People’s Control during Perestroika: Discussions in Russian Scientific Literature

Abstract

Control is one of the most important functions of management activity both in the economic sphere and in public administration. The issue of public and state control is becoming especially relevant nowadays in connection with the need to improve the efficiency of government bodies. In the context of international tension and global socio-economic changes, the experience of studying public and state control, the functions of which were assigned to people’s control bodies in the 1960s–1980s, is also becoming important. Control activities are of particular importance during periods of active public administration reform, one of which the period of perestroika (1985–1991) can be considered. The aim of the article is to identify the stages of studying the institution of people’s control during perestroika and to provide their characteristics. To achieve this aim, the following methods were used: historical-chronological, which allows identifying characteristic stages, historical-comparative, which makes it possible to compare the identified stages, and historical-genetic, which enables to determine the current problems in the past of the people’s control institution. Based on the above methods, two stages in the study of people’s control were identified — Soviet and post-Soviet. Each of the stages was described. The literature of the Soviet period is practice-oriented, aimed at identifying current problems in the sphere of public control and developing practical recommendations. Post-Soviet historiography is mainly represented by the works of Russian legal scholars who conducted a constitutional and legal analysis of the people’s control institution. The key areas here were a general assessment of public control during the years of perestroika as well as the issue of continuity between the institutions of the past and the present.