The Donetsk People's Republic within the strategic planning system for socio-economic development of the Russian Federation: an institutional analysis

• Evgeny V. Kotov

  Yevgeny V. Kotov Donetsk Branch of RANEPA. Donetsk. Russia

The object of this study is the system of strategic planning documents governing the socio-economic development of the Donetsk People's Republic as a constituent entity of the Russian Federation. The subject of the study is the institutional configuration of this system with respect to the DPR. The aim of the study is to develop a comprehensive understanding of the DPR's place in the federal strategic planning system, to identify substantive, methodological and institutional gaps in the existing documents, and to formulate concrete proposals for their elimination. The study employs methods of systems analysis, content analysis of regulatory legal acts, comparative analysis, and temporal mapping. A systematic analysis of key federal strategic planning documents pertaining to the DPR's socio-economic development has been conducted. It is established that the system contains a critical institutional gap, consisting in the absence of a subject-level socio-economic development strategy for the DPR, which renders the system a construct with a missing tier – one in which macroregional orientations are not translated into the specifics of the regional economy, and programmatic measures lack a long-term strategic framework. In addition, horizontal inconsistency among the documents has been identified, generating risks of parallel rather than synergistic operation of public policy instruments. In addition, horizontal inconsistency among the documents has been identified, generating risks of parallel rather than synergistic operation of public policy instruments. Addressing this gap is a prerequisite for the coherent functioning of the entire strategic governance system of the DPR. The findings may be applied in refining the regulatory framework for regional strategic planning in the DPR, adjusting the action plan of the Sustainable Development Strategy for the Azov Region, elaborating a subject-level socio-economic development strategy for the DPR, and conducting comparative studies of the institutional integration of new constituent entities of the Russian Federation. The scientific novelty lies in the comprehensive analysis of an interrelated set of federal and macro-regional strategic planning documents pertaining to the DPR, examined within their institutional hierarchy and the logic of inter-level coordination.

Keywords: subject-level strategy; institutional gap; new constituent entity of the Russian Federation; inter-level coordination; strategic planning of regional development