QUALITY OF REGIONAL POLICYIN THE FIELD OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION: ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT IN THE RUSSIAN REGIONS

Abstract

Introduction. Stakeholder participation is becoming increasingly prioritized for achieving inclusive environmental governance. Nowadays, policy-makers are increasingly promoting the idea of cooperation in public governance to solve complex environmental problems. The research of stakeholder participation in regional environmental management is of prime interest for understanding the factors influencing the intensity of this interaction. This work contributes to the study of environmental governance by identifying the impact of the financial security of the Russian regions in the field of environmental protection on the scope of stakeholders representation and participation in environmental governance.

Materials and methods. The methods were statistical analysis of data processing - descriptive statistics and comparative analysis of environmental governance following the proposed by the author methodology in the Russian regions, which differ in socio-economic indicators and environmental expenditures based on the material of the websites of regional executive environmental authorities.

Results. The study showed the absence of clear differences in the breadth of representation of various stakeholder categories and areas for cooperation in the implementation of environmental governance based on the financial provision of the regions, which indicates the presence of other factors affecting the intensity of this interaction. Despite this, it was found that the group of regions with low environmental costs has a slightly more active interaction with stakeholders: more areas, forms of cooperation and categories of stakeholders are involved. This may be due to the investment attractiveness of this group of regions the imple- mentation of a huge number of large investment projects, and additional costs for cooperation on the part of stakeholders. As a result, no region received the maximum number of points according to the proposed methodology for analyzing the quality of environmental governance, which indicates the existing gaps in environmental governance in the regions considered.

Discussion. The proposals formed on the basis of the conducted analysis will allow regional authorities to improve environmental governance and work more intensively with various interested groups. In addi- tion, the analysis of environmental governance proposed by the author in terms of financing and participa- tion of stakeholders in the decision-making process deepens the theoretical understanding of the imple- mentation specifics of regional environmental governance in modern Russia.