Moscow-Tolyatti: results. Citizens vs. experts?

Natalya Baranova, president of the public charitable organization "Social Ecology" (Novosibirsk):

I certainly liked what happened in Tolyatti. There was a truly expert forum with more serious, prepared and contextualized participants. 100-200 people finally organized a real expert dialogue. No special decisions were made at the forum, although the commission tried to prepare a final resolution. However, the majority agreed that in two days it is impossible to combine a lot of different opinions of different personalities in a common document.

Much more important, it seemed to me, was a general understanding of what an expert is today. Compared to last year's forum, it became clear that not every teacher or engineer can become an expert. Experts must not only work themselves, but also be able to act within the framework of other projects. An important understanding has emerged that the notorious civil society is a heterogeneous, inhomogeneous object, in which different sectors suffer primarily from the lack of a “language of mutual accessibility.” Therefore, we should think about developing a common language of mutual understanding within the structures of civil society.

Moreover, I had the feeling that Tolyatti’s ideas would become the most important factor in national strengthening, and, above all, they would spread their effect to the regions. Without a doubt, the forum and the federal expert network will become a completely new stage in national strengthening. It is gratifying that the forum itself was held in the Volga Federal District and many topics revolved around its regions. The other day the All-Russian conference “Regions of Russia on the path to civil society” was held in Novosibirsk. I expressed the idea that the creation of a special expert community is necessary not only at the federal level, but also at the regional level. This idea received approval and support from the administration of the Novosibirsk region. So there is some hope that expert groups may soon appear in a number of regions. It can be stated that the Tolyatti Forum has already sprouted. And in the right direction.

Anatoly Golov , director of the Institute of Social Policy:

The forum in Tolyatti showed that certain changes have occurred since last year’s Civil Forum. I would especially like to emphasize the active participation of representatives of the Volga Federal District in a range of issues related to the formation and functioning of civil society. It is pleasant to realize that more attention has been paid to the problems of civil society precisely from the point of view of increasing the competence of the parties involved.

In my opinion, the new concept of “social partnership” presented by Mikhail Dmitriev looked interesting in this sense. The author showed that the tasks of a real social partnership should have a broader nature and meaning, while simultaneously involving a variety of forces. I thought the idea presented at the Tolyatti Forum was successful, suggesting the introduction of a competitive selection of one or another project in order to stimulate the functioning of civil society.

At the forum in Tolyatti, a clearer common position was also developed on the problems of resistance to administrative barriers and regulation of problems related to housing and communal services. In principle, many participants agree with the idea that in housing and communal services issues the state should reserve the regulatory function (the right to provide services, the regulatory framework, etc.), and everything else should be subordinated to the tools of civil society, where business plays an active role. Now the situation we have looks something like this: the state simultaneously orders services for itself, performs them and pays for them. As a result, people find themselves on the sidelines - this is a completely abnormal and ineffective regulatory mechanism that does not allow feedback from society at the most direct level of interaction.

Galina Kozlova , Moscow office of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation:

A very important result of the forum in Tolyatti was a fundamentally new positioning of public organizations in relation to the election process, in particular, to the State Duma. One far-reaching conclusion was made: the attitude of a particular public organization to elections should be on its agenda in order to promote its interests as productively as possible. The idea is that if a public organization really wants to do something serious and thinks about its work accordingly, then it must think about the forms of this work.

I was convinced at the forum that many of the entities involved in this process, engaged in specific activities (charitable organizations, human rights societies, especially those dealing with civil rights issues), have seriously “grown.” There has been a really strong intellectual growth in discussions. A year after the memorable Moscow Civil Forum, people with a wider range of issues and, most importantly, critical of themselves, gathered in Tolyatti. The absence from the SWAP participants seemed not entirely clear to me. By the way, this is a characteristic institution of civil society, independent of the authorities.

The problem of national strengthening was also raised by the participants in one way or another. The topic was raised about the prospects of an oath of “loyalty to the Federation”, which the regions would take following the example of the German federal states, as an option to try to avoid a tilt towards federal nationalism. Issues related to national strengthening itself in the ethnic sense were discussed at a very limited number of expert platforms.

I also found interesting the discussions that discussed the actual expert potential of civil society structures. A very important idea was expressed: an expert cannot be a narrowly biased participant in the process of institutionalizing civil society. An expert cannot be dependent on those structures that need his services at the customer level. Moreover, we are talking about both customers from the government and customers from civil society structures. Experts must become members of a profession free from such influences. At the same time, within its ranks, the expert community must clearly understand its role functions and represent its positions in civil society. This is without a doubt necessary.

In any case, those professional 5 experts who now represent civil society, the figure is certainly an underestimate. This is largely due to the fact that the forum participants still did not fully understand for themselves what an expert is.