Условия информационной открытости общественных консультативных советов в Санкт-Петербурге: Сравнительный анализ

Вестник Пермского университета. Серия: Политология. 2021. Т. 15. № 2. С. 129–141.

Вяткин И. О., Kabanov Y., Карягин М. Е., Кукарцев С. М., Миронов П. Д.

Information openness of public advisory councils is an important, but underexplored indicator of their role in public policy, reflecting their activities, as well as the feedback mechanisms between citizens and councils. Scholars usually point out low information quality on federal and regional levels, but the reasons for such situation are studied rarely, especially in comparative perspective. The paper attempts to fill in this gap, by revealing the conditions leading to greater information openness. We have selected St. Petersburg as a case and gather an original dataset on 46 public councils. The key research method used is the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis. The framework is built on two expectations about the impact of councils’ autonomy (in website management and general organization) and the role of councils (“intermediary” or “expert”) on information openness.

            Due to the lack of data and other limitations, the results have not revealed any conditions which can be considered a guarantee for better openness. However, we make a preliminary conclusion that the differences in the autonomy and roles are important conditions. The autonomy of councils, understood as their longevity and share of participants from nongovernmental organizations, seems to be the most crucial factors, regardless of the role they play. In some cases, an independent website and high openness of the related government agency may be important as well. Nevertheless, deep case studies of particular cases can enrich our knowledge on this topic. A valuable contribution of this paper is the framework of analysis that can be used for other cases and research strategies.

Keywords: публичная политика, качественный сравнительный анализ, information openness, информационная открытость, общественные советы, public councils, Public Policy, fsQCA

Publication based on the results of: Общественно-консультативные советы как институты влияния экспертного сообщества и гражданских организаций на принятия политико-управленческих решений в г. Санкт-Петербурге (2021)