Flexible authoritarian governance in Russia: the politics of ideas on family policy

This article examines governance in Russia
using policy ideas as an analytical lens and the case of
family policy. Following the definition of the ideational
process as a “discourse,” Russian governance is viewed
as three discursive layers: the president, ministerial
bureaucracy, and regional and local levels. This system—
represented in our original “nested model of discoursive
governance”—involves: intensive communicative
discourse from the president as he seeks to legitimize
policy in the eyes of the public and provide signals to
officials; a vigorous coordinative discourse at the middle
level, where officials and experts negotiate their ideas;
and a local discourse in which political communication
and technical coordination coexist and involve (besides
officials and experts) members of the public through the
“collaborative” and “protest-induced” routes. The study
reveals the mechanism of flexible governance, which is
associated with the partial accommodation of different
ideational positions.