Fel'dman P.Ya. Interest alignment policy as a direction of the state policy: structure-functional analysis

Abstract: The article considers interest alignment policy as a specific set of instruments, principles and measures of state management activity aimed at the provision of mutual integration and conflict-free realization of public interests. The subject and object area of state policy of interest alignment includes the set of political relations and political and communicational processes connected with articulation, representation and realization of public interests. The topicality of the problem in question is conditioned by the necessity to increase the effectiveness and legitimacy of the process of political decision-making by public authorities. The author applies the structure-functional approach and the inductive method to build a quinary model of interest alignment policy, which includes the normative-coherence, articulation, communication, mediation and integration blocks. The author describes the application political analysis of each of these blocks. Studying the normative-value aspects of interest alignment policy, the author suggests focusing on legal and moral-ethical principles of allocation of limited social resources. Comprehensive understanding of the articulation block of interest alignment policy, in the author’s opinion, can be based on the consideration of a set of mechanisms, methods and principles of regulating impact of the state on the functional representation system. The communication block can be studied by means of monitoring the information flows along the “society – power-society” trajectory. Analyzing the mediation direction of interest alignment policy, the author considers the ombudsmen institution, mediation committees and various forms of volitional interference of the state in the process of social, economic and political conflicts settlement. Finally, to study the integration block, the author suggests carrying out political analysis of the mechanisms of direct and indirect participation of interest groups in the mutually agreed process of political decision-making. 

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