Moscow will celebrate its 870th anniversary from 1-10 September. An outdoor exhibition at Clean ponds metro station displays wonderful photos from the 1930ies to 1970ies. The exhibition is entitled ‚Moscow is inventing‘ (Москва изобретает). Watching these wonderful photos really made me proud of being a guest in this marvellous and exciting city.
Heading back to work this piece of street art also grabbed my attention.
At times Moscow is a large construction site. You will hardly find a major crossroad, metro station exit, or city center side-street which does not experience a major renovation. You will have to watch your step even more carefully when hastling to office right now, but Moscow will look brighter in 2018 for sure. Moscovites are used to eternal potholes anyway, so what. Polishing of public sidewalks comes along as FIFA’s 2018 world cup is approaching.
But this is more than Potemkin’s villages. Moscow is in fact the only city I know in the western hemisphere which is expanding his public transportation infrastructure, in a systematic and sensemaking manner. A second circle line is under construction. Picture above gives a glimpse of one of the new stations near existing Kalushska station.
While German policy makers keep on talking weird talk about driverless cars, I say: a driverless car is what we used to call public transportation. If you want to read the newspaper while going to work, take a ride on the metro.
Did you know that Russia, in contrast to China, spreads across several time zones? When it is 11a.m. in Moscow it is +3 hrs, i.e., 2p.m. in Taschkent, and +9 hrs. in Petropavlovsk. (Yes, I know, Taschkent does not belong to Russia anymore; but it illustrates the story so well.)
Pictured above: Insightful world time map in the international postal Moscow office, Варшавское шоссе, 37.
С днем рождения, любимый город!
Seen on the streets of Moscow today the poster pictured above celebrates the 6th anniversary of Moscow’s My Documents campaign. My documents is essentially a synonym for one-stop agencies in the cities districts and boroughs. Behind the scenes additional administrative reforms are going on.
The poster reads „6 years of victory over bureaucracy“, „Moscow’s uniform public service“, and „Your documents are prepared“.
Three weeks ago students of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Higher School of Economics elected me a Best Teacher 2017 at the Higher School of Economics in the annual Best Teachers competition. Thank you! This is a great honor for me as well as a strong motivation to continuously improve my teaching. Following the announcement of the results Anna Chernyakhovskaya from HSE’s media department asked me to share some experiences in an interview. Here is what I said; the interview is also available at https://www.hse.ru/en/news/campus/208020103.html
Anna Chernyakhovskaya: What have been some of the main ‚lessons learned‘ by each of you since you started teaching at HSE?
I am enjoying being among students at HSE, both in terms of cultural diversity and creative intelligence. Students are very demanding while also very flexible. Students at HSE significantly differ from what I knew in Germany. They are flexible in identifying solutions towards a given problem and heavily motivated to reach goals. Given an instruction they exhibit a very high degree of creative intelligence. Networking is an essential part of students’ life; for example, second-year students exchange experiences with their peers from the third year.
What has served as a source of motivation in your profession? How can one become the best in a profession?
I am far away from being the best in my profession, but I would like to share three routines that peers may consider helpful.First I use LMS, HSE’s learning platform, to prepare and evaluate my teaching sessions afterwards, to manage performance assessments, as well as to provide students with learning materials. Any student is virtually online 24/7 nowadays, using smartphones both inside and outside the classroom. LMS allows me to post and distribute readings and worksheets in advance. Second, I prepare an action plan for each teaching session by splitting each session into five to ten parts or items. For each part I define a goal, like today I want to introduce the following terms, or deepen their understanding of the concept of XYZ. I define particular actions, or treatments to achieve this learning effect. I also allocate an amount of time for each of these actions. Third, I allocate clearly defined tasks to students, for example, as part of group work activities.
Did ever you meet any distinguished professors as a student? What do you remember impressing you most?
Tim Jaekel: Uwe Wagschal, now Professor for Public Policy at the University of Freiburg, Lars P. Feld, director of the Walter Eucken Institut, Professor for Economic Policy at the University of Freiburg, and a member of the German Council of Economic Experts, and Manfred G. Schmidt, Professor for Public Policy – all of them deeply and continuously inspired me when I was a student at the University of Heidelberg in Germany.
(Pictured above: Ferris wheel „Star of Berlin“, Ahlbeck, Germany, 2017)
Public opinion polls are losing their ability to predict electoral outcomes. Even the latest polling wizardry failed to predict the 2016 Brexit vote in the UK, Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election race and the end of social democratic rule in Germany’s largest state last month. This is due to issues such as social desirability response biases, and low response rate among potential voters of non-mainstream parties, among others.
Yesterday (2017-06-19) Greg Yudin made me start thinking about the link between polling and Max Weber. Greg, who is a Professor for Political Philosophy at the Moscow School for Social Science delivered a talk at HSE’s monthly Public Administration Discussion meeting. In his talk he analyzed the role of public opinion polls in Russia as a Technology of governance.
I met Greg for the first time at the German Historical Institute (DHI) in Moscow, where he commented on a recent book on the life of Max Weber written by Max Kaube. Greg was the right person to do so, since he is an expert both in the field of sociology, as well as in political theory.
Public opinion polls in Russia distinguish from their counterparts in the OECD world in two ways: In Russia, as Greg described in his talk, public opinion polls serve additional purpose: Public polls substitute referenda. The outcomes of public polls legitimize crucial political decisions. As an example he referred to Crimea’s inclusion into the Russian Federation three or so years ago. Another example is the ongoing Renovation Project in Moscow. As Vladimir Putin put it in 2014, polls confirm the will of the people between elections. They serve as a benchmark of popular support.
A second distinct feature is framing of the interviewing situation. Greg outlined that respondents in interviews perceive the interviewers as representatives of and thus a channel toward central authorities. They partake in polls as a mean to report and complain about problems with local authorities. Like the famous direct (“Hot”) line to Vladimir Putin, a TV event where ordinary people a given an opportunity to address the president directly; the event is broadcasted once a year.
Now, if polls are losing their abilities to measure support or unrest among citizens – a paradox which Meyer and Gupta in 1993 already described for performance measures in general – what is the direction of travel? The direction of travel is the use of application based polling instruments which simultaneously serve as real-time feedback loops. Moscow’s active citizen application and its Smart City integrated mobile platform (IMP) may be taken as examples.
Referring to Max Weber Greg describes this situation as plebiscitarism, a term which suits reality better than the myriads of collocations already present in the literature.
The prefabricate house was invented in Russia. In 1550 Tsar Ivan the fourth, better known as Ivan the Terrible, repeatedly tried to conquer the City of Kazan, which was maintained by the Tatars at that time. Three times he failed, to do better this time he selected and designated Sviyazhsk (Свияжск), a small village some 30 kilometers west of Kazan, to serve as a fortress in order to orchestrate the fourth attack.
Instead of constructing all necessary buildings on-site, all elements of the fortress, including houses etc. were prefabricated in Uglich, which is 200 kilometers north of Moscow. At this point I think is worth mentioning that Kazan is some 800 east of Moscow. The prefabricate houses were then transported from Uglich on the River Volga upwards almost to Sviyazhsk. Ivan’s soldiers succeeded and conquered Kazan two years later.
And some parts of a wooden church in Sviyazhsk indeed date back to the 16th century.
The village also has been hosting two monasteries; the former fortress is located on a hill which is surrounded by two rivers. In 1955 Soviet engineers constructed a dam near Togliatti, as a result, the level of water raised and today Sviyazhsk looks like a Russian Mont Saint-Michel. Like in France there is a small road on a land tongue, and a parking slot at the foot of the fortress.
Most local authorities and government in the OECD world have withdrawn from housing activities over the last two decades. LADs in the UK have virtually stopped building new houses in the mid and late 1980ies facing a lack of funding from central government. In Germany local governments have been selling state-owned apartments and real estate since the early 2000ies to consolidate budgets. Berlin sold one of his residential building cooperative to a hedge fund in 2004. Dresden, another German city, did so in 2006. While Dresden got rid of his entire debts due to the deal, Berlin is still facing billions of liabilities due to its cold war legacy of overspending money earned elsewhere. Berlin is one of the fastest growing cities in Germany; real estate market is booming, but the increasing level of rents is also putting stronger pressure on low-income families. Having sold a large chunk of state-owned low price apartments decision makers are now facing a situation in which these low-income families struggle to make a living and to find an apartment. Berlin passed several local laws to stop the rise of rents, but these tools proofed to be ineffective.
Moscow’s city government takes another approach to public housing. In May 2017 “Moscow’s program for renovation” (Московская Программа Реновации) was launched. In short: Residents in a number of run down five-story buildings from the 1960ies, named after the back-then Secretary General of the Soviet Communist Party, Nikita Khrushchev, are offered apartments in brand-new apartment blocks in exchange for their current ones. The old buildings will be demolished and probably replaced by new buildings in the future. The new skyscrapers to accommodate residents do already exist (one of these new residential complex is pictured above, in the foreground you can see buildings from the 1960ies, they are somewhat similar the Khrushchev houses, but these ones will not be demolished).
So the idea is quite simple: New apartment and more live satisfaction for a significant number of Muscovites, a lot of them pensioners and low income families – for free! City planners in return receive the opportunity to replace run-down small-sized and low-quality buildings by different facilities. New houses are 20-storys apartment buildings, so 15 additional stories are left to be sold on the real estate market.
The program covers some 4,000 five-story buildings spread across all parts of the city. To close the deal two out of three owners in each five-story building have to agree. Non-decision will be counted as a “Yeah”. The exchange apartment has to be within walking distance, the program reads.
Sounds like a good deal at the expense of Moscow City government. But the large scale program has not come without critics. Two weeks ago (mid-May 2017) Moscow’s Prospekt Akadmika Sacharova, a four lane road in the city center, saw a gathering of some hundred protesters. They were holding posters reading “No to renovation” (Против Ренновацнн).
The Moscow Renovation Program 2017 is an excellent example that psychology is an essential feature of public administration. This is another call for behavioral administrative science. Public administration is as much about motivation, fear and psychology of stakeholders, citizens, public officials as it is about proper work sharing arrangements and organization charts.
The program addresses a very large number of stakeholders with very diverse and diffuse interests. Owners and residents affected by the program are afraid of two things: First they are afraid of losing their property. They ask for guarantees. The supersonic transformation from planning to market economy nullified social norms and the right of ownership. There is more than one story where old people were literally thrown out of their apartments in return for nothing in the 1990ies. Ownership on paper counts little. These experiences have been shaping post-soviet collective memory. Second they are afraid of uncertainty. They are used to their place of living, neighborhood, relatives, friends and the shop next door. Relocation even within walking distance will change this environment in the short term.
Generally speaking Moscow’s Renovation Program 2017 has to overcome a situation in which a significant share of stakeholders prefers short term stability and utility over improvements in the mid-and long term.
I learned to judge only on things that I have seen with own eyes. What can I say about Kazan? The reason for coming there was the 25th NISPACee annual conference, that is, the annual meeting of academics doing research on public administration in Central and Eastern Europe. I will say something about the new evidence present at the event elsewhere. For the moment I would like to get a grip on the various impressions that I got over the last couple of days while being a guest in Kazan.
Kazan is the sport capital of Russia.
Kazan is a booming city
Kazan is an innovative city, in terms of its young entrepreneurs.
And Kazan can be proud of an excellent Federal university, I think.
Whatever your favorite sporting activity is, you will have been recognizing that Kazan is seemingly a good place to do sports at, even if you have never been to Kazan yourself. Zenit Kazan, the city´s professional volleyball team won the Russian male championship earlier this month (May 2017). A significant share of the Russian volleyball national team is made of pros from this club accordingly. Rubin Kazan is a football club in the Russian premier league. (I am not able to comment on their performance since I hardly follow soccer at all). Kazan hosted the FINA 2015 World Championships, that is, championship in swimming, diving, water polo and synchronized swimming; and I am entitled to comment on that fact since I have been a amateur swimmer for more than 25 years now. Apart from having it watched on TV I recently learned that this event was rated the best organized one in FINA´s history. Good job, Kazan. We can continue this list, but I will gloss over the city´s ice hockey, basketball, and tennis teams, the Universiade in 2013. You got the key message that Kazan is very good at creating a successful environment for top-performing professional team sports. Over the last days I took my chance to see all the related facilities with my own eyes. The city is full of them, that is, beyond the brand new Aquatics center located on the embankment of the river Kazanka, next to the multipurpose stadium that will co-host the FIFA Football Championships in 2018, or the Basketball Hall in the City Center, visitors will see various facilities for dozens of disciplines all over the city. In public policy terms accessibility for potential users is high. A major policy issue in promoting health related sporting activities apart from the gap between professional and amateur sport, both in terms of allocation of resources and political attention, is a bias in allocating money across disciplines. Research on local sport clubs in Greece has demonstrated that the overwhelming share of money flows into a handful of popular disciplines, including football, and handball, leaving little to nothing for the rest. Policy makers seem to do better in Kazan.
Kazan is a booming city. You won´t find anybody denying this statement including yourself once you had a view from the Kremlin onto the surrounding parts of the city. But it is not just the city center. The same goes for the suburbs. New infrastructure, business complexes and apartments everywhere and they keep going. And before you ask – for the moment it is not central government money that they are spending here.
Kazan is a hard working and rich city. Tatars are the protestants of the Muslim world. They are earning and spending their own money: Tatarstan has a relevant car and space industry, an innovation city (a small Silicon Valley), and its own oil and gas resources. They have a local understanding of what is good and what is not and allocate resources accordingly.
Kazan is an innovative city. Innovation means new ways of doing things. I enjoyed new ways of doing things and entrepreneurship for example in burger shop-start ups: The burger shops I visited were too small in size to have hygienic rooms we would expect them in any serious restaurant. And they do not need to have. The only thing I want to do before and after having a meal is washing my hands. Next to the entrance, instead of a regular washing bowl, I was able to use a regular water pipe embedded into a renovated oil bowl. (Pictured below). I have never experienced this in Moscow before, this innovative approach might be due to differences in local food regulations, differences in size, or entrepreneurial spirit among locals. Anyway, I appreciated it very much.
A forward looking mindset an a larger scale is evident in the city of Innopolis, a Tatarstan Silicon Valley, some 40km outside of Kazan.
By the way, Tatarstan, for those not used to Russian administrative details, is an autonomous Republic within the Russian Federation; and Kazan is the capital of Tatarstan. Tatarstan has 3m inhabitants, 1m of them living in Kazan, another million in the other five to six smaller cities in Tatarstan and the rest in Republic´s rural villages and settlements. About 50 percent of the 3m inhabitants are Ethnic Tatars, most of them Moslem.
Things in Kazan reportedly have significantly improved over the last two decades and within the last five years in particular. People how saw the city 20 years ago, like my colleague Alexey Barabashev from the Higher School of Economics, report that the city has completely changed to the better. Having asked regular people about their feelings and expectations I learned that for most of them it seems hard to enlist serious problems –I am not talking about everyday life and familiar issues, but concepts like life satisfaction – related to public administration as they have been living in an environment where the direction of travel has been improvement throughout the last years. Yes, some the best students still leave for Moscow upon graduation or even before, University professors told me; but some of them also do return. But students are as much aspiring in Kazan as they are in Moscow, at least according to my impressions.
