SYMBOLIC VS. ISSUE-RELATED LEGISLATION IN ENVIRONMENTAL SPHERE: INSTITUTIONAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE PERCEPTION CONFLICT (ON THE EXAMPLE OF RUSSIAN REGIONS)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17072/2218-1067-2025-4-49-63Keywords:
symbolic legislation, issue-related legislation, environmental legislation, State Duma, regions’ right of legislative initiative, regional environmental legislative initiatives, Russian regionsAbstract
The Russian Federation employs a mechanism of multi-level governance whereby regional parliaments hold the right of legislative initiative in the federal legislature. Regions face no thematic restrictions on proposals, and their initiatives undergo the same legislative procedure as those from other actors. However, bills submitted by regional entities are frequently postponed and subsequently rejected by the State Duma. This pattern is particularly pronounced in the environmental sphere: despite procedural parity, over 90% of regional environmental initiatives are rejected, with 63% undergoing consideration for more than one year –significantly longer than initiatives on other topics. This study employs the theoretical lens of symbolic legislation to examine how perceptual discrepancies regarding environmental initiatives among legislative actors (regional initiators vs. federal deputies) influence their adoption likelihood. Through analysis of 416 regional environmental initiatives (2004–2022), their explanatory notes, and plenary session transcripts, we demonstrate that a systemic misalignment in bill-type perception (symbolic vs. issue-related) constitutes the primary barrier to adoption. Empirically, when perceptual alignment is achieved, adoption probability reaches 55–100%. Existing institutional practices – notably power centralization and committee gatekeeping – amplify perceptual conflicts, transforming them into systematic filters for regional initiatives. Crucially, our findings reveal that an initiative’s fate depends not on its formal type, but on actor-level perceptual (mis)alignment. This insight uncovers a key mechanism behind regional initiative failure in multi-level governance systems.References
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