Articles

The publication provides an overview of the section “Theories and Practices of Public Administration” of the annual scientific conference “Lomonosov Readings” held at the Lomonosov Moscow State University School of Public Administration. There is a list of the main reports with short theses and the main results of the work of subsections organized by the departments of the School of Public Administration. The conference was cross-disciplinary, the questions touched upon many urgent problems in public and municipal administration. An important trend in the development of the economy and other spheres of life is a pandemic, an increase in the cost of resources, restrictions imposed by foreign partners, and acceleration in the pace of digitalization. Trends determine the search for alternative opportunities for the effective development of our country. Within the framework of the section “Theories and practice of public administration” of the conference “Lomonosov Readings”, various points of view on the prospects for the development of public administration in Russia and abroad were presented. In the context of modern internal and external challenges, specific proposals were formed to improve the economic, political and legal aspects of management based on the results of the discussions. Presented recommendations of new opportunities of management relations associated with the rapid development of science and technology.

The article is dedicated to the relations between the Holy See and the Italian government at the final stage of the process of Italian unification. The author considers the seizure of Rome on September 20, 1870, to be a significant milestone. After this event the sides faced a need to continue the dialogue in brand new circumstances. The article examines both steps taken by the Italian government in order to achieve a compromise with Pius IX and those aimed at the incorporation of Rome and provinces of the Papal States into the Italian Kingdom. Special attention is given to the reaction of the Holy See on the actions of the Italian side, as well as the Pontiff ’s efforts to maintain temporal power as a guarantee of respect for his rights of the Head of the Church.

The article is devoted to the Wales’s devolution process. The author comments well-known statement that devolution is a “process, not event”. He traces its main stages — administrative and two legislative. The author based mainly on official documents — laws and related “command” documents. Attention is drawn to British tradition of independent commissions. The work of the Richard, Holtham and Silk’s commissions analyzed. Indicated that the rights of Wales are less than those in Northern Ireland and Scotland. Wales is more integrated with England, in legal terms it was a single space “England and Wales”. Therefore, devolution’s support was here initially low. In the 1997 referendum, it was supported by only 50,3% of those who voted, with a turnout of 51%. Consequently, the idea’s support was by only a quarter of the inhabitants. However, the support is gradually expanding. This is the basis of the gradual expansion of the region’s rights. The devolution’s consequences are contradictory. Does it strengthen the kingdom, as its initiators believed, or lead to its collapse?

Public administration reform issues have always been topical in Russia. Therefore, public administration reforms are constantly being carried out in Russia. However, the quality of “administrative reforms” and their results are unsatisfactory. This undoubtedly became a prerequisite for all kinds of updates in 2020, including when developing amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation. The article briefly analyzes the preconditions for public administration reforms in Russia. Conclusions are made about the current state of the public administration system. The following directions of reforming public authorities, undertaken in 2020, are analyzed: the emergence of federal territories as a special kind of political-territorial units and the practice of their establishment on the example of the federal territory “Sirius; changes in the legal status of the highest authorities (primarily in terms of the redistribution of powers between the branches of government); anti-corruption novelties in the constitutional text. Special attention is paid to the digitalization of public administration: it’s current state and plans for digital transformation for the coming years.

The submitted article is focused on the potential use of history as an instrument of political governance. The author gives a review of the evolution of historical politics as a socio-political phenomenon and its theoretical understanding in modern political science. The key topic of the submitted paper is the ethnic aspects of historical politics. The author reveals the content of the main narratives of historical politics, which are often addressed by various ethnic groups in the process of nation-building. The speech is about the inquiry about the “golden age” of the history, the sacralization of the national suffering, the linking of the history with ancient civilizations, etc. Finally, it is put wise of the ways of raising the level of politicization of ethnicity caused by a variety of historical narratives.

The author presents the Kazakhstan’s experience in the development of agricultural insurance and suggests crucial ways to improve its effectiveness. Kazakhstan has made a transition from the mandatory form of agricultural insurance with state subsidization of insurance payments to the voluntary form based on the index method with state subsidization of insurance premiums. The author notes that in the conditions of digital transformation of economies, new directions are opening up for managing the development of insurance relations in agriculture. The possibilities of accumulating, storing, transmitting and processing statistical information arrays with low costs can be used to improve insurance products for agricultural producers and increase the efficiency of spending budget funds aimed at supporting the development of insurance in the industry. Due to the agriculture specifics insurance relations cannot develop effectively without state participation. Close cooperation between the state and business in the field of risk management in agriculture is necessary.

The subject of the research is the process of developing government decisions in Russia in the 1870s, based on the case of the development of the Charter on military service. The objectives of this article include identifying an algorithm for discussing a proposed government decision and indicating the characteristic features of the chosen method of solving issues of state importance. The basic method in solving these problems is the textual analysis of the document, conventionally designated by the publishers as “A.A. Shcherbatov on the issues of the terms of military service”. The result was the definition of four phases in the process of preparing and making government decisions. Each phase has a specific load. For the first phase — the formation of ideas of army professionals about the needs of the troops, in the transition to a new principle of their formation. For the second phase — the approbation of these ideas in society and the correction of the outlined plans. For the third phase — clarification of the developed provisions in polemics with representatives of “interest groups” that developed at that time in the management elite. For the fourth phase — the consolidation of the reform elements formed during the discussion process at the state level.

The article concerns the study of the process of reorganization of regional and local government in the Soviet Union on the basis of the principle of production branch. This problem is not only of scientific, but also practical interest, since it makes it possible to take into account the experience of failed reforms in improving the system of regional and municipal government. Based on the analysis of decisions made by the highest party bodies, regulatory documents, press, archival sources, the content of the reform, its implementation and results are considered. The reform of the CPSU committees, councils and their executive committees at the regional and local levels significantly destabilized the situation in many spheres of the country’s life: party and state administration in the center and localities, management of economic sectors and led to a reduction in the pace of development, a decrease in the standard of living of the population and contributed to a change of establishment of the USSR.

A series of incessant crises of the world and national economy testifies to the fact that the models of production relations and productive forces that have developed in the second half of the last century are losing their relevance due to the exhaustion of opportunities for increasing efficiency due to the evolutionary modernization of technologies and management methods. Currently, the world is at the initial stage of a new industrial revolution, in a stage of transformation when innovations from various fields of activity mutually penetrate and change each other. New, avalanche-like technologies are significantly changing the situation in the established markets. Radical reformatting of management methods, sales channels of finished products, rethinking of logistics approaches, robotization of production, all this leads to increased productivity, reduction of non-productive costs, and a change in the structure of the gross product. Commercial success comes to market participants who widely introduce and use new knowledge and technologies, to investors who are not afraid of the risks of fundamental research. The article deals with the transformation of economic entities in the form of a radical restructuring of economic ties and a change in approaches to managing the life cycle of production, operational and commercial activities of an enterprise based on digital technologies.

The article examines the issues in the areas of communications, education and healthcare which become urgent because of the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. On the base of the reviewed content, it is concluded that the current crisis has caused the main damage to human capital and digitalization is not a panacea for the pressing problems. As a result, one of the necessary mechanisms for their solution is the organization of innovation clusters. 

The theoretical research methods used in the article are logical, statistical and deductive methods, analysis and synthesis, generalization and concretization. The empirical methods used in the article are deductive method, statistical analysis, comparison, interpretation. 

To support the thesis, the activity of innovation cluster in solving the problems is described on the basis of economic theory and real business practice during the crisis. So, self-organization and cooperation of participating enterprises, personal communication and synergy of education and work make innovation cluster the key element of innovation policy. Then, it is stated that the complexity of this mechanism is offset by the effect in the long term. 

The practical significance of the article is the application of the innovation cluster methodology in conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis for the development of the future of the innovative economy.