Vol. 19 No. 2 (2017)

The President's powers as a tool for provision of the separation of powers and the efficiency of the interaction of state bodies are considered in this article. Despite the importance of the place of the presidency institution in the constitutional-legal research, a unified approach to this issue has not been developed yet. During the formative years of Russia's statehood the list of the President's powers has changed significantly. The author analyzes the President's powers in the framework of the separate branches of power. It is established that the position of the President is higher than the position of the Government and Parliament, however, this happens due to the constitutional legal nature of the presidential model. It is concluded that the presidential power has a special nature, but it is inscribed in the system of state power of the triad that provides effective interaction of all its constituent parts. The role of the constitutional Court of the Russian Federation for the resolution of issues of interaction of state bodies is emphasized. The continuing preponderance of the powers of the President over the powers of constituent entities of the Russian Federation due to the need for formation of the sustainable vertical of power and ensuring of unity of legal space is noted. However, these goals have been achieved already and now some restriction of the principle of federalism can be observed. The author reveals the significance of the President's powers in the system of separation of powers and justifies their «arbitration» nature. It is emphasized that the powers of each branch of government in the law are not clearly established, allowing to blur the principle of separation of powers and causing a decrease in efficiency of functioning of government institutions. In the presidential republic, like Russia, excessively strong separation of powers leads to the disbalance of separate branches of power and even to the tension inside the branches of power. The distinctive feature of the presidential authorities is the application of conciliation procedures by the head of the state.

The theoretical and practical aspects of the concept of «tradition» in the context of the category of «social institution» are analyzed in the article. The authors emphasize that it has ambiguous interpretation in both foreign and domestic sociological literature nowadays. Various sociological points of view concerning this problem are presented in the paper; active, normative, organizational and other approaches are considered. The authors propose the most acceptable definition of «social institution» as a set of officially recognized and shared by the activity subjects norms due to which their actions become anticipated, anonymous and predictable in certain conditions, ensuring the achievement of the set goals. The study identifies the main types of social institutions comprising the concept of «tradition». The article presents some key substantive aspects of tradition: common and historical rules and regulations, an order and manner of actions fulfilled by virtue of established habits, stereotypical ways of behavior, etc. The authors analyze the institutional aspect of customs - social institutions (the sensual-emotional sphere which concerns social phenomena). These include feelings of unity, solidarity, integrative senses of solidarity, organic connection with each other, ideological proximity, connectedness by moral obligations etc. Tradition reinforces a sense of intimacy of the social group of people (relatives, employees, ethnic groups, religious community) linking them by the certain social relations. This gives confidence to an individual, making its existence more meaningful.

The article is devoted to defining the role of public administration in the sphere of public finance and the study of the system of state bodies involved in the mechanism of ensuring financial stability of the Russian Federation. It is noted that ensuring the financial sustainability is necessary for sustainable development of the state and constitutes a crucial element of public administration. The legislation of the Russian Federation does not assign a single authority responsible for financial stability in the country. Powers have been enshrined in a number of organs and their relationship of activities ensures the cyclical actions in the administrative process for the preservation of financial stability. The constitutional principle of separation of powers is implemented in this sphere of the activities of the state. The author proposes to subdivide the authorized bodies into two conditional groups: the commissioners for making decisions, for which ensuring the financial sustainability is the main activity and the bodies performing the requirements of the first group, indirectly involved in ensuring the financial stability. Taking into consideration the need for interaction of a wide range of authorized authorities ensuring financial stability, the author concludes about the necessity of the execution of their functions based on a single legal concept. In addition, an individual road map for each authority must be developed on its basis.

The article is dedicated to the analysis of public procurement system in the regions of the Russian Federation following the results of the introduction of an amended Federal Law of April 05, 2013 No. 44-FZ “On Contract System in the Sphere of Procurement of Goods, Works, and Services for State and Municipal Needs”. A considerable number of amendments to the law, along with the issues of its enforcement on the example of the Smolensk Region, determine the relevance of the study. The article reflects the main trends of law enforcement in the field of public procurement, systemizes the organization of public procurement at the regional level, and comprises conclusions on the advantages and disadvantages of the applicable contract procedures. Based on research the authors have substantiated the need of economic and legal methodological support for the uniformity (conformance) of the practice of state customers and budget institutions for the effective organization of public procurement in the regions. According to the authors, organization and management of competitive bidding, is a comprehensive economic and legal tool that boosts the efficiency of public spending, facilitates the development the national economy and competition, ensuring publicity and transparency in procurement, and acts as an effective mechanism to counter corruption. Taking into consideration the proven efficiency of the joint trading sessions, it is proposed to extend their usage practice, that can improve the economic safety of the region.

The article dwells upon the issues of application of modern information and communication technologies for development and streamlining of the relations between citizens, government and organizations. Based on the assertion that the Internet plays an important role in strengthening representative democracy, as it allows introducing advisory elements into the democratic system, the author analyzes a number of international legal instruments of the Council of Europe adopted in recent years in the field of e-democracy, and gives practical examples of e-government and e-democracy performance in Russia and the CIS countries. The author draws attention to the fact that state projects enjoy considerably less popularity than non-profit projects for the development of public initiatives. Based on the results of research conducted on the basis of the Center for Development of E-democracy Mechanisms at the Faculty of Law (RANEPA), the author reveals the problems of law enforcement and the numerous terminological conflicts associated with the field of information and communication technologies and other problems of the development of e-democracy in Russia. In conclusion, the author advances a number of proposals for systematization of the conceptual apparatus and for the harmonization of legislation in the sphere of e-democracy, which should promote its further development.

The article considers possible scenarios of development of the situation around the regional public debt in the context of the reduction of budgetary lending to regions by the federal center. The public debt is the main source of financing of deficit of budgets of the budgetary system of the Russian Federation at federal, regional and municipal levels. The issue of regional public debt is paid great attention to by the scientific community and analysts in the authorities of the constituent entities of Russia. The interest to the problem is quite natural taking into consideration the fact that since 2008 the consolidated regional budgets have had a deficit. Since 2009 the federal budget has been implemented with deficit; the only exception was 2011. The conclusions are made by the authors on the basis of the analysis of the status and structure of regional debt in the years 2011-2016, the state of regional debt in Russia and countries of the Organization for economic cooperation and development, possibilities and constraints of the federal budget. Comparing the indicators of the member countries of the Organization for economic cooperation and development and Russia, the author concludes that it is advisable for regions to reduce the rate of increase of the share of loans in the structure of regional debt through bank lending. The further increase in the share of loans is rather typical for unitary states that do not have the tools for more flexible and cheaper borrowing in the debt securities market. The policy of of increasing budget loans in the structure of regional debt pursued by the RF government is quite logical taking into consideration the significant reduction in the burden on regional budgets in debt servicing.

Despite the considerable research and study of theoretical issues and practical experience in the sphere of formation and implementation of the cluster policy, raising competitiveness of the region, the solution of this problem remains highly relevant. The purpose was the study of the concept of cluster and cluster policy which opened a new perspective for the development of national and regional economies and is considered as one of the most important factors of regional competitiveness at the present stage. The primary chosen method was the comparative analysis of the cluster theory and cluster policy given in the research materials and scientific works by the Russian and foreign scientists. It is emphasized that the cluster policy can be effectively implemented basing on the specific features of the economic structure on the scale of the Russian Federation territory. The cluster policy is integrated into the Russian economy of the regions in conjunction with other approaches developed and successfully applied in the planned economy. The following types of clusters are considered by the author: industrial (outside the exact region), the ones that have the explicitly expressed shares of the participation of the companies in the process of the formation of the added value and the clusters inside the particular region. They are distinguished, as a rule, by a high concentration of small and medium companies, therewith the entrepreneurs have the explicitly specified specialization and aim to comply with the requests of the consumer market. The conclusion is made that the main prerequisites of the formation of the effective cluster system in Russia can become the presence of the competitive enterprises in the region, the wide range of the economic agents.

The non-profit concession, the theoretical foundations of which were laid by the author in the preceding works, is considered as a tool of stimulation of development of subjects of the Russian Federation on the example of the Kostroma region. The author reveals the possibility of building the management systems at the regional and municipal levels on a uniform basis consistent with the legislation. However, it is emphasized that these changes require legislative consolidation. While determining the architecture of the proposed system of regional governance, the author offers to use the principle of conformity of the bodies of regional and municipal management bodies of the Federal administration. To optimize the structure of the control the author proposes to group them according to the functionality. The schematic vision of such separation is given. The relationship of the management bodies is exemplified by the activities of the education authorities in the region. The author comes to the conclusion that the industrial and functional departments in the framework of the commercial concession can control the activities of the similar municipal management bodies, transfer material and financial resources necessary for the activities of the subordinated spheres of the municipal facilities. The information of the implementation of the program documents and crucial situations occurring in the subordinated spheres returns as feedback. The situation is similar to the regional one at the municipal level where the head of the municipality controls the activities of the bodies managing the finances and education, possibly, through his or her deputies and receives reports about their activities from these bodies.

The author shows theoretical understanding of the basic concepts of the state educational standard for higher education and uses a system-activity approach to solution of methodological difficulties of designing the educational programs on specialty 38.03.04 - «State and municipal administration». The designing practice of the professional purposes for the particular academic subject is presented in the article. One of the remaining problems is the correlation of the notions ‘professional competence' and ‘professional competency'. Educational standards of the 2nd generation consisted of the contradictory notions, but the 3rd generation standards also have a drawback: it is stated that the educational objectives are the formation and development of the non-technical and professional competencies. Herewith the various objective educational goals (striving, readiness, capability, understanding, grasp, skill, handling) are set. However, the attribute of the professional competence is by no means striving, readiness for some activity or the understanding of the peculiarities of some processes. The logic flow chart of the professional qualities formation is proposed in the article.

The paper discusses the characteristics of civic consciousness of the cadets of military high schools of national guard troops of the Russian Federation. The authors identify the factors influencing on the process of formation of civic consciousness of 1-5 year students. It is considered as a qualitative characteristics of the personality of students in the light of establishment of national guard troops of the Russian Federation this year. Assessment of the place and role of teaching staff, the commanders of cadet divisions in the process of formation of civic consciousness of students is presented. Special attention is paid to educational work, the main methods used by the teachers. The article analyzes the problematic issues of educational work with students and highlights the major trends in formation of their civil identity. Alongside with the educational work the author draws attention to the forms and types of educational work conducted in the military high school. Cadets of military high schools of national guard troops of the Russian Federation receive education in accordance with Federal state educational standard of higher professional education on training direction 030901 - «Legal support of national security». The analysis of competences by the Federal state educational standard is used to determine the social order of society in the field of civic consciousness.

The author presents his vision of a network academy of public administration for the CIS countries; its main task will be realization, mostly of the professional development programs, as opposed to various existing network universities that are oriented at higher education. The key idea within the concept is transfer of credits from short-term training courses into high-level programs including master's programs and MBA, and the use of distance learning technologies for shaping of universal professional competencies of the students. The principles allowing to achieve the maximum efficiency during the development of the joint programs of the FVE (further vocational education) are proposed by the author. Besides, synchronization of the programs providing the unified set of knowledge and graduates' competencies is significant. The creation of the network academy of public administration allows to improve mutual trust between states and high rank public officials in various government bodies; it will promote higher speed of the integrational processes and confidential contacts in the economic sphere, provide stability and synergy effect of the economic development of the CIS member countries, affecting positively the competitiveness of each state. Among the existing problems of the present day of creation of the network academy necessity of finding the source of stable and sufficient financing, as well as the elimination of contradictions in the national legislations of the CIS countries regulating the educational activities are highlighted by the author.

The analysis of the structure and the content of the textbook «State anti-crisis management» published in 2016 is given in the article, the range of problems of this textbook is highly relevant. In the context of the complicated international political and economic situation it is necessary to overcome the backwardness of Russia in terms of state governance indicators to create favorable conditions for the exit from the crisis. In the evaluation of the material the issues of optimization of state anti-crisis management in terms of external sanction pressure and the crisis in Russia were touched. The author of the review elaborated the chapters of the textbook in detail, highlighting a balanced approach, completeness of material, and reasonable conclusions. It is noted that the domestic and foreign experience of anti-crisis state management, the measures for the development and implementation of appropriate anti-crisis actions taken by the government in recent years are analyzed in the textbook. Recommendations for the establishment of an effective mechanism to counter challenges to the national security of the Russian Federation that emerged in the last three years are proposed. Conclusions about the future use possibility of the proposed recommendations, the need for relevant standard-setting activities of relevant subjects and in-depth practical use of the most acceptable ways of overcoming the crisis are made. The historical retrospect of domestic and foreign experience, that is rare for the textbooks on public administration issues, is especially emphasized. The chapter about the anti-corruption fight also attracts attention, the issues of incurrence of the corruptive factors in the state management and their minimizing are considered there. It is concluded that the textbook will allow the students to gain insight, among others, during the process of extra - curriculum activities, into the key issues of the state anti-crisis management.

The article under review continues the topic started in the “Public Administration” Journal (No. 5 for 2016) on possible prospects for investment cooperation development of the Eurasian Economic Union with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The initial results are analyzed (after the ratification of Free trade zone agreement between the EEU and Vietnam). The trade structure peculiarities are considered. The author also discusses prospects of development of bilateral investment relations taking into account forecasts of economic growth. Vietnam is demonstrating sustainable successful economic development and will continue doing so in the medium term. Crucially, it also happens against the background of a general slowdown of the global economy and poor performance of investments. The bilateral negotiations with the EEU member-countries actively initiated by Vietnam immediately after signing the agreement demonstrate the intention of the Vietnamese side not to limit itself only to the Russian market. The production and trade orientation of Vietnam is mostly aimed at servicing the global chain of the added value, because, by importing into Vietnam raw materials and components and then exporting finished goods in the form of high-precision equipment, electronics or textiles, trans-national corporations can reduce considerably their costs. As for the agriculture and food industry, Vietnam is an active participant of the global agricultural value chains with a very high proportion of exports.

The article examines the role of the Commissioner for Human Rights in the process of formation of legal culture of population, being the most important and at the same time poorly implemented goal of the Russian state. A set of measures aimed at enhancing the legal culture of the population by the state, the education of the younger generation in the spirit of democracy, development of creative potential of the nation is considered. The Commissioner is noted to be central to the field of the legal education of the population. Its activities are aimed at the improvement of the awareness of the society about its rights and freedoms guaranteed by the law, as well as the mechanisms of defense and restoration of infringed rights and freedoms. The necessity of strengthening and centralizing of the Commissioner's office that are to facilitate the larger implementation of the human rights policies of the state in order to enhance the legal culture of the population is substantiated. For implementation of these goals it is offered to create the extensive network of the permanent presence chambers of the Commissioner in all regions and constituent entities of the Russian Federation. The theoretical and practical mechanisms are offered for improving the institution of the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation in the system of formation of citizens‘ legal culture as the basis and legal guarantee of protection of rights and freedoms of man and citizen. The author concludes that the Commissioner for Human Rights appointed to the position by the State Duma of the Russian Federation and being, as a rule, an authoritative figure of the human rights movement in his or her country, does not possess, however, any specific public-authoritative powers. Nevertheless, it doesn't prevent this public official from reacting effectively on cases of human rights violation in the Russian Federation.

The article dwells upon a peculiarity of lawmaking process as a special human activity is considered in the article. Also, the key spheres of its manifestation are underlined. The proofs of the thesis that degree of efficiency of administrative activity of legislative power bodies directly depends on the level of professionalism of deputies. To increase the level of their efficiency it is necessary to create the systems of increase of level of the professional development. It can be achieved by formation of special divisions in the structure of the legislative power bodies having the tasks of organization of special events. Additionally, the introduction of professional qualifications for replacement of some or other positions in the structure of management of legislative power bodies seems appropriate. The process of their introduction is considered on the example of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of Russian Federation. For the effectiveness of the legislative bodies management activities it is necessary to form a system of improvement of the level of professionalism of the deputy corps. On the one hand, the systematic professional development should be carried out on an ongoing basis. On the other hand, professional qualifications must be introduced to replace certain positions in the management structure of the legislative body. The implementation of the above mentioned measures will allow to improve the quality of the legislative process and the effectiveness of legislative bodies in general, which, in turn, will strengthen the confidence of the country's population in key institutions of state power.

The article is devoted to the analytical review of the audience preferences, characteristics of the consumption of informational messages in the context of the horizontal model of communication. The characteristics of the audience, channels of communication are analyzed, the quantitative method of sociological research is used; the recipients are the employees of St. Petersburg State University. The work provides information about the number of digital devices for news consumption, public preferences for the information playback format and the major news sources ranked on age criteria. Then the author studies the change in media consumption time of different age groups, it is concluded that the Internet is an important communication channel, on which almost all age groups spend an average of about 4 hours. The TV and radio are used by people at home or while traveling by car, when it is possible to turn on the channels in the background mode. The youth noted the presence of certain discomfort when receiving the news via radio and printed publications, while for people over 35 years these types of media are of great interest. The study using self-assessment of the audience of media production consumers with the method of personal formalized interview was performed. The study found out that the number of people who are sure that they know where they can find necessary information has considerably grown. In conclusion the survey concerning the problems of perception of the existing media market was made. Several factors affect the development of the media at a time: the economic situation is narrowing the range of the mass media working in the traditional formats (newspapers and radio stations close, television channels disappear) and the legislation developing towards the censorship determines the search for unconventional options of the interaction of the mass media with the audience.

The paper is dedicated to the issues of legislative regulation and practice of regulatory impact assessment of legal acts carried out in Russian municipal entities following the amendments to Federal Law No. 131 “On General Principles of Organization of Local Self-Government in the Russian Federation”. The author analyzes the regulatory framework and mechanisms for its implementation, in particular, on the basis of the criteria for including in the list of municipal entities and methodological documents for regulatory impact assessment on the example of the Sverdlovsk, Ulyanovsk and Leningrad regions. Based on the analysis of the results of the regulatory impact assessment, the recommendations issued and the negative conclusions on the example of municipalities that are regional centers, such as Yekaterinburg, Ulyanovsk, Pskov, Izhevsk and Ulan-Ude, the author determines that regulatory impact assessment has been applied to a sufficiently low number of municipal legal acts with a trace of negative estimates or recommendations. De fine, the author comes to conclusion that the concept of “the degree of concentration of state powers entrusted to municipal entities” is insufficiently defined, and denotes uncertainty and fragmentation of the formulation of evaluation criteria at the level of constituent entities of the Russian Federation, which makes it difficult to enforce regulatory impact assessment and indicates the need to improve the legal methodology. Such situation takes place because the procedure of the evaluation of the regulatory impact starts its implementation on the municipal level, subsequently it can impact significantly the norm setting process.

The theoretical foundations and methodological approaches to study the cultural facilities for the optimization of their financing mechanisms are analyzed and specified in the article. In order to come to a scientific justification of the level of spending on culture it is necessary to identify the factors that will determine the reduction or increase of such costs. To solve this problem an algorithm of studying the processes of the management of the cultural objects is proposed. Its development is based on the approach to such objects as one of the specific types of benefits - patronized goods. On the basis of their specificity and their characteristic «disease prices» the necessity of institutional changes aimed at establishing mechanisms contributing to the development of public-private partnership in the sphere of financing of objects of culture through the endowment funds and other types of partnerships is considered. This institution should ensure the growth of expenditure on culture at the expense of attraction of sponsors. The author considers main scientifically grounded approaches to financing objects of culture represented by three directions in the scientific and economic thought - individualism, holism and the theory of sociodynamics by A.Yа. Rubinschtein. In the framework of each direction its own methods of solving the task are offered and the relationships between the state and society, culture and economy are determined. The different role of the public administration system predetermines the quality differentiation between the approaches. The great applied significance of theories determines the importance of their research and further development. The preservation of existing and creation of new cultural goods is an ever-increasing need in the modern world.

The analysis of expert and analytical support of activities of federal authorities as one of the means of management aimed at increasing their working efficiency is considered in the article. This is one of the key characteristics in the public administration sphere determining how qualitatively and quickly administrative decisions lead to the desirable result. Information is understood as a set of data and facts, characteristics of processes, objects, and events; it is an important element and means of management exercising. Decision-making process should be based on the high-quality and reliable information, data, research, expert evaluations and conclusions. To improve the quality of materials (programs, reports, notes etc.) expert and analytical institutions with highly qualified and experienced experts are founded. The formation of Advisory councils within the Ministries of the Russian Federation demonstrates the increased need of expert, analytical and information support of activities of authorities. The key tasks and functions of Advisory councils are preparation of analytical, informative and methodical materials, analysis of suggestions, projects and initiatives, expert examination of projects, regulatory legal acts, plans and programs, drawing up recommendations, assessment of possible consequences of projects, regulatory acts implementation, etc. To analyze the activities of Advisory councils we used the following indicators: availability of regulations on creation of the Council, tasks and functions, the structure of the Council, the conclusions and protocols of the meetings. The analysis of data on the official websites of Russian Ministries allowed to determine the order of functioning of the Councils, the nature and number of available information, the period of its updating, relevance and promptness of publishing, and also to reveal the councils possessing the most and/or least detailed information about their activities.

The article deals with the mediation procedure in the corporate law. The concept of corporate conflict, its structure and the possible motivation of the entry of people in these conflicts are disclosed in the article. It also focuses on the difference between corporate conflicts and disputes, and their specificity is considered. These concepts are covered in detail in order to prove the feasibility of mediation use in resolving them. The procedure of mediation, methods and techniques of the mediator for working with corporate conflicts are also considered in the article. The advantages of this procedure as an alternative method of dispute resolution are noticed. Some references to the normative legal acts regulating the activity of the mediator are given. Mediation is analyzed as a multifunctional and universal phenomenon. Basing on these features of the mediation procedure it is possible to conclude that this procedure is convenient in practical application and has a number of positive properties. Its practical applicability is noted not only at domestic corporate level, but also at the international level. The aim of the article is to show that the sphere of corporate relations is the most fertile ground for the development of alternative, non-judicial ways of resolving conflicts. Corporate relations is the sphere of cooperation between the sides and arising disputes should be resolved with great precaution so that they would not lead to stagnation of the corporation as a whole.