Problems of Evaluating the Effectiveness of the Institutions of State and Society Interaction (The Cases of Regional Public Chambers of the Vladimir and Saratov Regions)

The problems of interaction between public institutions and authorities are becoming very relevant at the present stage of social development in Russia. Improving the effectiveness of public authorities in general is the most important goal of the country’s political development. In this regard, the task of identifying and implementing criteria for assessing the effectiveness of institutions responsible for the state and society interaction is relevant for developing effective public policy frameworks in general. The lack of adequate tools and scales for measuring the effectiveness of public chambers leads to the dominance of descriptive methods and subjective judgments about activities of regional public chambers. The article attempts to consider the problems and approaches to assessing the effectiveness of regional public chambers. Based on the results of the study, including the analysis of documents, media materials, a series of semi-structured expert interviews, the authors conclude that the main criteria for evaluating the eff ectiveness of regional Public Chambers of activity are, firstly, the way the Public Chamber is formed as a negotiation platform and an institution for representing the interests of society, and, secondly, the conditions for participation in public control. These criteria are directly related to the problems of representation of interests in the Public Chamber, to its subjectivity and the dependence of its activities both on personality factors and on the political situation. Increasing the effectiveness of these institutions is possible by strengthening their independence from the administrations of the region through targeted changes towards a more open and democratic procedure of forming the chamber and performing the functions of public control. In this situation, a serious expert discussion is needed on methods for assessing the effectiveness of regional public chambers and on ways to increase theirautonomy and independence.