Russia’s Regional Policy. Intentions and Reality
https://doi.org/10.21686/2073-1051-2025-4-5-24
Abstract
The “Fundamentals of the State Policy of Regional Development of the Russian Federation for the Period up to 2025” (hereinafter referred to as the Fundamentals), approved by Decree of the President of Russia (No. 13 dated January 16, 2017), are in recent months. The fate of this document, which has no analogues in the world, was largely predetermined both by the excessive hopes for achieving its results, and by the emergence of new circumstances of the country’s existence during the period of the Fundamentals. During this time, more than a hundred detailed articles by well-known economists and lawyers, regionalists and sociologists, demographers and political scientists, were published in leading scientific journals. These articles combined in-depth analysis with critical reviews, well-reasoned recommendations, and predictive assessments. However, two years after the adoption of the Fundamentals, the decree of the Government of the Russian Federation (dated February 3, 2019, No. 207-r) on the approval of the “Spatial Development Strategy of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2025” (hereinafter referred to as the Strategy 2025) was published, which shifted the attention of authorities at all levels and the expert community to the essence of this a government document that was criticized even before it was made public. The same thing happened even more actively after the decree of the Government of the Russian Federation (dated December 28, 2024, No. 4146-r) approving the next stage of the Strategy 2025 – the “Strategy for Spatial Development of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2030 with a forecast up to 2036” (hereinafter referred to as the Strategy 2030). Expert assessments of the above-mentioned documents reveal many controversial provisions in all of these official documents. The article discusses two of them: the insufficient consideration of new realities during the period of the Fundamentals and Strategies and the unsolvable task of reducing territorial differentiation.
About the Author
V. N. Leksin
Federal Research Center “Computer Science and Control” of Russian Academy of Sciences
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Leksin Vladimir N., Dr. Sc. (Econ.), Professor, Chief Researcher
44, Building 2, Vavilova Str., Moscow, 119333
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Review
For citations:
Leksin V.N. Russia’s Regional Policy. Intentions and Reality. Federalism. 2025;30(4):5-24. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.21686/2073-1051-2025-4-5-24
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