How Russia used self-regulation to evade corruption
In 2010, something odd happened in the Russian construction sector. The “control-oriented” Russian government decided to hand off regulatory power to the private sector — and did this despite objections of the industry itself. In the current issue ofGovernance, Masha Hedberg explains this “perplexing” development. The Russian government wanted to sidestep an ineffective and corrupt bureaucracy, while industry leaders recognized that the new regime was likely to be tougher than the status quo. Hedberg says that conventional explanations of delegation neglect cases like this, in which “low capacity bureaucracies severely curtail the government’s ability to enact its policy agenda.” Read the article.
