Siberian Village: from Formal Self-Government to Forced Self-Organization

Abstract

The article reviews the evolution of the system of rural self-government in Russia over the last 15 years. Following adoption in 2003 of the relevant federal law, the active institutional design of local self-government was replaced by a tendency to restrict the powers and autonomy of the municipalities – and, first of all, at the level of rural settlements closest to the population. Reduced financing of local budgets became a major factor in restricting rural development. The local self-government got introduced to the system of government as the lowest, most dependent and resource-limited level of the power hierarchy. In her field study, the author conducted interviews with heads of rural settlement administrations in Siberian regions that formed a “from bottom” view on the ongoing transformations to help understand the reaction of rural communities to changes in the external institutional environment. It is shown that the answer to the reform challenges is development of informal practices that facilitate self-organization of the population, which serves as a kind of compensatory mechanism. In such a system, the role of the heads of rural administrations considerably increases as they have to initiate and organize projects demanding complicity and solidarity of inhabitants in order to resolve common tasks.