially given the fact that most employees do not have opportunities to directly influence the objects of regulation or control.

Thus, there are low opportunities for hiring highly qualified professionals in government structures due to less attractive conditions relative to the market there. The latter cannot but affect the average efficiency of individual "officials", even in the case of high non-material motivation of many of them. Or, in other words, mostly experienced and motivated people have been working in ordinary government positions for a long time, but they have low opportunities to improve work efficiency both personally, due to initially low qualifications, and in general, by reducing the impact of the actions of state structures in market conditions.

 

Corruption

Low opportunities for corruption and efficiency improvement in most government positions does not at all reduce the significantly higher probability of corruption in those relatively few positions where there is a possibility of influencing the objects of regulation or control, as well as in senior positions at the level, for example, directors of a department of a federal ministry and above. At the same time, the latter also have significantly higher salaries, both relative to the labor market and relative to more junior positions [12]. And considering that the estimates of the current level of corruption, for example, given earlier, are quite high, it can be argued that some employees from these groups of civil servants realize their opportunities for corruption. However, it should be recalled once again that among the "officials" the proportion of those who have such opportunities is relatively low, since the activities of decision-making employees must be provided by several employees who do not influence the decisions that are not made.

In the two previous sections considering the characteristics of high numbers and low efficiency, it was pointed out that these phenomena do not depend on the personal characteristics and desires of individual civil servants. When considering the issue of high corruption, with further consideration, we will also strive to show the objectivity of its causes, however, we certainly do not deny the high role of the choice of each individual "official" involved in corrupt actions. Therefore, when we talk about the causes, we will not mean the causes of high corruption, but only its relatively wide possibilities. Let us now consider what may be significant objective reasons for such a characteristic of the state apparatus as high corruption.

The definition of the term "corruption" is currently not unambiguous [18], and although the terminology in the further discussion is not essential, for convenience, we will clarify that in this article we will mean by corruption the failure to fulfill their duties, directly or through deliberate stretching in time, as well as hindering the fulfillment of their legitimate rights and duties by others, not only by civil servants, for the purpose of personal gain, financial or otherwise, and, of course, direct embezzlement, by employees of state, budgetary organizations and organizations with significant state participation. Such a definition is partly too broad, but the causes of corruption in such a broad definition will also affect its particular manifestations, since we assume that our reasoning will have no exceptions in the possible range of actions designated by us as corruption.

The available theories do not have an unambiguous explanation of the causes of corruption [19], which is expected in the presence of uncertainty in the term, however, we will try to describe the most significant, from our point of view, reasons, as in the previous two sections.

For further discussion, we will need the theory of shared resource management institutions, which has become most widespread thanks to the Nobel laureate Eleanor Ostrom [20]. In her main work, she gives examples of common natural resources, such as water for irrigation, forests, places for fishing, and describes examples of regulating their use to maximize the total benefits of users. Also in this article, she describes the main problems of shared resources, which can be formulated as the presence of high risks of excessive consumption by individual participants, reducing the possibilities of consumption by other participants and limiting the reproduction of resources, as well as the risks of participants avoiding the necessary contribution to the reproduction of resources.

Although initially the theory of collective property management considered natural physical resources, later there were examples of its sufficiently justified application to such objects as, for example, a university [21] or the financial stability of local authorities [22]. There are also justifications that objects such as knowledge and information are strategic resources of society [23], which means that the theory under discussion can be applied to them. The examples given show that there are no theoretical limitations for applying the theory of shared resource management institutions to the whole state as a single public resource, which we use in this article. On this basis, the state and its capabilities to perform its functions will be discussed in this article as an example of shared resources.

In general, the functions of the state considered in various works [24-27], from our point of view, can be summarized as follows – ensuring the security of citizens and organizations: physical security, security of property, both personal and public property available to them, as well as ensuring the security of other rights, both personal and collective, the total volume which depends on the capabilities of the state. Accordingly, the state itself is a collective institution to ensure such security. The definitions we have given can again be considered excessively broad, but if further reasoning does not concern only a part of the phenomena included in it, then the definitions we have given will allow us to consider the issue on a scale that eliminates the need for many further clarifications.

So, we have determined within the framework of our reasoning that the state and, consequently, the security it provides are a public resource. Further, it is necessary to consider how its public use can be distributed in general and in the Russian Federation. At the same time, the rational use of the resource requires maximum information about the factors on which it depends. But the more complex the resource, the less likely it is to receive significant information about it. Therefore, speaking about the state, it can be assumed that most of its institutions operate in conditions of a significant lack of information.

Any activity requiring decision-making in situations of incomplete information has two possible main risks of error: errors of the first and second kind. They can be described as follows: an error of the first kind is a situation when the desired event is not noticed, whereas an error of the second kind is a situation when an erroneous reaction to a due event occurred. There are enough examples of such risks in the literature [28-31], including even an example from criminology [32].

 Accordingly, when making decisions, it is necessary to choose either between the maximum elimination of one of these two types of risks, or between some intermediate option. For a better understanding, the following analogy can be given: in the case of searching for criminals, one can either strive to eliminate the error of the first kind, that is, the risk of releasing the guilty, but then the risks of punishing the innocent will increase, or strive to eliminate the error of the second kind, that is, the risk of punishing the innocent, but then the risk of releasing the guilty increases. The same analogy can be given for remuneration, where in the case of a desire to reward only those who deserve, the number of those who did not receive a well-deserved award will increase, and in the case of a desire to reward all those who deserved, the number of those who received an award undeservedly will increase. When choosing a balance between these two extremes in a situation of lack of information, it is also necessary to choose the amount of punishment or reward, for example, reducing them in case of an increased risk of involvement of those not involved and increasing them with tighter control.

It can be assumed that reducing the probability of punishing the innocent and increasing the probability of rewarding the deserving has priority over the individual groups to which this control is directed. Similarly, the interests of the majority suffer due to the lack of punishment of an increased proportion of the guilty and the dispersion of common resources to reward more of the undeserved. In such cases, it is possible to slightly reduce the negative effect for the majority by significantly increasing the punishment and setting minimum rewards for the respective groups. The opposite reasoning is true. Also, for example, an increase in the value of each individual life to the detriment of general security may lead to restrictions on the actions of the military, firefighters, rescuers, virologists, which will reduce losses among them, but increase the risk of deaths of the rest of the population.

Thus, there is always a contradiction between the interests of individual groups of people and the interests of the majority in the allocation of common resources, including State-provided security. At the same time, with the focus of the institute of distribution on individual groups, their resources will grow significantly relative to the majority.

It can also be argued that the poorer the source of resources, the higher the need for cooperation to maintain it, and vice versa, the richer it is, the more profitable the individualistic conduct of consumers [33].

Ostrom in his book cites the factors of achieving an overall efficient and stable system of consumption of relatively scarce common resources with a fairly fair distribution of them and their necessary reproduction. It is possible to cite the main factors influencing the interest of participants in maintaining a social consumption system close to optimal, which can be briefly described as: approximately equal dependence on distribution rules, high interest in long-term consumption, low costs for maintaining rules, a small and stable group, high mutual monitoring capabilities. In the case of the analogy with the state, this situation is closer to the priority of the interests of the majority than of individual participants. At the same time, it should be noted that Ostrom criticizes the idea of the need for state control over public resources, but she considers limited examples for which the state is a background factor, and not a public resource.

In the USSR, there was a relatively high share of public appropriation and public contribution to the maintenance of the common system [34], which increased the motivation of citizens to comply with the rules and mutual monitoring of violations, to increase common resources. It should also be noted that despite the widespread criticism of a large number of "denunciations" in the USSR, this is an effective and widespread practice of monitoring the implementation of the rules for the use of public resources, both described by Ostrom and actively used in the USA [35].

Currently, as already noted, there is a tendency in the Russian Federation to prioritize the private over the general, which is manifested in increased incentives for excessive exploitation of common resources in all forms, including corruption. In addition, regional officials, when determining the directions of spending budget funds, seek short-term benefits at the expense of long-term and general benefits [36], as well as other market participants seeking personal benefits without analyzing the damage to the overall economy [37].

Thus, the growth of incentives to corruption for those relatively few civil servants who have the opportunity to do so has the same reasons as the growth in the number of civil servants. Such a reason is the priority of private benefit over public. But also, with a high probability, some of the reasons for this increase in incentives for corruption and the reasons for the decrease in the average efficiency of civil servants coincide.

 

Further development

The shift of priority in our state system from public benefit to private occurred simultaneously with the inclusion of the country in the common economic system with the countries of Europe, the USA and others. Consequently, the Russian Federation has become one of the countries that use such public resources as, for example, a security system for mainly private interests. At the same time, it is expected that appropriate payment is required for the use of other people's resources, the analogue of which was a significant export of capital and technology from the country [38-40]. Some researchers of institutional corruption suggest that in the 1990s, during the transition to a new economic system, corruption acted as a means of introducing elements of market relations into the planned economy [41].

 At the same time, economic ties with Western economies are currently declining and, accordingly, there is a need either to join the resource distribution systems of other countries that are not related to the main "Western" ones, or to build their own institutions for the distribution of such a public resource as state-provided security. At the same time, it can hardly be argued that there are currently other international state systems that have a universal character, in addition to the Western one. For universality, state systems should be positioned as aimed at the interests of individual groups or common interests, regardless of state affiliation. The current ones most often state the priority of the interests of the state, which reduces their opportunities for expansion to the international level and allows only more limited cooperation.

Thus, there is a high probability of a return to state institutions aimed at public property, since such a system is most familiar to citizens, despite a significant period of dominance of the Western capitalist orientation. At the same time, it is also quite universal, which increases the likelihood of cooperation with other countries. If this happens, we can expect a reduction in the problems of the state apparatus considered in this article.

 

Conclusion

In this article, we have tried to show the objective reasons for the increase in the number and decrease in the efficiency of civil servants, which are not related to the personal characteristics of the "officials" themselves and are a natural consequence of the changed conditions, and therefore are not grounds for a negative assessment of the employees themselves. The change in conditions primarily implies a significant shift in the priority of the state system from public to private ownership. For this reason, initiatives to reduce the size of the state apparatus (order  The Government of the Russian Federation No. 3731-r of December 31, 2020, Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 1353 of December 11, 2015) [42], proposed mainly by departments under the leadership of A. G. Siluanov and A. L. Kudrin, may lead to negative consequences. Negative subjective assessments of the "officials" themselves are more likely to be expected from people who either did not work in public service or worked in leading positions. At the same time, a significant part of those who criticize employees of the state apparatus simultaneously support the priority of private benefits in the allocation of resources, which is the cause of the considered negative phenomena of the state system. The latter is an additional indicator of the low validity of criticism of civil servants. We have also described possible objective reasons for the growth of corruption, among which the change in the priorities of state institutions has the greatest impact, although, of course, it cannot be argued that there is no personal choice of specific employees, however, the proportion of "officials" who have opportunities for corrupt actions is not large, and therefore its generalization to all "officials" also cannot be loyal.

References
1. Shcheglova, I.V. (2009). The conceptual side of the type "Russian official". Lingua moilis. ¹
2. P. 117-126 2.Borshchevskii G. (2016) Methodology for studying the size of the Russian civil service apparatus (1984-2014). Knowledge. Understanding. Skill. ¹ 2. P. 208-217
3. Gorodetskii, A. E. (2018) Institutions of public administration in the face of new challenges of socio-economic development. M: Institute Of Economics Russian Academy Of Sciences
4. Butashin D.A (2017) Issues of training managerial personnel of the civil service in modern conditions. State and business. Actual problems of economics and management. Articles on the results of the conference. P. 138-142
5. Study of the economy in Europe, the Caucasus and Asia (2018). [Electronic resource] // Miller & Chevalier.-URL: https://www.millerchevalier.com/sites/default/files/resources/2018-ECA-Corruption-Survey-Full-Report-Russian.pdf.-Date of access: 20.02.2022
6. Markeev A.I., Cherepkova T.N. (2019) Combating corruption in the banking system of Russia: risks, trends and prospects. Territory Development. ¹4. P. 51-54.
7. World Bank. «Data, Digitalization, and Governance». Europe and Central Asia Economic Update. Washington DC: 2021
8. Gazetov A., Ditrikh E., Kotlyarova A., Skripichnikov D. (2005) Report on corporate governance of state-owned enterprises in Russia. OECD Russia Corporate Governance Roundtable. Ì., June 2-3
9. Lavrov A., Litwak J., Sutherland D. A reform of inter-budget relations in Russia: "the federalism that creates the market". Voprosy Ekonomiki, 2001, ¹ 4, P. 19-45.
10. Blanchard, O., Shleifer, A. Federalism with and without Political Centralization. China versus Russia NBER Discussion Paper # W7616. 2000.
11. Kurlyandskaya G.V., Nikolayenko E.I. The interbudgetary relations at the subfederal level. M.: YUNITI-DANA, 2004
12. Bayteryakov S.V., Baryshnikova A.V., Kopytok V.K., Filippova A., Shubina D.O. (2021) Personnel policy in the civil service: current issues and necessary changes. Edited by M.S. Shklyaruk. Moscow: Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation, Center for Advanced Governance.
13. Civil service in numbers (federal level). Number and staffing of positions of civil servants of federal state bodies for 2018. [Electronic resource]. – URL: https://gossluzhba.gov.ru/analytics. (Date of access: 26.03.2022)
14. Melnikova N.S. Conceptualization of improving the quality of training of civil servants through the implementation of the innovative potential of motivational program-targeted management (MPTM).The world of science, culture and education. ¹5. P. 155-158
15. Orlova V.N. (2016) Positive Image of the Public Civil Servants as Basis of Development of Administrative Culture. Administrative Consulting. ¹7. P.14-18.
16. Atnashev, T.M. (2017). Self-Sacrifi cing Bureaucrats? of High Motivation Factors of Civil Servants in Russia. Public Administration Issue, ¹ 3, pp. 149–166
17. Butashin D. A. Improving the system of training and development of public administration personnel: dissertation ... candidate of economic sciences: 08.00.05.-Saint-Petersburg. 2021
18. Lawlor M. (2021) At the heart of the struggle: human rights defenders working against corruption. UN Doc. A/HRC/49/49
19. Zailhofer À. (2010) Theory and practice of fighting Corruption in Europe. MGIMO Review of International Relations. Vol. 3. ¹12. P. 164-171
20. Ostrom E. (2010). Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for. M: IRISEN, Mysl.
21. Solórzano, F. The university as a common pool resource: a set of resources, moral and cultural values from the Academic Community of Universidad Politécnica Salesiana. Abya-Yal. 2019.
22. Tang S.-Y., Callahan R. F., Pisano M. Using Common-Pool Resource Principles to Design Local Government Fiscal Sustainability. Public Administration Review. 2014. ¹ 6, Ñ. 791–803.
23. Bell D. The coming of post-industrial society: A venture of social forecasting. N.Y.: Basic Books. 1999.
24. DFID. Building the State and Securing the Peace. Emerging Policy Paper. 2009
25. Government at a Glance 2017, OECD. 2017
26. Kachalov R.M. (2006) The functions of the state in the system of economic security of economic entities. Bulletin Of Ural Federal University. Series: Economics And Management. Vol. 1. P. 5-15.
27. Grachev N.I. (2019) Basic functions of the state, supreme authority and state apparatus: criteria of distribution and political and legal content // Russian Journal of Legal Studies (Moscow). Vol. 6. ¹ 2. P. 140-149
28. Corbett-Davies, S., Goel, S. The measure and mismeasure of fairness: a critical review of fair machine learning. 2018.
29. Hedden, B. On statistical criteria of algorithmic fairness. Philosophy and Public Affairs. 2021. ¹ 2. Ñ. 209-231
30. Hrudey, S. E.; Leiss, W. Risk management and precaution: Insights on the cautious use of evidence. Environ. Health. Perspect. 2003. ¹13. Ñ. 1577-1581.
31. Flores, A. W., Bechtel, K. & Lowenkamp, C.T. False positives, false negatives, and false analyses: A rejoinder to “Machine bias: There’s software used across the country to predict future criminals. And it’s biased against blacks.” Federal Probation. 2016. ¹ 2. Ñ. 38-46
32. Baldwin, D. P., Bajic, S. J., Morris, M., & Zamzow, D. A study of false-positive and false-negative error rates in cartridge case comparisons. Ames Laboratory, USDOE, Technical Report #IS-5207. 2014
33. Brazhnikov P., Social Systems: Structure, Development and Application of the Fibonacci Sequence, Economics. 2021. ¹ Ñ. 28-39
34. Buzgalin A.V. (2021) Public Property and Its State Form: Contradictions and Potential of the USSR. Economics of Contemporary Russia. ¹ 4. P.122-127.
35. Werner, A. C. What's in a name? Challenging the citizen-informant doctrine. New York University Law Review. 2014. ¹ 89. Ñ. 2336–2381
36. Enikolopov R., Zhuravskaya Å., Guriev S. (2002). Fiscal federalism in Russia: Development scenarios. M: Center for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR).
37. Kleiner G.B. (2021). Commercialization, de-commercialization, post-commercialization of the Russian economy. Problems in Political Economy, ¹ 3 (27): 23-36
38. Federal State Statistics Service. Socio-economic situation in Russia. 1997. ¹12. P. 256
39. Abalkin L. I. (2000) Qualitative changes in the financial market and capital flight from Russia // Bulletin of the Financial university. ¹. 1. P. 68-81.
40. Ivakhnyuk I. Brain drain from Russia: in search for a solution // Center for Interna-. tional Relations. Reports & Analyses, 15/06. Warszawa, 2006
41. Skorobogatova A.V. (2019) Institutional Corruption in Public Administration: Models and Practices. Public Administration. E-journal. ¹75. P. 86-100
42. Gvozdeva M., Kazakova M. (2015) The Experience of Public Service Reform in Russia. M: RANEPA

Peer Review

Peer reviewers' evaluations remain confidential and are not disclosed to the public. Only external reviews, authorized for publication by the article's author(s), are made public. Typically, these final reviews are conducted after the manuscript's revision. Adhering to our double-blind review policy, the reviewer's identity is kept confidential.
The list of publisher reviewers can be found here.

The subject of the peer-reviewed study is Russian bureaucracy and bureaucratic relations. The themes of the notorious redundancy of the number of officials in Russia's management structures, the low efficiency of their work, as well as high corruption, will probably never lose their relevance. One of the experts in the field of bureaucracy research (V.P. Makarenko) noted a curious fact: back in the USSR, a campaign was periodically announced to combat bureaucracy, nepotism and bribery of officials, as well as a reduction in the bureaucratic apparatus; and each time this campaign ended with an increase in the number of officials and questionable results in improving the efficiency of their work. At the same time, specific studies by A.V. Obolonsky and other specialists show that the popular perception of the weak effectiveness of officials in Russia, their low qualifications, total corruption, etc. are greatly exaggerated. And the end of the discussion on these issues in the scientific and journalistic environment is not yet visible, which indicates the high relevance of this topic. The author of the reviewed article is also included in the study of the problems of Russian officialdom, and above all, the issues of their quantitative redundancy and low efficiency. Unfortunately, the author does not argue or declare his methodological choice in any way, but it can be seen from the context that normative-institutional, factorial methods were used in the research process, as well as secondary statistical data. Of particular methodological importance for the peer-reviewed work is the study of the institutions of management of shared resources by the American political scientist of the neo-institutional trend in political science, Elinor Ostrom. This methodological approach allowed the author to obtain results that have all the signs of scientific novelty. First of all, we are talking about the revealed connection between the growth in the number of officials, a decrease in the efficiency of their work (unfortunately, the author does not clarify anywhere what exactly is meant by "efficiency"), and the shift of state priorities in favor of private property that occurred in the 90s of the XX century. The author's conclusion is also interesting that the quantitative expansion of the bureaucratic apparatus is associated with the process of digitalization of the economy and public administration, which led to a sharp increase in the amount of data in need of analysis and, accordingly, an increase in the number of officials who are engaged in this analysis. That is, contrary to expectations, the digitalization of management processes has not led to a reduction in officials. The structure of the article is also quite logical. The following sections are highlighted in the text: "Introduction", "Quantity", "Efficiency", "Corruption", "Further development", "Conclusion". In the "Introduction" the problem of research is posed, key definitions are introduced and tasks are defined. Next, three key "troubles of the bureaucracy" are consistently analyzed, which are usually attributed to Russian officialdom: excessive numbers, low efficiency, which in turn is associated with corruption. The author shows that there is a connection between these three problems, as well as with the priority of private benefit over public benefit. The section "Further development" substantiates the author's rather controversial assumption about the possible return of the state to institutions focused on public property with the gradual end of the "period of dominance of the Western capitalist orientation." Nevertheless, despite some ideologization of this conclusion, in general, the work maintains a strict scientific style and a fairly high level of analytics. There are minor grammatical errors and typos in the text (for example, there is no comma after the introductory word: "So there are 1.5 performers per head ..."), but in general it is written competently, in a good scientific language, with the correct use of scientific terminology. The bibliography includes 42 titles, including studies in foreign languages, and sufficiently represents the state of research on the topic. Although the reviewer was somewhat confused by the absence of some fairly well-known works in the list of references. The appeal to opponents does not just take place, but has become the initial reason for writing the article, as indicated by the author himself. The title of the article does not seem very successful (today titles starting with the expression "To the question of ..." are no longer very welcome), however, this can be considered the subjective tastes of the reviewer. GENERAL CONCLUSION: the article submitted for review can be qualified as a scientific work that meets all the criteria required for works of this kind; it corresponds to the subject of the journal "Politics and Society" and can be recommended for publication.