Public-Consulatative Councils as a Way of Involving Expert Knowledge in Policy Decision Process (Case of St. Petersburg)

The creation of a multitude of public consultative bodies was one of the aftermaths of the administrative reform in Russia. Yet, the real impact of such advisory bodies on policymaking is weak. In this paper, we look at those organizations in Saint-Petersburg, Russia, to investigate the possible causes of such a situation. In order to achieve the ai, of the study, the legal base of more than 40 public consultative and advisory bodies under the city governor, city government and its committees has been analyzed. Based on the results of the analysis, we present the descriptive statistics of their composition and their estimated openness score. For deeper investigation, we have conducted interviews with the representatives of 7 advisory bodies and respective bodies of the city administration. As a result, a number of key problems with those advisory organizations’ activity were identifi ed, including the lack of influence of members of councils on the current agenda, lack of feedback from authorities, lack of openness of these pub lic bodies. We suggest that possible causes of those problems could be communication issues and unbalanced composition of these organizations, including predominance of status persons among members.