Communicative Management Models in the Context of Creating a Comfortable Urban Environment (Case Study: The Arkhangelsk Region' Cities)

The article discusses public communications management system in the context of the federal program for the comfortable urban environment. The features of the communicative management system are analyzed on the basis of the communicative action theory and the systematic approach. The shortcomings of the existing regulatory urban space communicative management model are considered in the case study of the Arkhangelsk region cities. The authors hypothesize that the asymmetry and bureaucracy of the interaction between municipal authorities and city residents incorporated into the system of communicative management are the key factor of this system dysfunctions. The comprehensive sociological research was conducted in 2018–2019 to test the hypothesis. It aimed at studying the features and problems of organizing public communications in the Arkhangelsk region cities in the context of discussing and implementing programs to create a comfortable urban environment. It included a sociological survey made by a questionnaire, the sample of which was 783 people; it included 15 expert interviews with representatives of municipal authorities and NGOs, and 7 focus groups in several cities of the Arkhangelsk region. The study showed the presence of dysfunctions in the communicative management of creating a comfortable urban environment, which confirmed the author’s hypothesis. As a result of the empirical data analysis, a descriptive model of communicative management was constructed, the dysfunctions of this system were identified and the measures to improve its functioning submitted in a form of recommendations. The authors propose to apply public control, to expand the tools for informing the population about the program’s implementation, and to arrange more actively for the citizens involvement. The results of the study can be used to conduct monitoring on the urban environment comfortability in other cities of Russia, to assess the local governments activities and the civic participation degree in the implementation and monitoring of projects and programs for the urban spaces improvement.