Problems of the functioning of the regional political regime on the example of Kemerovo Oblast

The article is devoted to the analysis of the regional political regime on the example of Kemerovo Oblast. The article considers modern domestic and foreign typologies of political regimes, their correspondence to the realities of Russian regions. The practice of actual gubernatorial control over the arrangement of the main political and economic regional players in Kuzbass does not allow us to speak about the balance of branches of power in the region. The author, in his analysis of the problems of the regional political regime, relies on a neoinstitutional methodology. Studies of regional political regimes presuppose reliance on verifiable methods of analysing socio-economic and political processes in the region that allow us to identify the unique architecture of the regional political regime. At the same time, it is difficult to count on success, basing only on statistical and empirical materials. For success, it is necessary to keep political processes that partially overlap a particular region, take into account national political trends and perspectives that inevitably affect the perception and evaluation of local regional processes. The political order in most of Russia's regions is characterised by the prevalence of policy over economy. Institutional processes here are regulated mainly by informal conventions. In Kuzbass, power and property constitute an indivisible institution. Features of the regional regime in these conditions are: the phenomenon of "power - property"; redistribution type of economy; class model of stratification; orientation to the preservation of socio-political processes, and not to the innovative development of the region. The relationship between power and property is built around the theory of the administrative market with the dominant role of the regional bureaucracy. In Kuzbass, the formation of a free competitive market was not completed, and interest groups form a system of inequalities by the criterion of the opportunities for rental access, determined by the attitude of the first person (the governor). Stratification is of a cast-paternal, closed character, and is a derivative of the degree of possession of imperious resources. The regional political regime assumes the architecture of power on the basis of the «power - property» relationship and the formation of the ruling elite uncontrolled from civil society. Kuzbass business for many years mostly avoided solidarisation, preferring backstage arrangements with the governor of Kuzbass and his clientele. The boundaries and opportunities for regional cliques in the adoption and implementation of political (state) decisions are primarily determined by their links with informal and formal institutions of power; the personal composition of participants in these entities; compliance of resources and objectives of these associations with the regulatory restrictions existing in the state. The results of their activities can be judged by indirect data and, above all, by the results of the distribution of tangible and intangible resources in society, demonstrating the true beneficiaries of regional management. In Kemerovo Oblast, due to the poor quality of institutions, the apathy of the population, the weakness of civil society and the lack of control of the ruling elite, shadow structures (cliques, clientele, clans) currently have a decisive influence in approving regional policy goals and making key management decisions.

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