Інституційний дизайн управління путінської Росії – чинники неспроможності

The main objective of this study is to analysis the Putin regime's strategy of transforming Russia into a highly centralized autocracy with concentration of powers (formal and informal) in the president and central executive bodies, while preserving the constitutional features of the federation. The article examines the legislative changes that have been adopted over the past 20 years with the aim of levelling regional self-government in the Russian Federation. The author analyses the peculiarities of the Kremlin's personnel policy, which, in particular, at the regional level, is characterized by significant mobility and limited duration of officials' stay in their posts. Putin's administrative and political reforms were supported by changes in the system of redistribution of financial resources within the Russian Federation, as well as by the significant growth of the state sector of the economy. In addition, the author focused on informal practices in the governance system of Putin's Russia. In particular, the selection of entities managing state resources from the circle of close associates, many of whom are connected with the security and law enforcement agencies of the Russian Federation; levelling potential threats to the Kremlin even from political parties of the so-called ‘systemic opposition’, ‘systemic opposition’; the division (which took place during the large-scale aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine) of the entire institutional structure of the Russian governance system into a “visionary” one aimed at implementing Putin's foreign policy strategies, and a technocratic one whose main task is to ensure the projects of the ‘visionary’ group and support the functioning of the Russian Federation as a state. Based on the analysis of a broad base of data on the peculiarities of the institutional model of state governance built under Putin, the author concludes that competitive groups of influence on the Kremlin's policy and the very prospect of their formation in the future have been completely eliminated within the country, which makes it impossible for alternative scenarios of Russia's development to emerge. Taking this fact into account redirects the search for “vulnerabilities” in Putin’s Russia from the theory of elite groups of influence (“Kremlin Towers”) towards a more practical analysis of the flaws in the system of public administration and the economy of the Russian Federation.