The Impact of "New Public Management" on Russian Higher Education
The higher education reform underway in Russia is part of a much broader state reform project. Launched in 2004 at the start of Vladimir Putin's second term, this "administrative reform" grants the federal state the means to reclaim the public sphere, which largely escaped from its control during the 1990s. Energy incomes having considerably improved the public finances in the 2000s, the state can now consider reinvesting in and restructuring the public sphere as a whole. Its involvement cannot be seen as the construction of a "welfare state," but comes rather closer to an entrepreneurial state at the head of sectorial trusts aiming to be competitive on global markets. Such as it appears today, the restructuring of higher education is key to understanding how the formation of this entrepreneurial state is conceived and what possible structural uncertainties could arise.
This paper is based on the seminar presentation "Higher Education in Russia, Potential and Challenges," which took place on 28 January 2008 at the Institut français des relations internationales (Ifri).
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The Impact of "New Public Management" on Russian Higher Education
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