№ 2 - 2014
Sungurov A.Yu.
Expert Community, Think Tanks and Power: Experience of Three Regions

The paper is devoted to the analysis of development of expert communities and think tanks in three neighbor Russian regions: Chelyabinskaya and Sverdlovskaya oblasts and Permskiy kray. It was demonstrated on the experience of these three regions that prominent conditions for the arising think tanks of different types are a real level of political plurality and existence of community of political scientists. The corresponding conditions are most suitable in Permskiy kray, where arbitrary democratic political practices take place and where authoritative and stable community of political scientists exists. Owing to these conditions a lot of stable think tanks work in this region, and many of them act as public policy centers. In the case of Sverdlovskaya oblast the existence during fifteen years of two stable power centers – governor Eduard Rossel, and mayor of oblast’ central city Arkadiy Chernetskiy, ensured some level of political pluralism. Many political scientists used then to participate actively in political struggle as experts, experiencing consequences of fail of their patrons. During the last years frequent changes of governors accompanied by renovation of regional political elites resulted in diminishing of most analytical centers. Chelyabinskaya oblast is at the end of this list. Governor Peyotr Sumin dominated in the political field near to fifteen years, and community of political scientists are very weak and split.