United States Government Reformers Could Learn from the Russian Example

Russian can provide some good ideas for the reform of the United States government. The US government is bogged down with bureaucracy and inertial expansion without any sort of general evaluative systems analysis with an eye to reform. Russia isn’t like that; it has an ongoing evolution coupled with reform of the inherited prior Soviet state residuum. The process is something of a marvel to observe as a field activity. I would think it's comparable to scientists having the opportunity to observe first-hand physical processes that haven’t been observed before, such as the volcanic evolution undersea on Europa.

I have had the opportunity to upgrade my learning about Russian history that I had left off with the end of the cold war and college courses with a new course available on-line at coursera.org. Its a course on Russian Governance and public policy provided by St. Petersburg University in Moscow. https://www.coursera.org/learn/political-governance-russia

The instructors all speak English. It is a realistic examination of Russian government changes since the end of the cold war and of where they are today and where they are headed. I found the future prospects for development and reform interesting since the U.S. Government has just kept expanding what has existed for a very long time without reforming much. It also has a vast 21 trillion dollar bi-partisan public debt while that of Russia is manageable.

I don’t know if the U.S. public debt means that the U.S. government cannot reform as its creditors own it to a certain extent. The United States has led sanctions on Russian and forced it to be disciplined, realistic and to stay out of debt and become as self-reliant as possible while they continue evolving a modern democratic government that is adaptive and less of a doctrinaire neo-liberalism corporatist functionary.

I would like the U.S. government to be more ecological economic oriented before the world reaches its final status as a hot desertified place with a great population crash in a couple hundred years. Business should be vetted and favored regarding being ecospherically synergistic with the worst offenders less favored. Capitalism should be reformed so the use of material resources support intellectual activities and well being of a;ll citizens materially within a democracy paradigm of general enlightened self-interest.

Here are some of the concepts from the Russian governance course that might be considered by Americans. I will actually quote some of module six that has some very good ideas, slightly edited for American English readers..

“Some main characteristics of these three models.

1) The State as a developmental institution;

The main idea of this concept is to separate development management from administration of current functioning.

Main characteristics of this approach...

To create a Reform Headquarters, which would play the role of delivery unit, organizer, conductor and coordinator of the growth in the country.

To implement a system of budget program and indicative planning.

New information technology based on big data should be used in strategic management.

To reform the system of state statistical data by integrating data from the Federal Tax Service, the Bank of Russia and other agencies. And last point, this is to create an effective project management system for development to ensure the stability of financing of priority state program. “

“The second project, this is a state as a platform.

The main idea of this concept is modern technologies in the near future allow creating an environment for a high-tech digital platform of public administration that will ensure the minimization of the human factor and attendant corruption and mistakes in public policy and administration.

The main principles of this approach are;

Goals are more important than functions.

The customer defines the process of public policy.

Who does is much more important than how to do.

We need rules changes in real time.

Client's life situations as a business process for public policy.

We need use one-touch solutions.

Real time data when it used for public policy and administration.

And the last point,;the digital ecosystem as a center for synergy of the state, business and citizens."

The Third model...

"The last project, this is state as collaboration. 

The main idea of this concept;  public administration is the governance of people mostly, than structures and systems. 

Important principles and approaches; Governance is based on the human factor. Leadership and cooperation is the main factor of successful development. 

We need crowdsourcing for setting agenda in public policy. 

Trust and teamwork is the basis for effective governance. 

We need wide open governance. We need to develop citizen-government collaboration in different fields of public policy. 

We need to construct joint responsibility through organizational network and other learning. 

We need unit risk, mobility and changes. 

It is clear, the development of public administration, which will meet the challenges of justice development and improvement of the social welfare level, require not only participatory institutions, but also participatory culture. The development of institutions simultaneously transforms the consciousness and activity of participants in public administration and public policy. 

This period is marked by searching for new principles and approaches that can be later be transformed into policy and administrative reform under new name. These reforms remind us about the public role of the state. 

In this era of market and globalization, surprisingly enough the role of the state is more crucial than ever before. This law extends beyond regulating domestic market or correcting for market failure. 

It is about creating the initial conditions for capturing the benefits from globalization, about managing the process of integration into the growth of economy, in terms of pace and sequences, about providing social protection and other issues. In sum, governments need to regulate and compliment markets in order to make them people friendly. 


The reason is simple, governments are accountable to people, whereas market are not."