Urban Governance of Yakutia: Is the Government Ready to Cooperate with the Citizens?

Abstract

Over the past decades, there has been a transformation in urban management—a management paradigm has been replaced by a governance one. At the forefront is the ability of cities to collectively seek solutions to problems. The public and businesses are among the most important stakeholders in the urban governance model. The issues of public and business participation in decision-making, their organization and the search for effective mechanisms remain important in urban governance research.The relevance of urban governance and the experience of implementing its principles are considered mainly in foreign countries, while the Russian experience is still poorly studied. This study uses expert interviews and the Urban Governance Index to study the current state of the urban governance in Russia using the example of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) to assess the willingness of local authorities to involve the population and private business in city governance, and to analyze the impact of the size of cities on the effectiveness of urban governance principles. The results of the study showed that the principles of urban governance are just beginning to be implemented in Russia, and the city authorities show low activity in building horizontal ties. It was also concluded that urban governance is more efficient in small towns than in larger ones.