Asymmetry of Sustainable Development of Regional Systems as a Threat to the Economic Security of the State

Samoilova Liudmila Konstantinovna ORCID: 0000-0001-8224-3388 PhD in Economics Associate professor, Department of Administrative and Financial Law, Saint Petersburg Institute (Branch) of All-Russian State University of Justice 199178, Russia, Saint Petersburg, V.O. str., 10th line, 19 A samoylovalk@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Introduction.The life processes of economic entities take place in constantly changing conditions, which is due to the presence of their relationships with the external environment, cooperation with each other, dependence on decisions made by regulators.

Involvement in economic activity is typical for both macro- and micro–actors, none of them can function autonomously, since some act as consumers, customers, and others as producers, performers within the reproductive cycle. They tend to build mutually beneficial relationships. But the state, economic entities, and households are unequal within the framework of such interaction. In addition, their interests and priorities may differ significantly. All this leads to the emergence of obvious contradictions that threaten the achievement of both private and public goals. In this regard, it is indisputable that the creation of a safe environment for all economic agents is a necessity. To paraphrase, protection from negative activities of various nature is a key attribute of an economic entity, regardless of its status.

However, it is the state that is entrusted with the role of the "security subject", since its dominant position among other participants in relations obliges everyone to guarantee equality in the issue of meeting needs. In this regard, the emphasis is usually placed on the economic security of public legal entities, since the directions of regulatory policy that have a direct impact on society as a whole and individuals in particular are directly proportional to their condition. Since the Russian Federation and its administrative-territorial units function in accordance with such a principle as federalism, which determines the independence of the subjects of the federation within their areas of competence in solving a variety of tasks, including socio-economic ones, by searching for their own and attracted sources of financing for the planned areas of spending, it is obvious that the material and other capabilities of the regions differentiated.

Territories, due to their physical and geographical characteristics, resource availability and historically established economic specialization, have different degrees of economic activity, which generally determines their internal potential not only to meet multi-level needs, but also to protect against threats. At the same time, the internal reserves of public legal education should be variable, that is, correspond to the range of tasks facing it. It is worth noting that the goals of macro- and microeconomic entities change over time, since development involves restructuring the course in such a way that it meets internal needs, taking into account external influences. Consequently, the system of economic security of actors should be maneuverable to identify negative activities, eliminate or prevent their large-scale spread. Timely response to threat factors is the foundation for the sustainable functioning of economic entities. The circumstances indicated in the aggregate require them to develop mechanisms of adaptation to different types of transformations, that is, regardless of their internal stability, regardless of the state of the external environment.

So, there is no doubt that the categories of "economic security" and "sustainable development" are interrelated. But, returning to public legal entities as a special side of economic relations, developing through regulatory influence a "platform" for the life processes of other participants, it is advisable to assess their internal ability to create favorable conditions for the sustainable development of other actors. The latter means, first of all, households, organizations, and secondly, the state, because its economically secure state directly depends on the symmetry of the sustainable development of regional systems. Otherwise, the state is obliged to redistribute funds between administrative-territorial units, which often goes against their individual needs (due to a lack of external financing, channeling funds to sectors that are attractive from the standpoint of national interests and priorities, rather than local ones) and provokes internal imbalance. In view of this, the assessment of public legal entities in the context of their achievement of sustainable development goals, carried out by comparing the values of a number of key indicators, will allow us to conclude about the presence or absence of socio-economic imbalances in the Russian regions. In turn, reliance on the results obtained in the process of making macro-decisions can become the key to rational recombination of resources, which confirms the relevance of this study.

Literature review.The category of "economic security" attracts the close attention of scientists conducting research in various subject areas, which is due to the relationship between the protection of macro- and microsubjects from negative activities and the state of the internal and external environment, subject to changes under the influence of factors of different nature.

It is important to determine how the actions of specific economic actors, the processes caused by their activity, will affect the endo- and exo-environment. In this regard, the stated definition is considered from various positions. The authors formulate approaches to the disclosure of its content, isolating certain criteria, compliance with which is necessary to achieve an economically secure position of the state, society, and the individual. On the one hand, economic security is interpreted as a systemically significant characteristic of the object of protection, regardless of its role in the national economy, that is, its provision is relevant for public legal entities (macro-, meso-level), for economic entities, and for households. On the other hand, the dominant parameters of economic security are determined. Ignoring them may lead to the development initially of a number of objects of protection, eventually covering a larger number of them, such conditions in which they will not be able to fully function, to resist threats.

From the point of view of defining the links between the terms "economic security" and "sustainable development", it is advisable to characterize the first of these definitions with an emphasis on its attributes.

E. V. Drobot, M. L. Vartanova define economic security through the state of the economy, which allows satisfying public and private interests, ensuring the independence and invulnerability of macro-, meso- and microsubjects, despite the presence of many threats ^{[12, p. 2627]}.

S. A. S. Dovtaev similarly assigns a central place to the state of the national economy, which contributes to its development, achieved through the creation of decent living conditions for all groups of economic actors, even with the emergence of new factors-threats and challenges ^{[9, p. 33]}. A similar opinion is shared by I. A. Kholcheva, A. E. Kisova, who give a formulation based on the "state" of an economic entity, characterized by stability of each of the phases of the reproductive cycle, autonomy in decision-making, resistance to negative activities ^{[24, p. 96]}.

A different view is presented in the work of L. G. Vorona-Slivinskaya, where economic security is revealed through the conditions and factors that form the "current state of the economy" of public law education ^{[6, p. 36]}, however, it is not specified what should be attributed to them. In addition, such an approach is contradictory in its content, because the degree of protection of the territory's economy from threats directly depends on its state, namely, the ability to develop in a changing environment, to resist threats, and not, on the contrary, on the level of danger of any factors, since this is an internal feature of the object of protection, in the absence of which even minor shifts even positive ones can lead to disastrous consequences (for example, high resource availability turns from a "blessing" into a "curse").

A. N. Meitova, M. L. Feigel, interpreting the term "economic security of the state", put the state at the forefront, however, not only the economy, but also itself as a whole ^{[18, p. 17]}. In this regard, it is appropriate to detail the category of "state of the state", since it itself represents nothing more than a form of the structure of society within a certain territory. In view of this, we can turn to the opinion of A. S. Shustikova, who connects "national economic security" with the state of both the economy and government institutions, ensuring balanced satisfaction of public and individual needs both in the absence and in the presence of negative activities ^{[26, p. 77]}. In turn, I. E. Dokuchaev focuses exclusively on the state of the state as a special institution ^{[10, p. 84]}. At the same time, such attributes of this state as security, stability, sufficiency of potential, ability to develop are mentioned. But it is worth noting that I. E. Dokuchaev does not pay due attention to the priority of achieving a balance in meeting the needs of different groups of economic entities, including organizations and individuals. In addition, they ignore economic processes as such, and it is their favorable course that is the key to sustainable development.

R. P. Korotkiy, N. M. Veselova, A.V. Nemchenko, V. V. Saliyenko believe that economic security is an indicator of the level of protection of many economic entities from the negative impact of internal and external factors, the ability to create favorable conditions for them, to independently choose a course of development ^{[17, p. 66]}. Meaningfully, such a position is open, since it has not been established who will be entrusted with the function of protecting public and private interests, finding a balance between them to meet the needs of different groups of actors in an equilibrium, building a development vector not in opposition to the expectations of the state, economic entities, and households. In addition, indicators for assessing the ability to be independent in decision-making, to progressive development, and resistance to threats are formulated.

A peculiar idea of economic security is given in the publication of D. M. Kasymova, where a parallel is drawn between this definition and the idea, the content of which is reduced to countering the spectrum of threats regardless of changes in the internal and external environment ^{[14, p. 271]}. And here, by analogy with the previous statement, there is uncertainty in the context of fixing the object-subject composition, methodological possibilities of implementing the designated idea.

As T. N. Rogova notes, the national economy has been characterized by a constant change of its growth by a fall since the construction of the new economic system, while the alternation has only accelerated in recent years, which generally indicates instability ^{[21, p. 344]}. Excessive variability, due to the inertia of economic processes, causes prolonged periods of depression, which provokes a decrease in the ability of actors to resist negative activities, which only increases the volatility of the economic course. In view of this, the author proposed the following interpretation of economic security: this characteristic of the object of protection is identified with its sustainable development, which implies coordinated progressive functioning in the aggregate of all sectors of the national economy, including economic, financial, research, social and others ^{[21, p. 346]}.

K. R. Tayupova isolates several approaches that have developed in the scientific space to clarify the content of the term "economic security", in one of which the basis is the stability of the economy ^{[23, p. 36]}. It is noteworthy that the category "sustainability" is mentioned in many studies as a certain criterion determining the ability of objects of protection to carry out uninterrupted economic processes despite negative activities.

For example, O. A. Vasilenko draws attention to the fact that the economic security of the state is interconnected with such features of the national economy as its development with parallel resistance to threats in changing conditions ^{[5, p. 64]}.

Some authors put definitions in one row: "national sovereignty", "economic security", "macroeconomic stability", "sustainability" ^{[22, p. 122]}. Obviously, the listed parameters correlate with each other. Among other things, undoubtedly, their achievement is a priority for the state, since they act as the foundation for building a self-sufficient national economy.

On the contrary, V. I. Avdiyskiy, V. M. Bezdenezhnykh reject the synonymy of the concepts of "economic security", "economic ... stability", "sustainable development", "stability", "reliability", "maximum risk tolerance", but indicate the presence of a "semantic connection" between them ^{[1, p. 2]}.

N. I. Akylbekova, M. A. Dzhenalieva, A. T. Sagynbayeva hold a different view. In their arguments, they equate economic security with the independence of the national economy, its stability in relation to negative activities ^{[2, p. 8]}.

The research also reflects the relationship between the sustainable development of multi-level public legal entities and national security ^{[15, p. 4]}. Despite the validity of such a parallel, it is important to recall the trinity of the following groups of actors: the state, economic entities, households, due to their performance of different functions in economic activity, and therefore their mutual dependence. Speaking about sustainable development, V. V. Komarova mentions the socio-economic sphere, so ignoring destructive processes occurring at the micro and meso levels is futile. So, for a state that, although it is an indirect participant in certain phases of the reproductive cycle, that is, it does not create tangible and intangible benefits by itself, does not consume, as a rule, the final product with a number of exceptions – goods, works, services necessary for the implementation of tasks and functions assigned to it, the need to monitor the state other economic agents are indisputable. Being a regulator, it is it that can correct the living conditions of micro- and mesosubjects.

S. S. Gorokhova considers sustainable development as one of the factors without which it is impossible to ensure economic security ^{[7, p. 38]}. V. I. Avdiyskiy, V. M. Bezdenezhnykh, on the contrary, believe that economic security, being a key characteristic of any actor, acts as a system-forming attribute of its stability ^{[1, p. 2]}.

As you can see, researchers in their works link the categories "sustainability", "sustainable development", "economic security". But many do not recognize their identity. It is advisable to distinguish between the concepts of "sustainability" and "sustainable development", since the first indicates the functioning of actors regardless of the state of the internal and external environment, the expansion of challenges and threats, not accompanied by their qualitative and quantitative self-transformations, the second provides for the direct evolution of the object of protection, regardless of the variability of the environment, the impact of negative activities. In confirmation of the above, it is necessary to cite the opinion of M. M. Dolgieva, according to which economic security is based on the choice of a behavior option not only "preserving", which amounts to guaranteeing the achievement of interests and priorities, ensuring resistance to internal and external threats, but also "progressive", aimed at the development of economic entities ^{[11, p. 229]}.

Thus, based on the cited approaches to clarifying the content of the term "economic security", it is worth noting the correlation between it and the category "sustainable development". In this regard, it is advisable to characterize it.

V. I. Avdiyskiy, V. M. Bezdenezhnykh define sustainable development as development without crises ^{[1, p. 3]}. But at the same time, it is obvious that development is associated with the restructuring of an economic entity, which further provokes the need to transform its environment, and any transformations can become a catalyst for negative changes. Their untimely adjustment will lead to the emergence of hotbeds of crisis, sooner or later expanding. That is, the development of an actor as a goal setting can cause crisis phenomena both in the internal and external environment.

In general, the approach presented by the authors indicates the interpretation of the definition in the narrow sense of the word. Broadly speaking, sustainable development is understood as satisfaction of a number of interests in the aggregate: economic, related to balanced economic growth, ensuring price stabilization, competitiveness of the economy; social, manifested in guaranteeing full employment, social equality; environmental, focused on preserving the proper quality of the environment ^{[3, p. 16]}.

V. K. Bykovsky believes that sustainable development is associated with such a format of the flow of socio-economic processes aimed at meeting public and private needs, which corresponds to the principles of consistency, balance, reasonableness of the implementation of activities in relation to the expected future consequences ^{[4, p. 175]}.

A.D. Shakirov points out the priority for achieving sustainable development of a combination of socio-economic, humanitarian, legal, environmental components ^{[25, p. 221]}. A similar opinion is contained in other works ^{[28, 29]}: sustainable development is impossible without solving various tasks associated with the social, economic and environmental interests and priorities of the state, society, and the individual. S. Zhang, Yu. Lv, B. Zhang, like previous authors, note that the strategy of sustainable development should take into account the totality of three elements: "economy –environment – society" ^[30]. It is obvious that to ensure the sustainable development of an actor, it is not enough to focus only on a specific group of problems – social, economic, environmental, ignoring the rest. The emphasis on supporting one sphere of life provokes a violation of the balance in others. A striking example is the increase in production volumes to the detriment of the environment: the depletion of resource potential over time leads to the loss of the ability to meet the needs of even basic goods – drinking water, clean air, food. In this regard, a number of authors correlate this definition to a greater extent with the environmental component, focusing on the prospects of individual and collective responsibility in matters of protecting the ecosphere, including through rational nature management ^[27]. But such a one-sided approach can lead to the development of social imbalances: reducing the scale of agricultural and industrial production in order to avoid environmental degradation can cause an increase in inequality in access to goods necessary to meet human physiological needs, due to their rise in price due to the growth of fixed costs per unit of goods, which are directly dependent on the volume of products produced. Consequently, it is advisable for actors to realize their functioning, striving for a balance between social, economic, and environmental factors.

Based on the above, sustainable development is a complex structured phenomenon, implying the coverage of economic, social and environmental components ^{[8, p. 37]}. This combination of goals is due to the increasing anthropogenic load on the environment, provoking a reduction in resource opportunities to meet the increasing needs of people, deepening social inequality, irreversible environmental degradation ^{[16, p. 48]}.

In order to form an overall picture of the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals in public legal entities, it is reasonable to monitor the dynamics of their implementation through indicators, so as not to lose sight of both positive and negative changes in various spheres of life, and, as a result, to prevent the emergence of hotbeds of crisis in certain sectors. However, despite the development of a list of criteria for this by official statistics, their limit values have not been determined. The absence of "thresholds" complicates the assessment of national and local trends, the importance of controlling the latter is predetermined by the independence of mesoactors in solving socio-ecological and economic issues, which has a significant impact on macro- and micro-processes. In this regard, it is appropriate to formulate an approach to the implementation of inter-regional comparison in order to detect prosperous and disadvantaged regions among Russian regions and to prevent the strengthening of imbalances in the future.

Materials and methods.Among the research methods, it is worth isolating absolute and relative statistical values, ranking, grouping.

The Russian Federation has developed a list of national indicators based on which it is possible to assess the degree of achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the state. At the moment, it includes 175 indicators ^[19], but not all of them are calculated by region, which does not allow using some criteria for interregional comparison. To identify the presence (absence) of socio-economic imbalances in the subjects of the federation, a number of indicators presented in Table 1 were selected. At the same time, to ensure the possibility of comparing territories, it was proposed to use coefficients, the calculation of which determines the deviation of regional values of indicators from their average Russian values in one direction or another. Through this approach, it is possible to establish the depth of discrepancy between public legal entities in terms of sustainable development parameters.

Table 1. System of indicators for assessing the symmetry (asymmetry) of sustainable development of regional systems

In general, the above system of indicators is structured taking into account the key goals on which sustainable development is based: social equality, economic stability, rational use of natural resources.

The calculation of these parameters precedes the ranking of territories. Since a normative value has been established for the selected criteria, the subjects of the federation can be assigned the appropriate rank: in the case of the largest deviation of the coefficient for the better, the region is assigned the first place, for the worse – the last. The iteration is carried out separately for each of the indicators, then the average rank is calculated, which allows determining the degree of dispersion of public legal entities according to the totality of indicators of sustainable development: the presence of both clear leaders and obvious outsiders will indicate the asymmetry of socio-economic opportunities of territories in achieving the SDGs.

Results and discussion.As part of the study, the coefficients K1-K18 described in Table 1 were calculated.

In turn, on the basis of the calculations made, a partial ranking of meso formations was implemented for each indicator, the modified results of which are reflected in Tables 2, 3, 4 (the leader region (outsider) - regions in which the indicator value was the best (worst) relative to others on average for 6 years). They do not contain the values of the coefficients K1-K18 themselves, since they are designed to provide the possibility of interregional comparison, but the relative values on the basis of which these indicators were calculated. According to these values, it is possible to judge the dynamics of the course of socio-ecological and economic processes in public legal entities.

Table 2. Indicators revealing the social aspects of the territory's development (in dynamics)

One of the key indicators indicating the preservation (reduction, expansion) of household capabilities in meeting various needs is the "Real monetary incomes of the population". It is worth paying attention to the fact that its value in percentage terms should exceed 100%, only in this case we can talk about the absence of such a phenomenon as the depreciation of labor. Based on the data in Table 2, it is possible to note a volatile or negative trend for the named indicator at the macro and meso levels. A different situation is typical in the field of poverty reduction – during the period of the study, a decrease in the proportion of the poor was noted in the Russian Federation as a whole, but in some regions its growth has been observed in different years. In addition, the positive dynamics also affected social support expenditures, that is, an active policy in the field of social assistance is associated not only with an increase in budget allocations for this area of spending, but also with obtaining certain positive results. Similar changes have occurred with the "Gini Coefficient" – the degree of stratification of the population by income level is weakening.

Regarding the fight against hunger, we can note an active decrease in the proportion of households that do not have enough money for food. However, another indicator from the same sub-block, to a certain extent reflecting the ability to ensure food security in public legal entities, is variable. Among other things, a region has been established (St. Petersburg), which is completely dependent on external supplies. On the one hand, it is a city of federal significance, on the other hand, two other regions of this type, despite their status, produce agricultural products.

It is appropriate to assess the sociocomfort of the habitat through life expectancy at birth, since the environmental friendliness of the area, the availability of medical services directly affect the health of the population. This block is represented by two indicators, and their sharp decline in 2020 was noted. This situation demonstrates the susceptibility to the destruction of the social and medical sector in emergency conditions.

There is limited information on gender equality in the labor market (there are no statistics for some years), which makes it difficult to assess the results of the fight against gender discrimination. It is noteworthy that the system of national SDG indicators does not provide a criterion indicating the wage gap between men and women, which reaches an average of 30% ^{[13, p. 126]}.

So, the values of some of the criteria convey the ambiguity of the picture that has developed in the Russian regions regarding their achievement of the goals of social equality, therefore it is necessary to restructure the internal policy of the state in such a way as to smooth out the mesodisportions.

The next set of indicators is aimed at assessing the economic opportunities of the territories (Table 3).

Table 3. Indicators characterizing the state of the territory's economy (in dynamics)

The first indicator given in Table 3 clearly indicates periods of declining economic activity (2015-2016, 2020), often caused by macroeconomic instability, which, in turn, can be caused by external and internal negative activities. Regarding the second block of indicators, it is worth noting that it describes the state of such a basic resource as labor. In the Russian Federation, there are workers with wages below the subsistence minimum. This fact attracts attention, because in general it indicates the underestimation of labor. In this regard, an immediate elimination of such social injustice is required, since ignoring this problem can cause uncontrolled emigration of labor, at the same time, the loss of labor potential will provoke a chain reaction in all sectors of the national economy. Also of interest is the fact that in the Chechen Republic, 30% of young people are not involved in the process of acquiring labor skills, which will further affect the indicators of unemployment, the level and quality of life of the population in the region. Speaking about the innovative activity of Russian meso-formations, it is appropriate to point out their commitment to the raw material model of the economy, since the share of manufacturing in the structure of gross value added during the study period does not exceed 20%. A small part also accounts for an innovative product as part of GRP. This position is dangerous because it leads not only to the depletion of non-renewable resources, but also to dependence on the supply of the final product from outside.

Taken together, the values of the above indicators revealed some problems of the national economy, which it is advisable to eliminate in order to prevent the growth of economic differentiation of regions.

Table 4. Parameters reflecting the results of environmental protection activities in the territory of public legal education (in dynamics)

The key direction of sustainable development is associated with the prevention of environmental scarcity, however, in the context of regions, such parameters are poorly presented, and such an indicator as the "Index of the physical volume of environmental expenditures" ^{[20, p. 453]} is not provided in the list of national SDG indicators at all. Based on the values of the coefficients from Table 4, it can be concluded that there are threats provoking environmental imbalance. The most obvious of them is the low level of eco–activity of microactors, which can be generated both by ignorance of the degree of damage to the environment and the magnitude of the consequences caused by pollution, and by a "weakly motivating" system of sanctions against violators of environmental legislation.

The analysis of the described eco-criteria does not allow forming a comprehensive judgment on environmental activity in the subjects of the federation, which is caused by a lack of information in official statistics regarding the implementation of measures for rational nature management in them.

In general, the data broken down into leading regions and outsider regions, shown in Tables 2, 3, 4, confirm the uneven socio-ecological and economic development of the regions.

Conclusions.To form an overall picture of the coefficients of social, economic, and environmental orientation in the context of regions, "scope" diagrams were constructed, reflecting the degree of "crowding" of the subjects of the federation for each of the designated groups of SDG parameters (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Visualization of the results of ranking Russian regions according to a number of national SDG indicators

The "scope" diagram clearly shows the presence of interregional asymmetry in the groups of selected indicators. The gap between the leading regions and the outsider regions is significant. The smoothing of positions is observed to a greater extent in the field of ensuring social equality, in other areas the reduction of imbalances is implicit.

Summarizing the above, it should be noted the intermittent dynamics of national SDG indicators. Such "swings" indicate successive periods of stabilization and destabilization of the socio-economic state of public legal entities. They can be caused by internal and external factors-threats. At the same time, it is the activation of destructive trends in various spheres of life, provoking a violation of the socio-economic balance, that confirms the inability of macro- and meso formations to resist negative activities – to develop sustainably and safely.