Moscow's Renovation Project: Evaluating the Policy Process and Experience

In our research we have closely examined the Renovation program both through the legal documents and officially announced plans, and through watching its implementation. We made special focus on the mechanisms and reasons for involing the citizens into the policy-making process. Like in many other spheres in hybrid regims, in our case we can witness upside down citizen engagement, which is organized after a dicision is taken in order to correct and adjust the policy implementation. By conducting interviews with the residents – the target group and the possible stakeholders (those, who live in direct proximity of the construction), with experts, with the representatives of the authorities; by attending the court procedures considering the cases involved within Renovation program; by attending working meetings between the implementers of the policy; and by inspecting the new houses we have received a full understanding of the situation, which allowed us to look at the researched issue through very different prisms, and hereby helped to stay impartial.