All-Russian Societies of People with Disabilities: The Nature of Inertia in Interaction with State Authorities

Abstract

This paper investigates the phenomenon of inertia in the interaction of the state and all-Russian Societies of the Disabled. The Russian context retains conservative trends in the state cooperation with NGOs, which is marked by paternalism and categorical assistance for disabled, formalism inherent in consultations with the state authorities. Along with this, there is the development of social services and their suppliers, innovations in the framework of the new public administration policy. The state is focused on developing the third sector, however, all-Russian societies hardly fit into the current model of social policy. They successfully preserve their own structures and established forms of interaction with authorities. Hence we find duality in the social protection of the disabled such as inertia in attempts to reform this system. The central questions of this article are: what is the character of this inertia and why do all-Russian societies of the disabled still exist in their old form regardless of the changing context? The article scrutinises how institutional inertia manifested itself by considering the interaction of the state and the All-Russian Societies of the Disabled, Blind, and Deaf in the context of social welfare. An analysis of theories of historical institutionalism, path dependence, and the idea of institutional continuity helps define the term of institutional inertia. Then indicators of inertia are operationalized. The empirical sources include legislation, societies’ documents on funding, in-depth interviews, media articles and annual reports from 1996 to 2019. The discovered inertia in Russian institutions help to clarify the continuities of disability policies agenda and determine the mechanisms for reproducing inertia.