Soloviev A. I.

№ 1, 2018

• Discourses and Practices: Whether Ideology Can Contribute to Public Administration

  The article reveals the factors of positioning ideological constructs in the system of public administration. The author pays special attention to the situation in the contemporary Russian society, where the intensification of public and academic discussions about the role of ideology allows one to understand the implicit and explicit interests of the key political players.

  On the basis of the analysis of the universal and specific parameters of the ideological influence on the system of state regulation and mechanisms of public policy formation, the author demonstrates that ideology, as an instru- ment alien to the public administration system, can play a positive role only under the conditions of the regime crisis, which requires a sharp increase in the solidarity of power and society. At other times, ideology is not in a position to set in motion the necessary vector of development in public administration, because ideology promotes a narrow set of social preferences used by the ruling classes to enhance their dominance rather than strengthens the discursive foundations for the choice of solutions and increase in the number of goal-setting alternatives.

  Ideology decreases possibilities of including society into the process of public policy formation, by serving an ideological barrier for choosing government decisions. From a managerial point of view, for the society ideologization forebodes an increasing abuse of power in designing and evaluating the results of state regulation. This expands the non-economic criteria for the production of government decisions and allows the authorities to write off failures on the intrigues of enemies. Politically, the use of ideology as an instrument of public administration (reflecting the elite’s fear of future changes) means the inevitable growth of populism, which denies public pluralism and discredits political institutions.

  DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2018-88-1-7-29

  Pages: 7-29