Modes of the NGO-State Relations in the Russian Regions

The research focus of this survey is on non-profit organizations in Russian regions and their interaction with government authorities in the context of welfare state transformation. The main goal of this study is to determine the dominant type of relations among Russian regions. Thus, the “social origins theory” is used as a theoretical framework. Its toolkit allows to define the models of interaction between NGOs and authorities, based on 5 criteria: the third sector volume, the volunteers’ and permanent workers’ proportion in the sector, the share of state and non-state support. The secondary data was used for analysis. The main sources are official data taken from the Federal State Statistics Service and the Unified Interdepartmental Informational and Statistical System. The data was gathered for each of the criteria in the period from 2014 to 2016. As a result, the social-democratic / traditional model of interaction became the dominant one in the regions of the Russian Federation. This result indicates a high level of civic participation in Russia, expressed through voluntary and philanthropic activities. In such a situation, the authorities and NGOs keep the distance in their relationship.