Uncovering the Network of Planning Expertise

in St. Petersburg: Civic and State

by

Svetlana Moskaleva

Submitted to:

Central European University

Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in

Sociology and Social Anthropology

Supervisors: Prof. Jean-Louis Fabiani

Prof. Judit Bodnar

CEU eTD Collection

Budapest, Hungary

2019

Abstract

This study explores the role of expertise in . Using the example of “urbanistica”

– a local name for urban studies in , the thesis will discuss the possibility of conceptualization

of the struggle for recognition between various groups, including activists and professionals. The

analysis will focus on an activist group which is involved in the projects of urban redevelopment

in St. Petersburg. Members of the group work in research centers, as well as in city committees and

use digital platforms to involve citizens in the discussion of urban problems. The purpose of the

study is to expose the mechanisms of the social construction of civic expertise of urban problems

and to contextualize global and local conditions in which this activity has been forming.

Following Gil Eyal’s concept of expertise as a network as well as studies on transferring urban

ideas (Friedman, King, Collier), I describe the hybridity of civic and state expertise and comprehend

the processes occurring within groups, their integration into the institutional context. Through the

analysis of planning documents, I trace how global urban concepts influence this context,

producing political discourses or rather co-producing them together with citizens who are striving

to become new political actors in urban planning. The methodological optic of the research is

following the process of creating a network between techno-social elements, mechanisms, and

conditions necessary for urban problems to become objects of expert labor. I show that civic

expertise is a phenomenon which combines local and professional knowledge of citizens, which

come to matter in the process of political struggle between state and civic groups. The mechanisms

of construction of civic expertise include rational discourses, transferring urban concepts from

“western” studies, devices and technologies which come to matter in the context of urban decision-

CEU eTD Collection making.

I Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my supervisors, Jean-Louis Fabiani and Judit Bodnar, for their support through this fascinating journey to the roots of civic expertise and urban planning ideas. This study would not have been possible without your wise advice, genuine help, and understanding. I appreciated giving me enough freedom to develop my study as it looks now.

For my informants, their enthusiasm to speak with me, while activist work takes a lot of time and effort in their sphere.

I’m very grateful to CEU for giving me a chance to accomplish my MA thesis, which was difficult in my own country.

I want to thank especially my previous supervisor – Diana West, who found my topic interesting and contributed a lot to its development, suggesting books, articles and writing a recommendation letter to CEU.

I also want to thank my groupmates, who became the source of my inspiration through the writing and studying period.

For my family, who struggled with me and believed that I will manage everything.

CEU eTD Collection

II Table of Contents Abstract ...... I Acknowledgements...... II Table of Contents ...... III List of Figures ...... IV 1 Introduction ...... 1 1.1 Expertise as Network: Methodological Reflections ...... 4 2 The Transfer of Urban Ideas in Post-Soviet Space ...... 8 2.1 The Roots of Civic Expertise: Analysis of Architectural Projects on Bolshaya Mosrskaya Street 11 2.2 Transformation of Urban Policy in St. Petersburg ...... 17 2.3 New Educational Trajectories in Russia ...... 19 3 Constructing Expertise of Urban Problems ...... 22 3.1 Role of Activist Groups in Constructing Expertise ...... 25 4 From Activists to Experts? Mechanisms for Constructing Expertise: Discourses, Concepts, Actors, Devices ...... 32 5 Networks of Expertise and Spaces of Political Struggle ...... 41 Conclusion...... 44 Appendix A. Interview guide ...... 46 Appendix B. Materials and data ...... 48 Bibliography ...... 49

CEU eTD Collection

III List of Figures Figure 1. Project by state-led bureau ...... 12 Figure 2. Petersburg establishment project ...... 13 Figure 3. Project made by civic group “Beautiful Petersburg” ...... 14 Figure 4. Project made by civic group “Urban Projects in Petersburg” ...... 15 Figure 5. The reconstruction of the street in 2017 ...... 16 Figure 6. for gathering citizens' complaints ...... 39

CEU eTD Collection

IV 1 Introduction

The study is devoted to the emerging phenomenon of urban expertise in Russian cities called

“urbanistica”, which is a term for activities related to urban planning. The field of “urbanistica”

has a rather sui generis history in Russia and requires an in-depth study of the processes that form

it. The activity of people involved in it considers a wide spectrum of social factors and forms of

engagement while working with planners and architects, practices of invoking social scientists into

urban projects and it combines an eclectic mix of skills, training and ways of so-called “expert”

engagement with the city. My study aims to analyse the process of the social construction of civic

expertise on urban issues in the context of Russia, where the field emerged from a few individual

initiatives rather than as an institutionalized form.

In Russia, the field of urban planning is being in the process of transition (Friedman 2005,

Golubchikov 2004). From Soviet times there is a profession of town planner (in Russian -

gradostroitel), while since 2010 the new educational programs of urban studies and related

professions were implemented. For current moment this field is not institutionalized, there are no

state diplomas in urban studies as such, but the new institutes provide diplomas of managers, city

planners, entrepreneurs. In this research I am revealing the particularities of the process of

constructing expertise in the emerging field of studies: practices, actors, ideas which are involved

in the creation of civic expertise, as well as opportunities which make its development possible in

the political context. The study addresses two problems: a crisis of expertise or crisis of trust in

those experts who provide it, and secondly, the changing role of “urbanistica” as a scientific

discipline which is developing and becomes highly politicized in Russia. There appeared new public

CEU eTD Collection initiatives who started to promote their studies by connecting them with this discipline. These

techniques of and control are interrelated and will be traced using the

methodological optic of actor-network, starting from an activist group which is involved in the

process of urban decision-making in St. Petersburg.

1 Another feature of the formation of urban studies in Russia is the changing content of the

activities of civic initiative groups that appeared in major Russian cities in 2011-2012 and concerned

with the quality of the urban environment. In St. Petersburg since 2012 the objectives of the activist

groups have become not only the protection of urban areas, as has been described in previous

works on urban activity in St. Petersburg (Gladarev 2012, Clement 2013, Miryasova, Demidov

2010, Tykanova, Khokhlova 2014, Zakirova 2008 and Belokurova 2012), but also conducting civic

research that is sent to the city authorities for review and asking them to fulfill citizens' requests.

The professional community of urban planners is apparently not satisfied with the popularity

of urban studies among “non-experts”:

The growth of public interest in “urbanistica”, not supported by the formation of a fully-fledged educational and research base, is steadily shifting this discipline into the plane of “city talk”, superficial expertise, and popular belle-letters. There is a reason to believe that this tendency leads to the public discreditation of the profession of an urbanist which has not yet been fully formed. 1 (translation – mine, SM)

In addition, it is impossible not to note the change in the political attention to the topic of

urban transformations in Russia. Federal programs for the development of the urban environment

have been promoted since 2012. In 2015, Russia signed a UN document for sustainable

development, which includes urban development. Consequently, the process takes place at various

levels (political, educational, professional, social) and scales (local and global).

The object of the study is the group “Beautiful Petersburg” which has operated in the city

since 2012 and was formed after the Presidential elections out of the movement “Election

Observers”. It has existed for seven years, has 5 main group coordinators, several district

coordinators and more than 55,000 subscribers in social networks. Two coordinators of the group

are now heading the emerging department of urban studies at one of the leading higher education CEU eTD Collection and research institution in Russia, specializing in information technology, optical design, and

engineering. Members of the group, mostly managers, engineers, architects, work closely both with

1 The concept of the formation and development of the faculty of urban and regional Development (FGRR) HSE Retrieved from: https://www.hse.ru/data/2018/07/05/1153011499/Приложение%206.%20Концепция%20факультета%20горо д..%20регионального%20развития%20НИУ%20ВШЭ.pdf

2 city functionaries, on curriculum development, and forming the discourse on “urbanistica” as such.

The proposals and the activity of the “Beautiful Petersburg” include: pedestrianizing central city

central streets; urban projects of the renovation of public spaces in the city; control of the activity

of city authorities in the improvement of public services, citizen inspections in the city; working

on air pollution measurement system (dust) and sending requests to the authorities, engaging

citizens in this activity through social media.

In this study, I problematize the confrontation of civic and professional expertise and show

that behind this struggle there are political issues of the distribution of power between different

groups. I show that urban expertise is a hybrid process that combines the professional knowledge

and knowledge of citizens or local residents. On the local level, under the influence of urban

planning ideas transferred from other parts of the world and the fluid position of urban studies in

Russia, this hybridization allows citizens to be involved in urban decision-making and influence it.

My research question addresses how civic expertise on urban issues is constructed in St.

Petersburg. Or, more precisely, how urban issues come to be objects of expertise by civic groups.

The research has three tasks. First is the reconstruction of the network of elements included in the

expertise of urban problems. It is assumed that starting from one element in the system - an activist

group - it is possible to get access to the other actors involved in the process of creating public

expertise. My next task is to describe the political and economic context in which the activist group

exists and to discuss what role it plays in the creation of the new form of expertise. The third task

is the identification of the discourses, tactics, translation practices and the methods of persuasion

that the group uses for constructing expertise. Showing this can provide an overview of the

elements of expertise construction and contribute to the understanding of the role of expert CEU eTD Collection

discourses and practices in urban decision-making, as well as the influence of public actors on it.

For the purposes of the study, I’m going address the literature on the construction of expertise

(Eyal, Collins, Evans, Wynne, Epstein, Corburn), which discusses the role of activists and other

sub-altern groups in expertise construction. Secondly, I will use the literature on urban studies,

3 particularly, on urban planning and its rootedness in social processes and practices, its role in

changing political contexts (Friedman, Collier, Blok). The reason to combine these fields together

is due to the fact that studies of experts discuss the role of activists and citizens in knowledge and

expertise construction. The research in the field of urban studies can better explain the practices

of transferring urban ideas and politics and give an overview of them.

The structure of the research will be the following. The second chapter will start with the

analysis of Russian urban policy, its economic, educational levels, and urban planning ideas which

influenced it. In the third chapter, I will refer to the studies of expertise and the role of public and

activist groups in expertise construction, as well as three dimensions of urban expertise: its objects,

subjects and clients. The fourth chapter will address the analysis of the activist group in St.

Petersburg which constructs expertise of urban problems and the mechanisms of its construction.

The fifth chapter is devoted to the description of the network of urban expertise, focusing on

spaces of political struggle between citizens and the state.

1.1 Expertise as Network: Methodological Reflections

Networks provide an alternative route for exploration

which may soften the economic fragmentation and social polarization

which derive from the crude dictates of “marketized” territorial competition

(Graham, 1995: 518)

A specific type of methodological optic, a reflective gaze was crucial part of this research

CEU eTD Collection project for grasping the peculiarity and complexity of a case of construction of expertise under the

influence of global planning ideas in a local place – St. Petersburg. In recent times there are a lot

of debates concerning the development of urban theory, which has been influenced by Marxist

thought. Critical approach to Marxism was proposed by ANT-researchers Farias and Bender in the

book “Urban Assemblages: How Actor-Network Theory Changes Urban Research” (2010), as well

4 as other scientists following the idea of the flat ontology of objects in the city (McFarlane, Latour,

Smith). This new wave of studies which dealt with the agency of the objects promoted a discussion

among political economy theorists (Brenner et al. 2011) of the possibility of using the theory of

networks or, in other words, “assemblages” in order to grasp the whole complexity of the “urban”.

In the analysis, Brenner et al. (2011) reveal three types of interpretations of “assemblage” approach

which reveals the networks among the heteronomous elements: empirical, methodological and

ontological (Brenner et al. 2011: 231). Empirical refers to the assemblage “as a specific type of

research object that can be analyzed through a political–economic framework and/or

contextualized in relation to historically and geographically specific political–economic trends”.

(Brenner et al. 2011: 231). In the methodological perspective, the assemblage is “presented as a

methodological orientation through which to investigate previously neglected dimensions of

capitalist ” (Brenner et al. 2011: 231). Examples of methodological perspective are

ideas, broken infrastructures, flows of energy, microbes. Ontological “assemblage analysis displaces

the investigation of capitalist urban development and the core concerns of urban political economy

(e.g. the commodification of urban space, inequality and power relations, state intervention,

polarization, uneven spatial development).” (Brenner et al. 2011: 231). He argues that “empirical

and methodological applications of assemblage analysis have generated productive insights in

various strands of urban studies by building on political economy” (Brenner et al. 2011: 225).

In this paper, I refer to the development of expertise as a network of actors, concepts, devices,

institutional arrangements (Eyal, 2013), which come to matter in specific constellations of civic and

state actors, as well as devices and concepts which might define their discourses and practices.

Expertise, according to Eyal, includes those actors who claim to create and distribute it, as well as CEU eTD Collection

arrangements in which they are acting. Such a “networked” approach to expertise is beneficial in

three senses: it concentrates on observable traces of actors, such as their claims and practices of

knowledge-sharing and distribution. Secondly, it allows studying expertise as an ongoing process

which is shaped and reshaped by different actors and developing through time, eliminating the

5 oppositions between people/environment or culture/nature. The third argument is that “networks

provide an alternative route for exploration which may soften the economic fragmentation and

social polarization which derive from the crude dictates of “marketized” territorial competition”

(Graham, 1995: 518). Therefore, in this study, I will follow the process of expertise construction

and the mechanisms which are used to create a network in the field of urban studies in St.

Petersburg.

Following Brenner’s definition (Brenner et al. 2011), my approach is more methodological and

empirical in this study than ontological one. I’m tracing the development of civic urban expertise

in historical, political and economic contexts, as well as in the context of global development and

transfer of urban planning ideas in the world. It also allows to reflect on the position of Russia and

St. Petersburg, and critically engage with the theories from US and European studies, dominating

in urban research.

The study builds on the ethnographic methods of research. I started from one actor in a

network of urban expertise – civic group “Beautiful Petersburg”. I followed the events of the

group, took interviews (Appendix A), observed their activities, tracing the coalitions with other

actors, constituting the network of agents, dealing with urban issues (Appendix B). To get a full

picture of the activity of this group it was also necessary to analyze how other actors in the field

treated them. In this case interviews with other civic groups in St. Petersburg (Urban Projects,

Urban City Lab, Central District for Comfortable Urban Environment, Musora.bolshe.net),

independent researchers and politicians. Interviews with the representative of two district

administrations broadened this research. The participant observation of the community projects

allowed me to identify those moments that are not spoken about in the interview. For example, as CEU eTD Collection

part of the previous research, I participated in the preparation of survey materials, and this allowed

me to engage in interaction with the group members and understand how their work is constructed

from the inside, how their activity is organized, which views and interests are taken into account

and which are not. At the same time, I conducted an observation of the group's activities at its

6 lectures, meetings and in social networks. The documents contained in the media resources of the

group, as well as those related to urban studies in Russia were analyzed using discourse analysis.

Among the documents are educational programs of urban studies, the proposal of the renovation

of an urban public space which was redeveloped in 2016 - Bolshaya Morskaya Street provided by

the group (see Chapter 2.1). Discourse analysis allowed to trace how “facts” and conventions are

established through the process of argument and dispute” (Latour and Woolgar 1979, Gilbert and

Mulkay 1984, cited by F. Tonkiss, 1998: 246).

The purpose of such an approach is to trace expertise in the making, as suggested by

Cambrosio: “When expertise is (re)constructed, actors move from one level to another, crossing

the boundaries and it is necessary to follow them rather than focus only on structural limitations”

(Cambrosio, Alberto, Limoges, and Hoffman. 1992: 343). Cambrosio et al. also claim to follow the

process of making the network between techno-social elements, which constitute the temporarily

stabilized network of expertise: “focusing on the arrangements and conditions necessary for

problems to become objects of expert labor, is geared precisely to overcome this opposition

between what is real/objective and what is merely attributed/socially constructed” (Cambrosio,

Limoges, and Hoffman, 1992: 343).

CEU eTD Collection

7 2 The Transfer of Urban Ideas in Post-Soviet Space

The transition from Soviet urban management to the Russian system of urban planning has

not gone without bureaucratic and legal barriers. Even in contemporary Russia some legal aspects

of Soviet planning system still influence the practices of urban development (Golubchikov 2004),

as well as educational programs in this sphere. However, since 2010 there started new educational

programs in Urban Studies, which have been developed in opposition to the existing Soviet-style

practices of planning and managing the cities. These programs can be found in the Strelka

Institute2, which integrates its programs on the international level, Higher School of Urbanism, St.

Petersburg National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics and

several others3. In addition to this, since 2012-2013 in and in St. Petersburg, there have

been lectures by international experts, such as Gehl Architects4 from Copenhagen, who also

consulted the government authorities on how urban space should be developed.

In this chapter, I am going to trace the development of new urban ideas in Russia which

challenge the existing regulations in the sphere of urban planning. I am going to analyse them in

political, economic, educational as well as global contexts to understand how they are localized in

particular place using the theories of urban planning (Friedman 2002, 2005, Bocking 2006) and the

literature on the transfer of ideas in different contexts. In the first part, I will theoretically frame

the transfer of urban planning ideas and outline the mechanisms of transferring. Secondly, I will

refer to the political and economic context of Russia and St. Petersburg, on which this study

concentrates. Then, I will analyse the document of the Higher School of Urbanism as one of the

leading urban centres to show how Urban Studies is developing in Russia.

CEU eTD Collection John Friedman, an urban scholar, analyses planning as a social and institutional process, stating

that planning cultures differ according to the context and a country in which they are implemented.

2 Strelka Institute. Retrieved from URL: https://strelka.com 3 MA in urban studies in The Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences, The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, The Presidential Academy, RANEPA, Tomsk Polytechnic University 4 Unlocking Moscow Urban Treasures. Retrieved from URL: https://gehlpeople.com/cases/moscow-russia/

8 For example, Russia in the model of Friedman belongs to those countries where there is a transition

from central planning to a market economy. Transition model differs from others because of the

“lack of overarching institutions that make mature market economies function relatively smoothly,

no comprehensive legal system regulating markets” (Friedman, 2005).

At the same time, urban planning depends on those who have the political power to judge and

to choose which plan is to be implemented. The environmental historian Stephen Bocking claims

that there is a link between urban expertise and policy in the history of urban management and

planning. This is illustrated by the fact that various expert groups are often accountable to political

authorities or private owners (Sies and Silver, cited in Bocking, 2006: 54). This reminds us that

“cities do not just emerge from blueprints and tables of planners and engineers” (Bocking, 2006:

54). There is also a struggle between different groups about how urban space can be developed.

This idea represents the fact that in order to decide which project would be implemented there is

a need in a certain “ecology” of expertise which makes it more persuasive than other projects.

The ways in which urban planning is shaped by political discourses are discussed by critical

urban scholars. Particularly, scholars concentrate on the transition of political models, the

influence of neoliberalism on changing planning practices, as well as politics which can dominate

in shaping urban planning models. It is exemplified by post-colonial cities, which were redeveloped

according to western models (King, 1980; Home, 1990; 1997, Almandoz, 1999; Banerjee, 2005;

2009; Vidyarthi, 2010a; 2010b, Miraftab, 2009; Watson, 2009). In an article by Almandoz about the

transfer of urban ideas in Venezuelan urbanism it is stated that “one of the key issues of the

transformation of Latin America's modern city has to do with the urban ideas arriving from

Europe” (Almandoz 2007: 79). In addition to this, the planning activity was possible due to “new CEU eTD Collection

technical apparatus of urbanism, consolidated in most of the continent by the 1930s, when

innovations started to be exchanged at international events across Latin America” (Almandoz 2007:

80). These findings contribute to the idea that urban politics is shaped in a particular context and

9 there is a powerful role of discourses, as well as techniques of urban planning which can influence

the decision-making process.

Apart from the discussion of the transfer of ideas, an important topic in relation to the

transition of political models is the “idea that power may radiate out from a central point” (Allen,

Cochrane, 2010). In particular, it is proposed to analyze power not as hierarchical or horizontal

relations, but in terms of its “reach, not height” (Allen, Cochrane, 2010: 1071). Such an approach

allows for concentration on the assemblage of relations in which urban actors engage. Allen and

Cochrane show the importance of international consultants working in a specific : “the

expertise, skills and interests of a range of professionals, some operating at arms-length reach, have

the potential to modify or translate central goals, or broke alternative regional futures” (Allen,

Cochrane, 2010: 1080).

Blok, in his study, analyses transferring politics as a “socio-technical formats”, which through

the process of learning, shape particular visions of “good” practices of urban . He

points on “professional planning practices in large-scale world cities as privileged sites for

contemporary imaginings” (2012: 2327). The mechanisms for transferring policy which he defines

are “innovation, learning, and ‘best practice’ policy transfer among urban professionals”. He notes

that such practices also exclude alternative futures (Blok, 2012: 2327).

Analyzing Post-Soviet Russia, Stephen Collier (2011) shows how the mechanisms of

governmentality and biopolitics are inscribed in the Soviet projects of industrial and urban

development. He critically examines the concept of “neoliberalism” which can hardly grasp the

Russian realities in small cities. One recent article of his is about neoliberal expertise, where he

points at “neoliberals and critical scholars share a set of critical concerns”, such as “the distinction CEU eTD Collection

between facts and values, the displacement of democratic voice by technocratic rule” (Collier 2017:

41). In this case, the distinction between technocratic rules and democratic or civic voice can be

highlighted. The point of my study is to show the processes of changing the “technocratic” or

authoritative rules in urban planning and implementing new rules, which can be revealed.

10 In the following paragraphs, I will analyze the emerging planning culture in Russia which is

shaped under the influence of planning ideas coming from abroad. I will trace the development of

these ideas in the political, economic and educational contexts.

2.1 The Roots of Civic Expertise: Analysis of Architectural Projects on Bolshaya Mosrskaya Street

This part of the thesis will be devoted to a street in St. Petersburg which was under

consideration during the period of 2012 to 2017. The discussion of it was initiated by an activist

group Beautiful Petersburg, who proposed to make the street pedestrianized. Then it was

supported by state actors, such as City Planning Committee. In September 2016 there was a state

competition of architectural projects for Bolshaya Morskaya street in St. Petersburg.

This street crosses the central prospect of the city and leads to the main city square -

Dvorzovaya. I want to narrow the object to a specific section on the street – from

to the General Staff Building. The center of St. Petersburg is also protected by UNESCO and

Bolshaya Morskaya Street is a part of the protected territory, that’s why particular juridical

regulations have to be fulfilled there. The focus of the analysis will be on the architectural projects

which were made by independent architectural studios, state studios and civic groups in 2016.

The first project is made by a state-led architectural studio “Needles”. The team proposed to

turn part of Bolshaya Morskaya Street into the Hermitage's hall, utilizing buildings around Palace

Square, into an open museum. The fact that this project was made by a state bureau influenced the

functions associated with the street. It had been preserved and became a part of the Hermitage

Museum which was a partner of a project and was interested in expanding its presence in the urban CEU eTD Collection space. Space was not designed for different social groups. Architects used materials such as granite

to make this street similar to other streets in the centre of the city. Such materials are also used for

street benches, which does not allow to stay there for a long time.

11

Figure 1. Project by state-led bureau5 The second project is the conservative concept of Petersburg establishment – architects,

sculptors. They proposed to recreate the benches of the beginning of the 20th century, to draw a

bronze line along the street, and complement the landscape with bronze guardsmen – a reminder

of the Patriotic War of 1812-1814. In this project, the architects mobilized various historic

discourses. For example, they claimed that Pulkovo Meridian crosses the street, appealed to the

discourse of the Patriotic War, representing a particular event and making a space to function as a

CEU eTD Collection monument to this event. At the same time, there was no discussion about the citizen’s needs. The

street becomes a monument which is made for admiring, not for using.

5 How Will Bolshaya Morskaya Street Look Like? (2016, July,7) Retrieved from URL: https://www.fontanka.ru/2016/07/12/124/

12

Figure 2. Petersburg establishment project6 CEU eTD Collection

6 How Will Bolshaya Morskaya Street Look Like? (2016, July,7) Retrieved from URL: https://www.fontanka.ru/2016/07/12/124/

13

Figure 3. Project made by civic group “Beautiful Petersburg”7

The group “Beautiful Petersburg” initiated the discussion of this street in 2012. Before it was

a long-standing parking zone for automobiles, which the movement offered to make

pedestrianised. They made a functional project: represented the street in different weather

conditions, showed wooden benches which can be moved by citizens. While creating this project

an online-discussion was made for those who were interested to share their ideas. At the same time,

offline methods of citizens inclusion were not used. The group also did not put emphasis on

historical narrative. It represented new European design technics and focused on the functionality

CEU eTD Collection of the street for a pedestrian. Information about it was open for everyone who had internet access.

Symbolically the fact that the movement initiated a discussion about the street and participated in

7 Bolshaya Morskaya. Retrieved from URL: http://красивыйпетербург.рф/bm

14 its transformation was important for claiming themselves as “experts”, which led to a hierarchy

among civic groups.

There was also another civic project of this space. However, that group rejected to be involved

in the state competition. They made a sociological questionnaire and spoke to people and business

on the street, presenting an architectural model which could be transformed by pedestrians.

Figure 4. Project made by civic group “Urban Projects in Petersburg”8

Despite this competition and long public debate, a winner was not selected. The

representatives of the state explained it with the fact that this territory is protected by UNESCO

and radical ideas of restructuring could not be made there. Another point was that according to

the city planners, these projects “distort the historical appearance of the street”.

However, in 2017 the reconstruction was made during which the paving of the street was

changed. Afterwards, the street was reconstructed according to the first project. CEU eTD Collection

8 Bolshaya Morskaya Street. City Projects. Retreived from URL: http://spb.city4people.ru/dream.html

15

Figure 5. The reconstruction of the street in 2017 This case shows how different contexts for street development were interrelated in one local

site. On the one hand, this site of the city became politicized by an activist group which mobilized

political ideas of restructuring the space, as well as local legal regulations (laws) which allow them

to communicate with government authorities on urban issues. On the other hand, different groups,

state and non-state actors, presented their future concepts and showed the particular vision of the

street which is political itself, because it allows mobilizing other actors around it (Friedmann, 2002).

It also shows the way the global organization, such as UNESCO, monopolizes the right and

influence the debates around this territory. UNESCO also contributes to the commercialization of

particular urban territories. In addition to this, civic groups which contribute to the discussion of

this local site are also included in the educational system and disseminate the knowledge about

urban studies in particular institutional arrangements. CEU eTD Collection

The question which will interest me and my readers: how this activist group gain credibility to

propose to pedestrianize this street and become a member of state architectural competition? It

will be elaborated in the next chapters.

16 2.2 Transformation of Urban Policy in St. Petersburg

Interest in the development of the urban environment is still relevant on the level of

government programs. However, previously the notion of a decision of how the city should look

like was a task for city authorities, now this process is becoming more public. There are several

forms of involvement of citizens in solving urban issues in St. Petersburg: the project on

“Your Budget”, the formats of social movements, lobbying for urban

changes through deputies / public figures and political parties, conducting independent public

studies (through activist and initiative groups), forms of self-taxation of the population and local

businesses for the implementation of urban projects, crowdfunding, local referendums, the

possibility of registering a proposal on the official “Russian Social Initiative” portal9.

In 2003 a procedure for involving citizens in public discussion of urban problems was

implemented. In 2017 the Town Planning Code and certain legislative acts of the Russian

Federation changed, and for the first time since 2003, the procedure for public discussions was

modified. If earlier this format assumed personal interaction of residents with the representatives

of the authorities, nowadays the communication is mediated by online platforms10. At the same

time, a significant problem of public hearings is the fact that, according to a number of federal

laws, an amendment successfully made to the protocol is not binding on the relevant committees

and has only an advisory and informational.

To overview of the political orientations of the city I will address to the documents which play

significant role for bureaucratic regime. The analysis of the strategies of St.

Petersburg showed the process of constant changing of the programs of the city during the period

CEU eTD Collection of 2008 - 2015. “Within the framework of the Program of Social and Economic Development of

St. Petersburg for 2008-2011, work was carried out to change the state planning system”

9 Russian Government. Russian Social Initiative. Retrieved from URL: www.roi.ru 10 Minstroy.rf. (2018, July 19) The project of rating voting on the urban environment presented to the UN. Retrieved from URL: http://www.minstroyrf.ru/press/proekt-reytingovogo-golosovaniya-po-gorodskoy-srede-predstavili-v- oon/

17 (Batchayev, Zhikharevich, 2014). The main documents in this system were: “Concept of

development” and “General plan of the city”, they were adopted for a long-term period, which,

according to the authors, led to the fact that work on planning and reporting became an end in

itself and occupied all the main time of officials (Batchayev, Zhikharevich, 2014: 79). In 2011, the

set of government planning documents changed again in light of new trends. It included the

forecast of social and economic development, the program of social and economic development

of St. Petersburg, the main activities of the government of St. Petersburg, a list of indicators of

socio-economic development. It included tasks, indicators of the accomplishment of tasks,

standards of living. However, “…this plan was abandoned, the leadership of the city committee

responsible for economic development was replaced. The new head proposed to dramatically

change the format of the Concept, taking as a basis Western models, to make the document short,

focused on a small number of priorities, bright in form. The new concept was developed within 2

years ... and was approved by the Government of the city in March 2012. Among the priorities

were urban environment and transport, education, health improvement, culture.” (Batchaev,

Zhikharevich, 2014: 80). Thus, the issues of quality of the urban environment are brought to the

fore in the document of economic development in 2012, when “Beautiful Petersburg” appeared.

In 2013 another document was prepared to improve the state planning - the draft of the

“Strategy 2030” was developed, the discussion of which was conducted with the participation of

scientific, educational institutions, industry associations, business elites and public organizations of

St. Petersburg (Batchaev, Zhikharevich, 2014: 80).

According to the analysts Balashov and Sanina (2016), the “General Plan of St. Petersburg

ignores the opinion of the leaders of the public” (Balashov, Sanina, 2016: 204). They show that CEU eTD Collection

there is a crisis of confidence in the state institutions of elections and power that generates the

emergence of expert groups that come up with proposals for identifying real problems on behalf

of active citizens groups (Balashov, Sanina, 2016: 204).

18 The important role of expertise in the case of gentrification in the context of St. Petersburg is

also exemplified by the study which highlights the issue of “expert statements” in urban decision-

making of St. Ptetersburg (Bernt, 2016).

Consequently, the analysis of economic and political agenda shows the process of constant

changing of the development strategies in St. Petersburg and orientation on “Western”11 models

(King, 1980; Home, 1990; 1997, Almandoz, 1999; Banerjee, 2005; 2009; Vidyarthi, 2010a; 2010b,

Miraftab, 2009; Watson, 2009) on the level of the city development in 2012. These conditions give

rise to the formation of activist groups with urban agenda, who formulate their own opinions on

the city development.

At the same time, the “western” planning system in legal terms is fundamentally different from

the Russian one, which inherits the Soviet town-planning standards. Such borrowing can take place

without hindrance only in the event of a change in urban planning legislation. In the case of Russia,

this is gradually taking place in 2018, the government introduced new legislative acts: general plans

in large cities were abandoned in favour of master plans12, simplification of procedures for

amending land use and development rules13 which was accompanied by public debates.

2.3 New Educational Trajectories in Russia

The borrowing of planning models and the building of a new system of urban planning cannot

take place without educational programs in a new field of studies. New government tasks require

competences and specialists in urban planning. The market for this profession is just being formed.

For the contextualization of urban activities, its features and content, I will refer to the

program document on the formation of the faculty at the Graduate School of Urbanism, released CEU eTD Collection in June 2018 (“The concept of the formation and development of the department of urban and

11 Western here refers to the local way of naming planning practices coming from abroad 12 https://cniipminstroy.ru/press/news/ot-genplana-k-master-planu-interview-marata-chabdarova 13 https://asninfo.ru/news/84106-putin-poruchil-prorabotat-otkaz-ot-genplanov-v-krupnykh-gorodakh

19 regional development”14). This document proposes a program school for the development of

“urbanistica” in Russia, and opening of bachelor, master and postgraduate programs in this area to

adress existing problems and challenges.

Describing the urban development of Russia, representatives of the Higher School of

Urbanism note that in modern Russia urban planning orients on Soviet industry traditions rather

than on world trends. Soviet type of planning called “town planning”. According to the leadership

of the Higher School of Urbanism “the content of town planning activity as such, as well as its

name, is outdated, moreover, not only ideologically, but also in a pragmatic (marketing) way.

Modern urban planning is focused primarily on the quality of the environment, interdisciplinary

direction, coming into contact not only with but, above all, with the subject areas of

socio-humanitarian, engineering, information technology, geographical and environmental plan”.15

The main topics, discussed in the document are the following:

1.The transition from the direction of Soviet “Town Planning”, which is an offshoot of the

direction of “Architecture” and contribution to the development of educational programs in the

direction of “Urban Studies”;

2. Institutionalization of the profession in the direction of “Urban Studies”;

3. Development of a professional standard in this field. “The complex of these actions will

strengthen the position of the University in the field of training of urbanists and the formation of

the profession”;

4. Creating dictionaries and translation of articles/books on urban studies;

5. Approval of the research direction in urban studies in Russia and the profession of “urban

planning”, not “town planning” (gradostroitelstvo) as it was in Soviet times; CEU eTD Collection

14 The concept of the formation and development of the faculty of urban and regional Development (FGRR) HSE Retrieved from: https://www.hse.ru/data/2018/07/05/1153011499/Приложение%206.%20Концепция%20факультета%20горо д..%20регионального%20развития%20НИУ%20ВШЭ.pdf 15 Ibid, translation mine - SM

20 6. Entry into the Top-300 subject ratings (QS, ) in the subject area “Natural Sciences”

(priority direction - Geography);

7. Creation of an interdisciplinary center at the international level, “focused on solving the

whole range of issues of urban development and the management of cities and urbanized

territories”16.

These are some of the important topics raised in the document. The Higher School of

Urbanism seeks to institutionalize this sphere, to promote the development of the urban market

and to become an expert community in a new field and integrate in the global context.

In this chapter, I contributed to the idea of contextualization of global urban planning ideas

in Russia and in St. Petersburg. I pointed to the problem of transferring urban ideas connected

with existing state regulations, as well as educational programs changing its disciplines because they

do not correspond to the general logic of development of the global urban market. I analyzed

political and economic features of the changing bureaucratic system, documents related to urban

management and orientation of it on “western” models in the development of urban territories.

These processes also correspond with the discourse of touristification and St.Petersburg as a main

touristic site in Russia and the importance of its integration in the global context. Futher I will

elaborate more on the mechanisms of expertise construction.

CEU eTD Collection

16 The concept of the formation and development of the faculty of urban and regional Development (FGRR) HSE Retrieved from: https://www.hse.ru/data/2018/07/05/1153011499/Приложение%206.%20Концепция%20факультета%20горо д..%20регионального%20развития%20НИУ%20ВШЭ.pdf

21 3 Constructing Expertise of Urban Problems

There are several trends which define the complexity of urban planning expertise nowadays

(Innes, Booher 2018). The first one is the replacement of traditional linear methods relying on

formal expertise by nonlinear socially constructed processes, combining expert and public

knowledge. (Innes, Booher 2018: 7). Second is the rising importance of lay or local knowledge for

urban planning in opposition to scientifically grounded arguments (Corburn 2003). This trend also

corresponds with the era of post-truth and questions the way scientific arguments are produced

and the misunderstanding of scientists from different disciplines and the political nature of science

itself. There are limitations of science which are recognized by the public and decision-makers

(Innes, Booher 2018: 7). The third trend is that “new forms of reasoning gain scholarly recognition”

(Innes, Booher 2018: 7).

Most of the decisions which are made about the environment have no particular scientific

answer but involve multiple answers situated in contexts. Such questions include not only scientific

but also political and moral judgments. For example, the issue of climate change which is claimed

by scientists, questioned by political leaders of conservative parties, as discussed by McCright and

Dunlap (2010). At the same time, global problems can be supported by activist and environmental

groups and promote public discussion together with scientists and professionals.

One British sociologist, who started a debate about risk and uncertainty in environmental

decision-making is Brian Wynne. In his studies, he shows ways of the creation of the expertise and

its value for authorities, the cultural rootedness of different forms of knowledge and the role of

democratization processes which are necessary for science. Wynne (1996) notes in his work that

CEU eTD Collection Beck’s thesis (1992), which was developed by Giddens, is criticized for its realistic approach to the

understanding of risk (1996:44). His criticism is that Beck and Giddens did not include in their

thinking the democratization of everyday life. In the concept of sub-politics, they focus on experts

but do not explore grassroot forms of politics that can occur outside institutions (1996: 44). While

in their work on reflective processes, Beck and Giddens (1994) began to recognize the importance

22 of non-expert additions and responses to expert systems. Nevertheless, Beck regards the expert

publics as prior to the public, without problematizing the categories of “experts” and “expert

knowledge” (Wynne, 1996). Beck and Giddens reproduce a realistic concept of scientific

knowledge that unilaterally considers internal dynamics in risk communities (Wynne 1996).

Thus, Wynne points to the existing problem of the category of “expert” and takes a

constructivist approach, which assumes that knowledge, including expert knowledge, is

constructed as a result of discussions, is a social process (1996: 61). He also emphasizes that the

discourse in previous research is built from a top-down perspective and does not take into account

other dimensions in which politics can develop and which can affect it - grassroots groups and

local residents, who can also take part in expertise construction. According to Wynne, it is necessary

to take into account the cultural or hermeneutical nature of scientific knowledge as such, as well as

the role of social factors in it (1996: 61). A constructivist perspective on scientific knowledge and

expertise problematizes it through the concept of trust and implicit knowledge (1996: 61). In these

works, attention is paid to the forms of knowledge that are alternative to instrumental expertise.

Several ways of constructing reasoning for public problems are discussed in the field (Gusfield

1981). Concentrating on the problem of drink-driving in American society, Gusfield analyses the

way scientific, moral and legal discourses are interrelated in order to construct a public problem.

Science is presented as a form of art with its own style, modes of persuasion, fictional

components showing how the factual reality is constructed in scientific research. Science, scientific

pronouncements, technical programs, and technologies support the authority of science. Science

also provides rhetoric means to ask and to achieve affirmation. It contributes to the creation of the

CEU eTD Collection world of facts, in which particular audiences believe (Gusfield 1981: 76).

Another symbolic system which constructs problems is law. Gusfield presents law as a public

culture with its own abstract rules which stabilize social behavior in a specific context: “in law, the

rationalization of judgment has become a convention”(Gusfield 1981:142). Law is analyzed in his

book as a cultural performance, an embodiment of meanings and definitions. Gusfield points at

23 the cultural and utilitarian dimension of law on the one hand, and courtroom levels of law on the

other. The public reality of law is constituted by facts, but they have different forms. On the one

hand, “they are shared by many people who have no or very little, personal knowledge of individual

cases making up the aggregated facts” (Gusfield 1981). On the other hand, facts compose public

reality in being an aggregated fact, rather than the events involving particular people. They are not

about anyone but about society…products of collective entity” (Durkheim, cited by Gusfield,

1981). Aggregated facts are connected with statistical procedures which are made for government

purposes, for example, presenting the whole number of car crashes in a particular region.

Aggregated data in the form of numbers and tables stabilizes facts and leads to political decisions

made on the basis of them, as well as laws which regulate social behavior. This leads to the

emergence of “created knowledge - knowledge which has required the application of fictional

technics, measures” (Gusfield 1981: 66).

John Law (2004) proposes the term “ontological politics” in order to show the way reality is

constructed by different actors and how responsibility is distributed among them. In his example

about drink-driving problem, there are, on the one hand, medicals or professionals who are

responsible for the body of a patient. On the other hand, there are social and cultural norms which

shape behaviour. Two realities of the illness are those promoted by scientists and the second one

is the cultural milieu, or public and how it relates to this problem (Law 2004: 76). Ontological

politics refers to the way in which reality of the problem is highlighted in public discourse,

redefinition of organizational and professional relations, as well as the distinction between social

and professional. In this sense, urban problems are constructed, on the one hand, by professional

practices, like measurements, the argumentation of their importance, special equipment for that CEU eTD Collection

and analytical concepts about the way city should develop. On the other hand, there is a public,

who may be concerned with particular places in the city and have its own visions of it. This “public”

may also use persuasive technics in order to show the relevance of their vision, which will be

discussed in the next part.

24 3.1 Role of Activist Groups in Constructing Expertise

One approach to expertise and the role of activist group in it which will be used for explanation

in my study was made by sociologist Gil Eyal (Eyal 2013). He proposes to move from analyzing

the content of expertise (as it was made by Collins and Evans, 200417) to the questions about the

conditions or mechanisms which are necessary for its emergence: institutional, spatial, and material.

According to Eyal, expertise is a network that brings together actors, devices, concepts, and

institutional and spatial arrangements (Eyal 2013). He also makes a distinction between the research

of “experts” and “expertise”, because these two topics require different research strategies. Arguing

this thesis, Eyal notes that expertise is a strong network, and the agent as an expert depends on the

entire network: tools, assistants, a space, documents, institutional and spatial arrangements.

Medicine, for instance, as expertise is more difficult to refuse in case of health problems. While a

single doctor is not always able to do the job without special tools, assistants, and patient data.

Thus, this research will consider the creation of expertise in urban studies as a complex network

17 In their study (2002), Collins and Evans offer a description of three waves of expertise. Scientists of the first wave do not question the notion of an expert and consider it as opposed to an ordinary person. The expert acts as an agent of power and objectivity, while the political system uses his / her power and status to conduct expertise. The second wave is characterized by the processes of democratization of expertise. This approach regards knowledge and expertise solely as a social reality, and the reliability of expertise is constructed by people. A third wave is a realistic approach to understanding the expertise, which is achieved through membership in the group of experts. The approach considers expert knowledge as a special position of expert groups that people can acquire if they become members of these groups. But it is important to note that socialization in such a group takes time and effort. The study of Collins and Evans were criticized for reductionism in their views on the role of scientists who, according to them, make technical work and are used as an obligatory passage point in political domains (Wynne, 2003), their understanding of the core group who can make decisions based on their experience, knowledge and access to expertise- construction (Jasanoff, 1998). In addition to this, the approach of Collins and Evans is suitable only for those countries where the public can influence CEU eTD Collection the political process, but societies with an authoritarian or totalitarian power structure have limited opportunities for this. Actually, the authors do not pay attention to the political processes that are behind the development of expert knowledge. By focusing on the technical elements of building expertise, it seems that the authors are missing an important component behind the expertise - the political component. If expertise is based on knowledge based on implicit assumptions (tacit knowledge), then experts have special access to information, and this inequality in access indicates a political characteristic of the expertise. Consequently, the Collins and Evans study, as well as Epstein's analysis of the interaction of activists with professionals, is suitable for analyzing intergroup technical expertise, analyzing participants' previous experience and peer review, while material, temporal, spatial and other contextual features are described in other approaches.

25 that includes actors, analytical concepts, ideas, devices, research tools, and programs of urban

development.

Eyal builds his approach of studying expertise as an addition to the sociology of professions

which is focused on how certain groups achieve legitimacy in their field of activity. In Andrew

Abbott's book “The System of Professions: Essays on the Division of Expert Labor” (1988), a

long history of the struggle for the legitimacy of American medicine is analyzed.18 The criticism of

this study (Eyal 2013) is that Abbott did not attach much attention to the tasks and problems that

faced several groups at the stage of the formation of a new professional field, although Abbott

initially set these goals. Abbott examined only those actors who already had the resources and could

exercise control without asking questions about the arrangements which were necessary for the

task to be accomplished and about the mechanisms by which the goal could be achieved. (Eyal

2013: 864).

Eyal also identifies several significant differences between the sociology of professions and

the sociology of expertise (2015). The first argument of Eyal is that the term “expertise” offers a

broader field for analysis: "What Abbott calls “the struggle of jurisdictions” occurs not only

between the represented professions, but between different groups that can offer something for

expertise both through abstract knowledge (academic researchers), and through control techniques

or through experience. Moreover, ordinary people play an increasing role in these debates (Epstein

1995, 1996, Wynne 1996, cited by Eyal 2015: 39). In his own research, Eyal explained the rise of

the autism epidemic and concluded that it was due to the deinstitutionalization of mental

retardation and creation of a new institutional matrix of community therapy, special education and CEU eTD Collection

18 Its development took place in two stages. “At the first stage, before the Revolution, several first schools were formed, state laws regulating licensing, and local and state communities appeared. Then in the period of Jackson's democracy competition developed between different directions of medical knowledge. Homeopaths were the main opponents of “regular medicine” and there were significant differences between them about who should be treated. Each side declared legitimacy of science, supported the debate on the safety and criticized its opponents in public debates and publications" (Abbott, 1988: 20).

26 early intervention programs in which autism could be identified, differentiated and multiplied

(2013).

In the article “What is security expertise” (Eyal, Pok 2015) there is an example of the military

intelligence expertise as a complex system which brings together many professions, institutional

mechanisms and devices, as well as people whose experience lies primarily in their practical skills,

and not in professional training. (Eyal 2015: 38). Thus, military intelligence is not the jurisdiction

of one profession, but a complex form of expertise that unites, for example, Arabists, computer

specialists, operational researchers, technical specialists, officers, research specialists, political

scientists, and economists. (Eyal 2015: 39). Eyal and Pok note that military intelligence is not a

separate academic or military form of expertise, but it is a hybrid form. In addition to academics

and the military, ordinary people can also influence how security expertise is shaped (Eyal 2015:

39).

Insufficient regulation, weak institutionalization, hybridity, and ambiguity define the object of

expertise as such, sui generis. (Eyal, Pok 2013: 44). In other words, expertise consists of diverse

elements covering several fields. They extend between academia, market, and government. Actors

transit from one arena to another. To understand this argument of Eyal, it is necessary to refer to

his article “Spaces between Fields”, in which he distinguishes between the concept of field and, in

particular, “spaces between fields” which are mentioned in Bourdieu’s theory, but, according to

Eyal, they’re not paid much attention to (2010). The space between the fields can include various

practices and forms for handling the "unknown". Quoting Wynne (Wynne 1992), Eyal identifies

four types of unknowns in the spaces between the fields: risk, uncertainty, ignoring, indeterminacy. CEU eTD Collection Eyal and Pok argue that the difference between the sociology of professions and sociology of

expertise lies in the way how scientists interpret the concept of power and the mechanisms through

which it is constructed. So, sociologists of profession pay attention to the abstract experience that

professionals have, they describe it in terms of a monopoly on professional judgment and the

27 autonomy of professions. Sociologists of expertise pay attention to the hybridity of expertise and

the practice of constructing and disseminating knowledge that forms the networks of expertise.

The goal of experts is to spread knowledge and create a network. Accordingly, the object of their

study is a network of expertise. Apart from objects, Eyal and Pok identified subjects and clients as

part of an expertise network (2015). Subjects are responsible for articulation of the statements as

experts. Clients are those on whom the network of expertise is directed: “the actions of the clients

are not outside the network, but inside it, providing it with extension, which once again is founded

upon the weakness of the experts themselves” (Eyal, Pok 2013: 52).

Similarly, in my case, the network of urban expertise will include related political and economic

documents, regulating the sphere, Soviet professionals in urban planning, new professionals from

multiple disciplines related to urban studies, international planning concepts, devices for

measurement, media, bloggers, activist groups, citizens, etc. In order to understand objects of

expertise, it is necessary to reveal which elements are necessary for constructing urban problems.

One of the metaphors which could describe the actions of activists is “diagnosis”. By posing the

problem, its objectification, the activists manage to build a further network, generating a reaction

to this problem. Objectification of problems involves the creation of practices for solving them,

disseminating and collecting information. For example, activists collect data about places in the

city which require the reaction of city authorities in the form of a map on their website that can be

used by officials and other groups. Another example is the public appeals of activists to the acting

governor and an indication of what problems exist in the city that need attention. The third example

is providing research of urban spaces: counting pedestrians and cars, observing the urban life,

CEU eTD Collection presenting an expert proposal based on the collected data and sending it to the city authorities,

taking into account the opinions of citizens as it was in the case of Bolshaya Morskaya Street.

Civic expertise is becoming an active element that forms knowledge about urban processes.

Documents and statements of the group become performative (Callon 2007) and generate a

28 reaction to them. By performative I mean that they assemble the network by implementing the

relevant concepts from urban studies theory in practical urban projects.

In order to solve a problem or make it significant, the following conditions are necessary,

which can be distinguished from interviews and observations of the group's activities:

1) The interest of the authorities. Interest can be as existing, that is, the city government plans

to develop a project to change the territory, and then the knowledge of the civic group can be

included in the discussion of this project. On the other hand, the interest can be constructed by

the group itself by discussing problems in the media, collective citizen’s actions, promoting a

discussion.

2) The environment in which the opinions of the group members can be heard. The

environment includes websites providing a platform for citizens to complain about the problems

to which the government should respond according to the legislation. These are the concepts for

the development of territories in which group members can be involved both from “citizens” and

from “expert” side since they work in a laboratory for the study of transport systems. There are

also government programs to include citizens in discussions - such as public hearings or programs

like “Your Budget”, which were discussed in the second chapter.

3) Expert document. An expert document or a project proposed by the community is created

with the participation of professionals (architects, engineers involved in the community) and sent

to the city authorities and can later create new networks of interaction regarding urban issues.

4) A platform for disseminating knowledge – social networks, as well as offline formats such

as public lectures of the participants of the group. CEU eTD Collection

Objectification of problems is impossible without the creation of subjects responsible for their

articulation in a public space. (Eyal, Pok 2013: 49). It also includes the institutional mechanisms in

which expertise is constructed and which allow it to exist.

29 In one of the observations, I was at the discussion of the recently vacated building on

Telezhnaya Street in St. Petersburg, which had been deemed a risk to public safety according to

state-led expertise. The public discussion was initiated by an activist group together with citizens

who were removed from the houses in a format of round-table together with representatives of

the state. Citizens argued that the independent expertise of these houses and publicly available data

on it is necessary. “It is impossible that the results of state-led expertise are taken into account

without any public discussion” – they claimed, “It is impossible that state-led firm is against

showing the survey materials to the public”. Thus, during the meeting, it was argued that it was

necessary not only to open the data of surveys conducted by government partners but also to

discuss these issues with activists and the public.

Civic group’s ability to act as an experts is due to several reasons a) there is legislation that

requires city authorities to take into account the opinions of residents when arranging urban areas

b) representatives of the group have educational credentials in the field of urban studies that the

city authorities do not have d) informal support of the group by some city oppositional deputies e)

support of citizens who discuss problems in social networks and polls created by the group g)

group interaction with some media resources to disseminate information to a larger audience of

citizens h) openness of the group and disseminating its ideas on civic forums, at the university, in

social networks, in the media. I) providing relevant documents which are important for

bureaucratic regimes.

The third level described by the Eyal and Pok is the level of clients, or those to whom the

expertise is directed: “the actions of the clients are not outside the network, but inside it, providing

CEU eTD Collection it with extension, which once again is founded upon the weakness of the experts themselves” (Eyal,

Pok, 2013: 52). The clients of civic urban expertise are city authorities, which can both accept the

expertise of civic groups and help in its distribution, as well as prevent it. At the same time,

representatives of the authorities can submit citizen’s proposals as the representation of their own

will. This also contributes to the limits of the spreading of expertise. In order to eliminate this,

30 experts could have practices and mechanisms for persuading and disseminating information:

“Power then consists in the exactly the opposite of monopoly and autonomy, namely “generosity”

and “co-production” (Rose 1992; Rabeharisoa and Callon 2004, cited by Eyal, Pok 2013:54). That’s

why “A network of expertise, as distinct from the experts, becomes more powerful and influential

by virtue of its capacity to craft and package its concepts, its discourse, its modes of seeing, doing

and judging, so they can be grafted onto what others are doing and thus link them to the network

and elicit their cooperation” (Eyal, Pok, 2013:54). Thus, clients are part of the network, they expand

it. One of the clients of civic experts is a recognized professional community or international

experts. As I mentioned earlier, there is no established professional community for new transferred

urban practices, that could assess the quality of new types of urban planning. Both the professional

community and citizens can use the information or data collected by the group.

The second client to whom the group’s activities are directed is the city authorities. The group

uses the slogan “we are the power here” or “we are the clients, and the city authorities are the

implementers” in order to reconfigure the power relations between citizens and representatives of

the committees. In this case, citizens become those responsible for transmitting information about

the problem to the city authorities, while city authorities are required to respond to such a request

through legal means.

The group seeks to limit the city’s monopoly and this leads to the emergence of new, hybrid

forms of power in terms of participation and co-production. Some of the group members work in

city committees and it helps to change some urban-planning mechanisms, implementing new ideas.

While the problem is that city committee usually work on one particular urban issue and such

CEU eTD Collection cooperation may change the outcomes, but not the roots of urban problems inscribed in the urban

planning system itself. For changing the system, the more complex mechanisms and practices on

several levels are necessary.

31 4 From Activists to Experts? Mechanisms for Constructing Expertise: Discourses, Concepts, Actors, Devices

While the previous chapter was devoted to the specification of objects, subjects and clients of

civic urban expertise, in this chapter, I will further describe the mechanisms of the expertise

construction, which were revealed in the interviews with members of the group, and from

ethnographic observation of their activity.

Facts and reality

When I came to a civic inspection of one of the central streets in St. Petersburg – Sadovaya

Street, a person with whom I firstly exchanged several words, was a middle-aged woman. She told

me about the problem of illegal trade in her district. Despite knowing the places of such trade, she

was not successful in reporting these issues to the authorities through the portal for complaints.

The problem she pointed to is that she sent the complaint and took a photo of illegal traders, but

the traders learned about it and moved several meters further. After the authorities came to that

place which she pointed to in the documents there was no trade. However, there is another, more

successful story of an activist, who solves problems in his district. Using government portal, he

sent the requests to different moderators of the website. According to him, he managed to solve

all the problems which he had sent to the portal, changing the existing categories and proposing

the new ones: “In general, it seemed to me that I was going to write some things, but they had

already been solved”. However, he did it for 2 years. He said also that municipalities knew the

district where he lived and send requests – that’s why they controlled the problems there in order

to eliminate getting them through the website and fulfilling the bureaucratic procedures. These

examples illustrate the division between facts of urban problems, which are constructed by CEU eTD Collection different agents, and reality, which exists itself (Collier 2011). Particularly, there are different way

of constructing problems by different agents (Gusfield, Law), such as state and citizens. State actors

will point to the norms, legislation, federal programs, knowledge of professionals and documents.

Documents for them much more important than the real problems of the ground. While citizens

32 construction of problems will include local knowledge which they acquire through everyday use of

a city space, media, collective actions, knowledge of relevant experts in the field. State-led expertise

is more technically oriented, citizen’s – is a more cultural one. The second example explicitly

showed the hybrid process when citizen’s technical knowledge of the state procedures helped to

solve problems in his district. He also describes his activity as “helping the state authorities to see

the problems”.

Professionalism vs expertise

One of my informants, the founder of the movement, originally studied engineering at

university. He decided to leave the field and entered the MA program in “urbanistica” which was

launched in 2015 in St. Petersburg. He describes his experience in this way: “As I formed “Beautiful

Petersburg”, I realized that I appreciate many things from the point of view of a layman and I lack

“professionalism”. In an interview, he pointed out that activism helped him to get a professional

position afterward because there were no specialists who have practical experience in solving urban

problems as he did. Now he works as an “expert” (as it is put in his profile page) in the lab on

transport planning and continues an activist career. The division among professionals and activists

is important, for example, to construct authoritative discourse, which can be used by citizens to

promote proposals on changing urban territories. At the same time, citizens could be professionals

in their own fields and provide expert opinions in these areas.

The presence of an interdisciplinary team consisting of environmentalists, urbanists,

programmers, the involvement of outside experts (for example, architects), as well as the

knowledge of local citizens, allows considering urban issues from the new perspectives. Combining

CEU eTD Collection these perspectives – creates the unique expertise of this community, as well as other ones similar

to it.

Local expertise

One argument in favour of the fact that solving urban problems requires special knowledge

or local expertise (Corburn), which the ordinary citizen does not always have, is associated with the

33 status of territories in the city, as quoted in an interview: “we support collective actions on cleaning

territories… there are territories in the city which are not controlled by the municipalities, if you

not clean it - no one will receive money for it… There will be a dirty place (klopovnik) there”.

Thus, the members of the group have information on the territory management which they learned

in the process of their activity.

Overall, on the one hand, the urban problem-solving process is rather closed to the citizens,

because they usually don’t get an education on solving urban problems and communicating with

government authorities. In order to do that they need to have a sufficient level of training, time

and motivation to solve urban issues. While through the civic group which provides education and

disseminates knowledge about it, it becomes possible to get the necessary expertise faster.

Rationalization

Another mechanism which can be revealed from the interviews is the discourse of

rationalization. In the activity of the group, it is noted that money which government authorities

spent on urban problems is not always spent “in a right way”, while citizens pay taxes for their

work and they see “real” urban problems and solve them. Another example of rationalization can

be the concentration on urban problems and the search for inconsistencies in existing regulations

and in reality. It happened in the case of measuring the dust in different parts of the city. The

group was engaged in verifying the norms of dust described in the instructions of the committees

and measuring it on the ground. Thus, in the instructions, the norms of dust were 30 g per 1 meter,

and after measuring it at one of the sites, the activists revealed 1 kg of dust per 1 meter, which was

much higher than the norm. The group also held a workshop on the topic of dust and noted that

the cause of it is related to sand, which is used for snow removal, as opposed to EU countries CEU eTD Collection

where the granite chips are used (From observations on community meeting). The rationalization

discourse is also associated with ideas about the normalization of urban life - what is considered

an order and disorder, what citizens can accept and what they do not. Rationalization discourse fits

into the way how the bureaucratic machine works in the sphere of urban planning. For example,

34 usually among several projects which are made for one city space, the priority is given to the

cheapest one. That’s why civic expertise shows innovative decisions which may lower the cost of

the project and at the same time attract citizens.

Another mechanism connected with rationalization is presenting evidence on existing

problems. This is associated with the thesis on the management of urban problems. For example,

if a pedestrian crossing is necessary, the group members calculate how many people cross the road

in a particular wrong place, which is often the reason for the crossing to be there. The important

note here is that the group collect this evidence themselves and make the procedure public and

open to citizens who follow their activity. This practice opposes the state-led data collection and

presentation which usually happens behind closed doors.

Innovations and International Experience

Urbanistica is presented in the interview with one of the leaders of the group as a space for

innovation in comparison with automatization systems and engineering in which one of the

informants was involved previously. It can be explained by the amounts of money spent on urban

issues and its support from the government. In the interview, a participant of the movement

reflects on why he chose “urbanistica” and did not continue his postgraduate study in engineering

sciences:

I realized there that our beautiful country was so far behind in that direction, …that it is extremely difficult to do something innovative and doing just routine work is uninteresting. And I kind of made a choice and went to study urban studies. And besides the training itself, I was in a number of workshops, including international ones.

In the course of justifying his decision, the informant compares the context of Russia with

other countries, such as , Sweden, Denmark: “The Chinese, they do not have such a swamp CEU eTD Collection as we have here (in St. Petersburg) spending 5 years to make a decision, to think, to coordinate”.

Thus, informant critically describes the sphere of urban decision-making in St. Petersburg.

The international discourse around urban studies is also exemplified by the fact that the

Russian government invites international experts for developing Russian cities, they provide

35 research, consult the government about trends in urban planning. This happened, for example, in

the case of Gehl Architects studio, which consulted the government authorities of Moscow and

St. Petersburg.

Ability to make problems “visible” in public space

Bloggers – are the main drivers of the new vision of “urbanistica” in Russia. The most famous

ones, to whom each person interested in “urbanistica” addresses are Varlamov19 and Katz20. They

are entrepreneurs popularising the ideas of urban development in different countries. Katz also

worked as a municipal deputy in Moscow. Members of Beautiful Petersburg read their blogs as do

many other citizens in the country. Varlamov and Katz organised a fund “City Projects” and made

a public campaign, by showing examples of development urban territories, they also used Gehl

techniques in their surveys: observation of city life, participatory surveys21. Beautiful Petersburg

used some of those tools as well: online and street surveys, as well as public discussions of each

issue in social networks. In addition to this, they provided collective actions on the ground to

protect urban parks or buildings.

Interacting with leading media platforms in the city and actively presenting the group’s

activities in social networks allows the activists of the group to make urban problems visible and

it helps to ensure that city committees are responsible for them. The discussion of the problems

in the media is also connected with the mechanism of their politicization in a public space, followed

by public discussions. Representatives of the group have political ambitions and now one of them

is preparing to be a governor of the city.

Education in the field of “urbanistica”, public and student lectures allows the group to reach

new groups of citizens who learn about their activities and may potentially support it. In addition, CEU eTD Collection

the group members usually coordinate offline collective actions, like street inspections. In the

19 Varlamov blog. Retrieved from URL: https://varlamov.ru 20 Katz blog. Retrieved from URL: https://maxkatz.livejournal.com 21 Gehl Institute. Public Life Tools. Retrieved from URL: https://gehlinstitute.org/tools/

36 situation when citizens do not have the right to picket, the group organised a new form of collective

action which is not stated in the law: hugging the house which citizens want to protect.

Showing an example

One of the mechanisms of disseminating knowledge was showing urban problems, making

them public and teaching citizens to solve them, using civic, state instruments or combination of

them:

Our task,..is to give people who do not know at all what they can do and our task to teach these people. The very first thing to teach is to see problems. Not everyone understands that what they see when leaving the house from the street is the norm. Sometimes… it seems that it is normal…for this we show some good examples improvement both in our city and in European cities - it is very important to give people simple instructions, show your example, tell how to act in one or another case.22

This urban agency is indicative of a new image of the city, a new norm of life and the new role

of responsible citizens in it. Self-advocates pointed on their good examples of communication with

city authorities and improvement of the city. In addition, “best practices” (Blok 2012) of urban

planning are provided by bloggers, some of the representatives of city administration may read

these blogs, social media and educate.

Devices

Members of the civic group created a platform for gathering citizens’ complaints on urban

issues and sending requests to the authorities using special templates which are inscribed in this

platform. For now, there are more than 35000 complaints of citizens with photos and a map where

they could be found. Creation of this platform was possible due to a new law that allowed for

complaints to be submitted electronically. The work of a platform is structured in the following

CEU eTD Collection way: it is necessary to take a photo of a city problem, choose a problem out of existing ones and

then, check, whether the city authority deals with the request of the citizen. It is necessary to state

that the platform was created by activists in 2012, then, in 2013 they made a mobile app, which

22 From observations on the meeting for district coordinators

37 allowed citizens to send complaints using their mobile phones and cameras. However, in 2014 the

city administration created its own platform “Our Petersburg” for gathering citizens complains and

in 2015 administration refused to deal with activists’ app and platform. “Our Petersburg”

functionality resembles the site of “Beautiful Petersburg”, but not in legal terms, legally the letters

which are sent through the site are not considered as “appeals”, but as “messages”. This makes city

committees not fully responsible for solving problems. However, citizens are allowed to send them.

The platform of activists was structured in a way that citizens write their complaints, then they

may choose the topic of the complaint out of several offered. If there are no suitable topics, they

can write to the representatives of the group, who can add a new topic to the list and create a

template to send to the authorities. On the website of the movement, they highlight successful

cases of problems, which were solved. It is made to show the importance of their platform for the

citizens. In addition, their activity involves citizens inspections – when the representatives of a

group, as well as citizens who are interested in their activity, could go and take photos of city

problems and then send the requests to the authorities together, using the app. This also includes

the process of sharing knowledge and technology.

CEU eTD Collection

38

Figure 6. Civic platform for gathering citizens' complaints23

City problems become objectified and citizens learn to see them and to cope with them. This

intentionally includes the figure of a teacher or an expert who may educate the citizens. In addition,

by creating this mechanism of collecting complaints the representatives of the movement

contribute to the idea of open access to city data. As they work in a laboratory and deal with

computer science there would be a possibility for them to become new experts in the field of

analysis of city data.

Another thinking which is inscribed in the civic platform is the so-called tactical model: the

more requests will be sent - the better the city will be. It is not a strategic way of thinking, which

does not take into account the whole complex process of city development and the mechanisms

of dealing with city problems.

At the same time, this platform was made as an answer for authorities who spend taxes which CEU eTD Collection citizens pay and does not always take into account for the problems which citizens have. A pothole

23 The picture represents the numbers of solved problems. There are 132324 requests send, more than 35000 problems solved, 54000 participants of the movement. There is an example of a complaint and a photo of a repaired fence. In addition, there are 3 steps to change the world in 20 seconds: 1)making a photo; 2) sending a request 3) control of the activity of city authorities

39 in the ground does matter for a citizen because it is materialized and has particular consequences

for a person if he/she falls down it. The fact that this problem is materialized and not abstract

(such as decision-making procedure) allows mobilization of citizens for discussion of a common

good. In this case urban objects which need to be repaired become politicized and may create

assemblages of politicians, business, research technics, forms of knowledge around them.

Materials

Analyzing data from my observations I also revealed that the material actors, such as granite,

wood materials, the shape of the benches and choice of the playground are also politicised in the

process of urban decision-making. It happens due to bureaucratic procedures in which such

materials are embedded. Changing a material (from granite to wood), or the shape of the

playground which is bought by the state institutions, leads to inconsistencies in the decision-making

scheme and requires new practices and knowledge of the legislation in order to change the previous

ones. This knowledge also requires a different type of professionals in the city administration.

While now their work is structured in a way to maintain the existing rules of the planning legislative

system, not creating the new ones. For now, a unique possibility for citizens to propose new

materials or shape of their benches or playgrounds (apart of buying them themselves) exists in the

project “Your Budget”, which allows citizens to share their ideas and find up solutions together

with several city committees, including the finance committee.

In this chapter, I referred to mechanisms of the social construction of civic planning expertise

which were revealed in my interviews with group members and observation of their activity. The

above-mentioned mechanisms allow the group to construct the problem of the “urban”,

disseminate knowledge about it providing lectures and showing the examples of inconsistencies in CEU eTD Collection

law and on the ground and articulate it.

40 5 Networks of Expertise and Spaces of Political Struggle

In order to understand what constitutes the network of civic expertise, it is necessary to

present it in comparison with the expertise it confronts, namely, the planning expertise of the city

authorities. I argue that in St. Petersburg and in Russia there is a process of hybridization of state-

led and civic urban expertise.

The first difference which can be outlined is that state-led expertise usually happens behind

closed doors. The central nodes of such expertise are power authorities who could decide, whether

to implement the new urban project or, on the other hand, to reject it. The surveys made by activist

groups are usually directed not only to the authorities but to the broader public, including ordinary

citizens who read their social networks or media. These reports show each step of the study and

legitimize the decisions of the public through openly collected data. Activists usually have their

own professions and considered experts in relative fields: programming, engineering, management,

and others. It won’t be fair to say that they struggle for the new position in the planning system,

but they are coping with those urban problems which bother them and then exchange their

experiences. The relations between activists, professionals, citizens, and authorities become

hybridized due to weak institutionalization of the “urbanistica”, for now, it is still in the transition,

legal procedures of urban decision-making are changing. Weak institutionalization also contributes

to the creation of an alternative ecology of urban expertise. The new network of expertise started

to include lay knowledge or knowledge of citizens about urban problems of their districts. With

the help of technological devices and legislation, it is possible to transform this knowledge in the

source of solving the problems by government officials. As Eyal put it, “all these tactics meant that

CEU eTD Collection the autonomy and monopoly of the experts were minimized while maximizing the generosity and

co-production that bound together with the network of expertise” (Eyal, 2013: 893).

If previously the city was managed by authorities and professionals who dealt mainly with

technical issues of it, the vision constructed by activist groups is a different one, they add people’s

knowledge in the existing procedures of urban management and legitimize it. The most famous

41 source which inspired the activity of the civic groups is the book written by Jane Jacobs, which was

named by each activist with whom I talked to, as well as bloggers who promote “best practices”

(Blok 2012) of restructuring Russian cities. They show that the “urban” is not defined only by

scientific or technical means, but it also includes citizens and their attitudes to places in the city.

One Russian urbanist put in his blog the following:

I believe that today the use of media to promote the right ideas, increasing urban literacy among people and officials can give a lot more than just getting an education and working inside the system — it’s too slow and aggressive. Creating a request for a comfortable city is more promising because it motivates decision-makers to form policies in the right places and hire specialists - this is much better than being a black sheep at meetings.24

The narrative about changing the system from within to create innovations and space for the

new professionals in the urban planning system is important for civic urban activists. They started

to collect their own data, use their own research technics, not counting on government experts

who may work on other directions in the city. The new ecology of expertise was assembled which

includes citizens as experts in this system, blurring the boundaries of lay and expert. This actor-

network composed of activists, professionals, urban concepts, research strategies, devices,

legislation which made citizens possible to send requests – created an ecology for new kinds of

expert interventions and rise of “urbanistica”, followed by the dissatisfaction of classical urban

professionals.

The space of civic expertise and expertise of the city authorities can be represented as a space

of political struggle. The symbols of Beautiful Petersburg are openness, automated problem-

solving mechanisms, public spaces, public transport. While state expertise usually appeals to

bureaucratic procedures, documents, and technical data. Civic groups seek to correct the views of

the government and propose new ways to solve existing problems: “Correct the tastes of the CEU eTD Collection Committee for town planning and architecture [on a certain urban area], seems to be more

important, because if it is not done, then we will not be listened to at all. (From observations, group

24 https://gre4ark.livejournal.com/597349.html

42 coordinator). The group seeks to gain credibility among city officials, but at the same time to

convince them in the application of new solutions.

CEU eTD Collection

43 Conclusion

The study examined the mechanisms of civic participation in the construction of urban

planning expertise. Expertise is considered as a network connecting devices, institutional

arrangements, concepts and actors (Eyal 2013).

The creation of the civic expertise takes place in the context of the emerging professional field

of “urbanistica”, in which there is a struggle for recognition between various groups, in the context

of changing urban management policies, as well as legislation procedures on citizen’s involvement

in urban decision-making. These processes opened up new opportunities for citizens to take part

in solving urban problems and contributed to the creation of an alternative ecology of urban

expertise which includes citizens’ proposals. As a result, civic expertise was examined in three

dimensions: objects (a network of expertise), subjects (those who articulate statements in the

network), and clients (those on whom the expertise is oriented) (Eyal 2015).

In addition, I concentrated on the mechanisms of construction of civic expertise. They

included presenting citizen’s evidence on urban problems, division of reality and facts constructed

in the documents of the state experts, discourse of rationalization of civic decisions in terms of

budget money spent on them, civic platforms for collection of citizens’ complaints, as well as global

concepts and examples of “good planning models” (Blok 2012) which were imported with

international experts who consulted government officials. Despite the fact that citizens use their

own mechanisms to construct their expertise it does fit in the institutional arrangements of the

state-led expertise. At the same time, it hybridizes it, proposing innovations in the decision-making

procedures.

CEU eTD Collection This study contributes to the debates about the nature of expertise by illustrating the case of

St. Petersburg planning expertise. The question of civic and state expertise is relevant not only in

the case of Russian planning expertise, but it can be applied to other spheres as well, such as, for

example, education, culture, political and economic development, where expert statements are an

important part of decision-making procedures. I contributed to the understanding of different ways

44 of seeing problems by different actors (Gusfield, Law, Collier). However, the question is why

particular visions gain recognition and others – not. On the example of civic expertise on urban

problems I showed that this process became valuable in the situation of transition, which opened

up opportunities for the public to be involved in urban decision-making by questioning the existing

practices of expertise made by state actors with the help of local knowledge, devices, theoretical

concepts which came to matter in particular practical projects of solving urban problems. Civic

expertise contributes to the development of “urbanistica” by expanding the network and

hybridizing state politics which help urban theory to develop. Civic expertise of urban problems is

presented as an innovative space for redefining the relations between citizens and city authorities

in terms of participation and co-production.

The research also broadens the understanding of planning expertise in the post-soviet space,

which is developing under the influence of global planning ideas. I revealed that the legislation

processes inscribed in the system of urban decision-making influence the implementation of new

ideas. This contributed to the emergence of new civic groups which develops mechanisms in order

to change state-led expertise by questioning its professional and scientific authority.

CEU eTD Collection

45

Appendix A. Interview guide

Introduction: I’m a master student on the program of Sociology, providing a research on the development of urban studies (urbanistica) in Russia and the role of social movements in this process.

Biographical note (for the researcher) How old is the informant: where he/she was born: whether he/she changed his/her place of residence (if so, in which cities he/she lived, how long he/she lives in St. Petersburg): District (s) where he/she lived: Education of the informant: (profile and level of education) Occupation:

Biographical information

Tell me about yourself: how old are you? In what city were you born? Have you ever changed your place of residence (if yes, in which cities have you lived, how long have you been living in St. Petersburg)? In which districts have you lived in St. Petersburg? Whom you worked before, what is your occupation now? How did you decide to deal with urban planning (urbanistica)? Does your knowledge from a previous profession help you in your urban activity?

“Urbanistica” and urban expertise What do you mean by the term “Urbanistica”? 1. Urbanistica - what is it in Russia, why and when did it appear in Russia? What do you need to know in order to engage in it? 2. Why do we need “urbanistica”, how is it different from Soviet urban planning (“gradostroitelstvo” in Russian)? Were there any books or people who inspired you to start doing this kind of activity? What kind of books? What are you professionally reading now? (books or online sources)? Please, name the authors or Internet sources. 3. Who is an urbanist? What are his/her functions in the city? 4. How to become an urbanist? Is the urban expert different from the urbanist? Who is an expert in “urbanistica”? What should an urbanist be able to do? Could you study it in Russia? Where?

Are there any research methods that an urbanist needs to know to explore a city?

Participation in the movement and the formation of expertise CEU eTD Collection In your opinion, does the activity in a movement “Beautiful Petersburg” influence the development of “urbanistica”? How? Do you divide your activity in the Beautiful Petersburg movement and in the research institution or do they complement each other? How exactly do they complement each other?

How is the urban problem is selected by Beautiful Petersburg? How did you come to the conclusion that you need to tackle urban problems, and why did you not delegate this to the city authorities? How to pay attention of different groups (authorities, residents, developers) to an urban problem?

46 What city problems can you solve, and what - not? What do you do if you couldn’t solve the problem? (give an example) Is there any applied strategy for solving urban problems? How is the discussion and decision about the urban redevelopment project in the group is going on? Do you have disagreements about proposed projects within the movement? If so, how are they solved?

Who usually takes part in large projects of the movement (for example, in preparing a project proposal of the city square)? How these experts are chosen? Do you consider any engineering details necessary for projects you make in the movement? Do you coordinate them with the committees? How does it work?

As far as I have noticed, you have the core of the group, which is involved in all projects and there are those who sometimes participate in your activity? How to become a member of your core group?

Projects and their implementation 1. How did the implementation of one or several projects take place? Ask to tell the story of the emergence of the project idea, its discussion, and implementation. 2. What difficulties did activists encounter during the project implementation? 3. Is the informant aware of any conflicts with local residents during the implementation of a project? How were such conflicts resolved? What kind of problems do you have for implementation urban projects in St. Petersburg? How projects are funded?

Website How was your website created? What is the main principle of the site? How is the data collected, in what form is it stored? How did you come up with the structuring of urban problems? How did you learn to write templates? To whom the complaints are sent? How did you learn this information?

Citizens 1. What is the role of citizens in the development of projects? Is the opinion of the residents of the target area taken into account when developing the project? 2. If so, how is information collected and how is it interpreted? Who is involved in this work? 3. An opinion of which residents interests your group? Are you trying to study the opinion of the widest possible auditory, or are you focusing on a particular group? 4. In whose interests are projects implemented? Do the members of the movement strive to make space accessible and convenient to the widest possible circle of the population, or do you oriented your projects towards a particular city dweller? Who is the citizen, to whom the project is oriented (ask to describe: education, views)? CEU eTD Collection

Mental maps for snowball sampling As part of my research, I collect mental maps of how, in your opinion, the community of urbanists in St.Petersburg looks like: what kind of people, groups are there. Could you draw this map and comment it? (You are in the middle, and then draw with whom you are connected, whom you know from this community, into which general groups you could divide it)

47 Appendix B. Materials and data

Interviews with group members:

Leader of the group, engineer

Leader of the group, manager

Coordinator of the group, ecologist

Coordinator of the group, programmer

Coordinator of the group, programmer

Interviews with relevant groups, dealing with urban issues

4 representatives of the movement “Central District for Comfortable Urban Environment”

5 representatives of the group “City Projects in St. Petersburg”

3 representatives of the group ”Urban City Lab”

Interviews with representatives of 2 district administrations

Observation

Participation in citizen’s inspection of Sadovaya Street

Participation in lectures provided by the group in 2019 about the possibilities of citizens to solve

urban problems and regulation of the trees in the city

Participation in the international Urban Change Week in St. Petersburg

Participation in the events of the group: New Year, Birthday party of a movement CEU eTD Collection Participation in citizen training seminar on General plan of the city

Participation in the meeting on discussing the role of expertise in case of Telezhnaya Street

Participation in the preparation of the survey on Sennaya Square

48 Bibliography

1. Abbott, A. (2014). The system of professions: an essay on the division of expert labor. University of Chicago Press. 2. Almandoz, A. (1999) Transfer of urban ideas: the emergence of Venezuelan urbanism in the proposals for 1930s’ Caracas. International Planning Studies 4.1, 79–94. 3. Banerjee, T. (2005) Understanding planning cultures: the Kolkata paradox. In B. Sanyal (ed.), Comparative planning cultures, Routledge, New York, NY. 4. Banerjee, T. (2009) US planning expeditions to postcolonial : from ideology to innovation in technical assistance. Journal of the American Planning Association 75.2, 193–208. 5. Beck, U. (1992) Risk Society: Towards the New Modernity. London: Sage. 6. Batchayev, Zhikharevich (2014). St. Petersburg in Post-Soviet Period: economic strategies and development. Economic and social changes. 4 (34). (In Russian) 7. Beck, U., Giddens, A. and Lash, S. (1994) Reflexive Modernization: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order. Cambridge: Polity. 8. Balashov A, Sanina A. (2016) Strategic guidelines for the development of St. Petersburg: the contradictions of the declared values and practices of urban governance. Journal of Social Policy Studies, 2, 14. (in Russian) 9. Bernt, M. (2016). How post-socialist is gentrification? Observations in East Berlin and . Eurasian Geography and Economics, 57(4-5), 565-587. 10. Brenner, N., Madden, D. J., & Wachsmuth, D. (2011). Assemblage urbanism and the challenges of critical urban theory. City, 15(2), 225-240. 11. Bocking, S. (2006). Constructing urban expertise: Professional and political authority in Toronto, 1940-1970. Journal of Urban History, 33(1), 51-76. 12. Innes, J. E., & Booher, D. E. (2018). Planning with complexity: An introduction to collaborative rationality for public policy. Routledge. 13. Blok, A. (2012). Greening cosmopolitan urbanism? On the transnational mobility of low- carbon formats in Northern European and East Asian cities. Environment and Planning A, 44(10), 2327-2343. 14. Callon, M. (2007). What does it mean to say that economics is performative? Do economists make markets? On the performativity of economics, 311-357. 15. Cambrosio, A., Limoges, C., & Hoffman, E. (1992). Expertise as a Network: A Case Study of the Controversies over the Environmental Release of Genetically Engineered Organisms,'. The Culture and Power of Knowledge (Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 1992), 341- 361. 16. Clement K., Miryasova O., Demidov. (2010) From Townsfolk to the Activists. Emerging Social Movements in Contemporary Russia. New Literature Rewiew. (in Russian) 17. Clement K. (2013) Urban Movements in Russia in 2009 - 2012: on the Road Towards Politics. New Literature Review. (In Russian). 18. Collier, S. J. (2011). Post-Soviet Social: Neoliberalism, Social Modernity, Biopolitics. Princeton

CEU eTD Collection University Press. 19. Collier, S. J. (2017). Neoliberalism and rule by experts. In Assembling Neoliberalism (pp. 23- 43). Palgrave Macmillan, New York. 20. Collins, H., & Evans, R. (2008). Rethinking expertise. University of Chicago Press. 21. Corburn, J. (2003). Bringing local knowledge into environmental decision-making: Improving urban planning for communities at risk. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 22(4), 420-433. 22. Fariá s, I. and Bender, T., eds (2010) Urban Assemblages: How Actor-Network Theory Changes Urban Research. New York: Routledge.

49 23. Graham, Stephen (1995). From Urban Competition to Urban ? The Development of Interurban Telematics Networks, Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy 29: 105-127. 24. Gusfield, J. R. (1984). The culture of public problems: Drinking-driving and the symbolic order. University of Chicago Press. 25. Golubchikov, O. (2004). Urban planning in Russia: towards the market. European Planning Studies, 12(2), 229-247. 26. Epstein, S. (1995). The construction of lay expertise: AIDS activism and the forging of credibility in the reform of clinical trials. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 20(4), 408- 437. 27. Eyal, G. (2013). For a sociology of expertise: The social origins of the autism epidemic. American Journal of Sociology, 118(4), 863-907. 28. Eyal, G. (2013). Spaces between fields. Bourdieu and historical analysis, 158-82. 29. Eyal, G., & Pok, G. (2015). What is security expertise? From the sociology of professions to the analysis of networks of expertise. Security Expertise: Practice, Power Responsibility, 37-59. 30. Friedmann, J. Planning Cultures in Transition. In Sanyal, B. (Ed.). (2005). Comparative planning cultures (pp. 29–44). New York: Routledge. 31. Friedmann, J. The Good City: In Defense of Utopian Thinking in Friedmann (2002), The Prospect of Cities (pp. 103-18). Minnesota, 2002. 32. Home, R. (1990) Town planning and garden cities in the British colonial empire 1910– 1940. Planning Perspectives 5.1, 23–37. 33. Jasanoff, Sheila and Brian Wynne (1998), ‘Science and Decision Making’, in S. Rayner and E. Malone (eds.), Human Choice and Climate Change. The Societal Framework, Vol I, Columbus, OH: Battelle Press. 34. King, A.D. (1980) Exporting planning: the colonial and neo-colonial experience. In G. Cherry (ed.), Shaping an urban world, St Martin’s Press, New York, NY. 35. Law, J. (2004). After method: Mess in social science research. Routledge. 36. McCright, A. M., & Dunlap, R. E. (2010). Anti-reflexivity. Theory, Culture & Society, 27(2-3), 100-133. 37. Miraftab, F. (2009) Insurgent planning: situating radical planning in the global South. Planning Theory 8.1, 32–50. 38. Mitchell, T. (2002). Rule of experts: Egypt, techno-politics, modernity. University of California Press. 39. Roy, A. (2009). Civic Governmentality: the Politics of Inclusion in Beirut and Mumbai. Antipode, 41(1), 159-179. 40. Smith, R.G. (2010) ‘Urban studies without “scale”: localizing the global through Singapore’, in I. Fariaś and T. Bender (eds) Urban Assemblages: How Actor-Network Theory Changes Urban Research, pp. 73–90. New York: Routledge. 41. Tonkiss, F. Analysing Discourse. In Seale C. (Ed.). (1998) Researching Society and Culture. Sage, 245-260. 42. Tykanova, E., & Khokhlova, A. (2014). Trajectories of Local Communities Self- CEU eTD Collection Organization in City Space Contests. Sociology of Power 2. P. 104-122 (in Russian). 43. Vidyarthi, S. (2010a) Inappropriately appropriated or innovatively indigenized? Neighborhood unit concept in post-independence India. Journal of Planning History 9.4, 260– 76. 44. Vidyarthi, S. (2010b) Reimagining the neighborhood unit for India. In P. Healey and R. Upton (eds.), Crossing borders: international exchange and planning practices, Routledge, London. 45. Watson, V. (2009) Seeing from the South: refocusing urban planning on the globe’s central urban issues. Urban Studies 46.11, 2259–75.

50 46. Wynne, Brian (1996), ‘May the Sheep Safely Graze? A Reflexive View of the Expert-Lay Knowledge Divide’, in S. Lash, B. Szerszynski and B. Wynne (eds), Risk, Environment and Modernity, London: Sage Publications.

CEU eTD Collection

51