Suchergebnisse

We introduce the concept of collaborative hierarchy, a mechanism of collaboration which combines hierarchical and peer-to-peer interactions. In a collaborative hierarchy, a set of participants informatively "subordinate" to the same coordinator forms a peer-to-peer network producing consensual decisions. The advantages of such mechanisms over peer-to-peer mechanisms are noted. The problem of stability of collaborative hierarchies is investigated. In this case it means that they are protected from turning into power hierarchies based on violence. Stability requires high levels of human capital and civic culture. It is achieved through a number of formal organizational principles, such as the selection of coordinators by the level of collaborativity and their regular turnover. Of particular importance for stability is the requirement of reaching consensus. It is demonstrated that a number of Western countries are trying to overcome the crisis of the welfare state by introducing economic reforms providing for the formation of collaborative hierarchies. Our analysis shows that forming of governance hierarchies is compatible with the tendency of crowding out mechanisms of competition and power by mechanisms of collaboration, demonstrated by the philosophy of collaboration. The significance of the findings for Russia is discussed.

The article examines the crisis of modern Western democracy. It is noted that the important causes of the crisis are slowing down of economic growth and deepening inequality in developed countries. It is shown that inter-party competition inevitably generates a mechanism of degradation of moral norms in the political sphere and reduction of the political system efficiency. These processes have intensified dramatically as a result of the spread of the Internet. They contributed to the reduction of citizens' participation in political life and at the same time to the ochlocratization of the political system. It is shown as well that a number of transformations taking place in the Western countries are aimed at improvement of interaction mechanisms between the state and society and contribute to overcoming the crisis. These include expanding the role of parliamentary committees, increasing the number of parties, largescale reforms of public sector governance basing on collaboration. In this context, the experience of e-platforms and the possibilities of institutional collaborative platforms are analyzed. The concept of collaborative democracy is proposed, based on the analysis of the trends studied. The mechanism for collaborative democracy should ensure greater choice and broader direct participation of citizens in decision-making, control the costs of political competition and maintain ethical standards, prevent ochlocratization and improve governance. Contours of this mechanism are outlined. It is based on the use of a proportional electoral system of a special type, a system of expert councils and collaborative platforms for public decision-making, as well as on the implementation of decision-making rules close to consensus. The significance of these conclusions for Russia is discussed.

The second part of the article is devoted to the theory of leading socioeconomic development. It is shown how in Western Europe, as a result of the interaction of culture, institutions, technological progress and the level of welfare, specific forms and combinations of the three main mechanisms of coordination — competition, power and cooperation — emerged at each stage of evolution. I emphasize the importance of ideology and the phenomenon of technical progress in the formation of institutions of economic and political competition that contributed to the emergence of the welfare state. These changes and economic growth created the conditions for further transformation of civil culture: increasing levels of trust, tolerance, altruism and cosmopolitanism, expanding the planned horizon. The decrease in the level of coercion built into the mechanisms of power and competition is demonstrated as well as the expansion of the role of collaboration. A hypothesis is advanced that the speed of this process depends on geographical factors. The idea of welfare world is discussed.

A new approach to understanding socio- economic development is proposed, based on consideration of the evolution of coordination mechanisms. The work consists of two parts. In the first part, a critical analysis of four recently proposed theories of development, focusing on geographical, institutional, or cultural factors, is given. These theories have greatly enriched our understanding of the evolution of society. However, as our analysis shows, none of them provides a satisfactory description of the driving forces and mechanisms of this evolution; the main reason is rooted in their common shortcoming — monocausality. It is proposed to distinguish between two types of development, catching-up and leading one. Basic ideas of the theory of catching-up development are presented. It explains the phenomenon of the "economic miracle" as a result of mutually conditioned changes in culture, institutions, technological progress and well-being in the context of interaction of competition, power and collaboration mechanisms. The second part is devoted to the theory of leading socio-economic development.

The selection of the trajectories of professional development by economic researches and economic analysts today is largely determined by formal criteria for assessing the results of their activity on the part of financing organizations. As has been shown in a number of works, such a formalized assessment may distort the incentives for studying the surrounding reality and adversely affect the formation of the professional community. In this connection, at the initiative of the Association of Russian Economic Think Tanks (ARETT), a roundtable discussion was held in the framework of the XIX April international academic conference of the National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow, April 10—13, 2018) where these and related issues were discussed. The discussion was moderated by ARETT president A. A. Yakovlev.