Youth policies in Russia: conceptual models and practice

The idea of this book appeared as the result of multiple discussions with the participants of my practical seminars who are public servants working in the sphere of youth policy. We frequently came to the conclusion that though there are quite a lot of youth policy programmes adopted in different municipal territories a solid part of them is full of faults and inaccuracies hindering their properly work.

This book contains conceptual framework, methodical materials and practical cases concerning youth policies in present day Russia.

In the first chapter I focused on the legislative and regulatory base of the Russian youth policy and its main faults one of which is the absence of one basic law in this sphere. As a result a great responsibility falls on the regional laws which have to be as high-quality as possible. In this part of the book I give some practical advice about the structure and content of such laws.

The only official document aimed at implementation of the actual measures is the State Youth Policy Strategy 2006 unfortunately full of vague wording and to some extent characterized by illogical structure. The detailed analysis of these shortcomings of the State Strategy could help avoid the same mistakes at the local level.

The central idea of this book is that the youth policy should be active, creative, sensible, adapted for certain spatial and temporal conditions and for certain categories of young people. It should be incorporated into other directions of regional/municipal government.