Military special operation forced to abandon urban projects for the urban electorate

The start of a special military operation (SVO) and the Western sanctions imposed in connection with it, as well as partial mobilization on September 21, reformatted the political context of regional governance, follows from the final report of Minchenko Consulting on the anti-crisis strategies of the heads of the subjects of the Federation. Among the main challenges governors face in 2022 are high uncertainty, lack of resources for innovative projects, an urban crisis, and the risk of growing intra-elite conflicts, the report says.

Against this background, a single day of voting, including the gubernatorial elections, took place “strictly according to the referendum” scenario, and opposition parties, especially the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, showed a significant decrease in performance. A new political configuration has taken shape in Russia, which can be characterized by three key decisions: referendums on the entry of four new regions into the country, the announcement of partial mobilization, which involves the entire society in the NVO agenda, and the introduction of martial law in the annexed territories.

Most regions under the sanctions will be forced to direct the “lion’s share” of their funds to basic social spending items – health care and education. This becomes a condition of political stability and the governors will be even less able to raise additional funds for any long-term investment projects, the report says. “The inertia of economic management is almost inevitable: it will be much more difficult for the heads of regions to announce any innovative projects that can complement bureaucratic positioning,” Minchenko Consulting experts say.

As examples of this trend, requests for support for the construction of new bridges are given during the election campaigns of the acting governors of Tomsk (Vladimir Mazur) and Yaroslavl (Mikhail Evraev) regions. In a number of regions, expenditure optimization will take place, the political responsibility for which will fall on the heads of regions, the report says. Earlier, one of the governors, who will run for re-election in 2023, said that because of the SVO, a number of infrastructure projects are at risk of shifting “to the right” and the authorities are assessing which ones need to be completed first.

Another trend identified by experts is related to the crisis of urban projects. Their development made it possible to attract the city electorate, which is traditionally more skeptical towards the authorities, to the side of the governors. According to experts, in the context of austerity budgets, improvement projects are unlikely to be a priority. The degradation of the urban environment is quite likely along with the reduction of elements of the post-industrial economy of consumption due to Western sanctions, according to the report of Minchenko Consulting.

Some regions will be able to “carefully” get out of this situation if urban planning is important not in itself, but as a component of a large development strategy, political scientist Yevgeny Minchenko believes. “For example, at Mazur in the Tomsk region, one of the key facilities is a university hub, at [губернатора Владислава] Shapshi in Kaluga has a similar story – campuses are being created. This is an accessible environment not only for residents, but also for visiting students, scientists, this is an important element of great development,” he notes.

The report notes an increase in the risk of increasing intra-elite contradictions due to “reducing economic rents” and “competition for budget contracts and subsidies.” Political scientist Ilya Grashchenkov connects the aggravation of contradictions among intra-regional elites with the preservation of the market economy model with simultaneous sanctions pressure and the departure of a large number of investors from Russia. “Due to problems in the economy, the collaboration between large regional businesses and governors has intensified, since only the heads of regions can help them receive financial support from the federal center,” he says.

By giving governors powers, but not giving them a budget for their implementation, the federal center activated the work of the heads of regions, Grashchenkov believes. At the same time, the expert believes that it is too early to talk about the widespread freezing of urban improvement projects. “A park with bike paths has been opened in the Belgorod Region. In Tambov, the authorities are very actively engaged in urban planning. It is logical that there is some kind of reorientation, but everywhere you need to look specifically,” he stressed.

Most governors, after the start of the SVO, certainly preferred to focus on socio-economic issues, Grashchenkov believes. The economy of the Russian regions is heterogeneous, so the role of governors in anti-crisis management has increased. An anti-crisis headquarters for countering sanctions was created in almost every region, but the subject of the SVO did not become a “common denominator”.

According to political scientist Mikhail Vinogradov, the pandemic (experts cite an analogy with it in terms of the level of load on the system) did not increase the “political subjectivity” of governors, since they were forced to draw up decisions on their own behalf, which were made by federal structures and Rospotrebnadzor. The level of influence of governors on decisions on hostilities is even lower than on a pandemic, he believes.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin minimized PR coverage of his participation in events related to the special operation and focused on the socio-economic issues of the capital. The agenda of the special operation is reproduced in the same paradigm – within the framework of Moscow’s assistance projects to the regions of Donbass on the restoration of infrastructure and the dispatch of capital utilities. The governor of St. Petersburg, Alexander Beglov, on the contrary, is actively promoting the political agenda of the SVO and has taken responsibility for the restoration of Mariupol.

Both approaches contain their pros and cons, according to the Minchenko Consulting report. “Depoliticized” governors minimize the risks of claims from the residents of the regions due to possible problems with the economy, they demonstrate the priority of welfare and stability issues. In this case, the heads of regions better respond to the request for stabilization, combating the consequences of sanctions and helping the mobilized.

Anna Vergazova contributed to the article