Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 26th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview IV. Regional Development and Inter-regional Author(s) Alexey Barabashev Higher School of Economics Moscow Russian Federation Semenov Sergey, Title Local Municipal Strategic Planning in Russia: Present Conditions and Empirical Testing File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Alexey Barabashev Abstract In the first two parts of presentation features of process of strategic planning at the municipal level in the Russian Federation are considered. It is shown that a variety of regions of Russia, their cultures and traditions, social and economic conditions, is compensated by standardization of the federal legislation on strategic planning and strict requirements (now, not supported methodical recommendations) to structure of strategy, procedures of their preparation and realization. It does strategic planning in the Russian Federation by bulky bureaucratic process, with elements of a methodical arbitrariness and with abundance of control and supervising functions. At the municipal level, additional difficulties of strategic planning are caused: dependence on subsidies of most municipalities, target funds to which are allocated "from above"; multilevelness of system of municipal management; unevenness of the allocated resources; a considerable failure in financing lower of these levels (rural settlements). Nevertheless, strategic planning in the Russian Federation in general is useful, it induces municipalities to range the purposes and tasks, to proportion the allocated resources and results of their use, to involve citizens in processes of changes. Quantitative results of the conducted empirical research on the basis of the questionnaire of the COST "Assessment of Processes of Strategic Planning at the Local Level" project are given in the third and fourth parts of presentation. Following the results of the analysis of results of questionnaire, the additional semi-structured interview with a number of the key municipal employees responsible for strategic planning was conducted. The interview purpose was to discover the reasons and features of some answers to questionnaire questions. Following the results of survey and following semi-structured interview we came to conclusions that the main stakeholder of strategic planning in the Russian Federation is bureaucracy itself. Secondly, positions of municipal employees concerning strategy have the consolidated character (in one separately taken municipal body they are almost identical). At last, municipal employees who are responsible for planning process, believe that the strategic planning is the important instrument of municipal development. In the last part of presentation we will describe how strategic planning is carried out in the city of Lyubertsy (The Moscow region), one of municipalities in which the empirical research was conducted.
