Party Ideologies through the Prism of Administrative Paradigms

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of proposals for the reform of public administration in the programs of the Russian political parties that participated in the 2021 Duma elections, the assessment of their coherency and realism as an indicator of the party’s political maturity, its willingness to implement its slogans in practice. Using classification methods, as well as content and thesaurus analysis, the author documents similarities and differences between these proposals and considers them through the prism of party ideologies and basic administrative paradigms. The study does not reveal a clear correlation between party ideology and proposals for improving public administration: party programs with polar ideologies have similar proposals. At the same time, the author discovers a connection between party ideologies and administrative paradigms presented in the programs. Left-wing parties are oriented towards Good Governance i.e., the openness of the authorities and the involvement of citizens in the administration. New Public Management associated with economic efficiency and client-centric state is typical to right-wing and (to some degree) centrist parties. The Weberian paradigm with its emphasis on the legality and procedural aspects is scarcely presented in the programs of Russian parties. In general, the paradigm of Good Governance is most popular in the programs. The author explains the dominance of this paradigm in party programs both with the populist trend gaining strength all over the world and with a request for social justice inherent in the Russian society. However, according to his conclusion, although parties and society are ready for cooperation, which is reflected in discursive practices, such readiness conflicts with the underdevelopment of the mechanisms of the implementation of Good Governance, which have not yet been developed even at the level of theory. He sees a possible solution to this problem in the unification of the efforts of political scientists and specialists in public administration and overcoming the mismatch between these disciplines.