Russia in 2006: Building Public Dialogue with the Authorities

At a recent Kennan Institute talk, Vyacheslav Glazychev, Professor, Moscow Architectural University and member, Russian Federal Public Chamber, described the work of Russia's Public Chamber, which was proposed in 2004 by President Vladimir Putin to promote dialogue between the Russian government and civil society. He noted that such dialogue is not traditional for Russia, where the state has historically passed down dictates without taking the wishes of the population into consideration. Post-Soviet authorities failed to engage in a constructive dialogue with the many civic organizations that appeared after the collapse of the Soviet Union. By 2002, Glazychev continued, the parliament had come almost entirely under the control of the party of power and ceased to be an effective forum for citizens and civic groups to influence their leaders. In this context, the Public Chamber is a vital mechanism allowing civil society to influence the state, according to Glazychev.

Members of the Public Chamber are chosen from three different groups, Glazychev explained. The first group, which includes Glazychev himself, is comprised of prominent activists appointed by the president. Glazychev noted that these activists represent a wide variety of organizations, from environmental protection groups, to charities, to sports clubs. The second and third groups represented in the Chamber are national and regional civic organizations. Members from these two groups were chosen through an application process conducted by the presidential appointees. The members of the Chamber are divided into several different commissions, covering topics such as cultural development, environmental protection, public health, tolerance, and local self-government.

The Public Chamber has very limited resources, according to Glazychev. The Commissions have few staff members and very small budgets for research or for travel around Russia. Nonetheless, he argued, the Chamber has come to serve a very important function. He said that many members of the Chamber devote a great deal of time—and often, their own money—to gathering extensive and accurate data about local communities in Russia. This is particularly important because official government statistics in Russia are often inadequate, and national-level officials tend not to take local realities into account when making policy. The Public Chamber, Glazychev said, has had several successes in influencing state policy to reflect popular opinion. For example, members of the Chamber convinced the Federation Council to oppose a clean water bill that had already passed the Duma without debate, and the Chamber played an active role in promoting a new law that will decrease mandatory military service to one year by 2008.

Glazychev believes that the Public Chamber has created a meaningful forum for civic engagement in the legislative and policymaking processes in Russia. However, he noted that the Chamber is not universally seen as a positive force. The Chamber has very cool relations with traditional human rights groups, and several prominent human rights activists who were nominated to the Chamber by the president declined the position. Glazychev contended that these activists are unfriendly to the Chamber because they are used to being the only representatives of the Russian people, and because they believe that the Chamber's focus on a broad spectrum of issues diverts attention from political human rights in the traditional definition. He expressed hope that relations between the Public Chamber and human rights groups will improve in the future.